Google Has Chosen a Side in Trump's Mass Deportation Effort
Google is hosting a CBP app that uses facial recognition to identify immigrants, while simultaneously removing apps that report the location of ICE officials because Google sees ICE as a vulnerable group. “It is time to choose sides; fascism or morality? Big tech has made their choice.”
News
Let's Check What Drugs, Guns, and Counterfeit Money Instagram Is Advertising Today
Two weeks after a 404 Media investigation, let’s see if Meta has learned to do a basic search of its own platform.
News
Meet the Guy Preserving the New History of PC Games, One Linux Port at a Time
Ethan Lee has been keeping your favorite indie games running for years by porting them to Linux. Now he wants developers to start thinking about “maintenance” instead of “remasters.”
News
Andreessen Horowitz Funds ‘Uncensored’ AI That Will Tell You How to Kill Yourself
a16z funds open source AI developers who are building alternatives to OpenAI’s closed systems, but we still have no idea what’s going to happen when anyone can access uncensored LLMs.
News
AI Image Company Rebrands After 404 Media Investigation
On Wednesday 404 Media reported Kaedim had promised AI-powered 2D to 3D conversions, but had actually used human workers. Hours later, Kaedim rebranded its website and messaging.
Features
Buzzy AI Startup for Generating 3D Models Used Cheap Human Labor
Kaedim's founder was recently in a Forbes 30 Under 30 list for the company's 2D to 3D image conversion. In some cases artists produced the work wholecloth, one source said.
FOIA
Florida Demands Thousands of Dollars for Public Records About Ron DeSantis's Culture War in Schools
$7,741 to search emails about AP Psychology. $2,416 for details about why a substitute teacher was fired after posting video of empty library bookshelves. $360.20 for documents a school district first claimed didn't exist.
Viral 'SmashorPassAI' Is Just a Guy Making Hot AI-Generated Women
A site that claims "The more you rate, the hotter it gets!" is just a carousel of .png files and a dude manually generating AI images of women in bikinis.
News
Leaked Email: CBP Tells Airports Its New Facial Recognition Target is 75% of Passengers Leaving the US
An internal airport email obtained by 404 Media shows CBP is changing how it measures its goals for biometric boarding when people fly out of the U.S.
They Deepfaked a Beer: Complex Feelings About a Non-Alcoholic IPA
A review of the Flying Dog beer named after the face-swapping technology.
News
Tesla, Which Has Fought Repair Constantly: ‘Tesla’s History of Supporting Right to Repair Is Well-Documented’
Documentation of Tesla's support of right to repair is difficult to find. Documentation of all the things it's done to make Teslas harder to repair is not.
Behind The Blog
Behind the Blog: Why We Stalked a Target Through the NYC Subway
We discuss the importance of impact, missing phone calls from sources while at the dentist, and the games Amazon plays with journalists.
Good Enough
How to Get Into Film Photography (And Why You Should)
Shooting film is expensive, slow, and incredibly inconvenient. That's what makes it so magical.