News
Iran Is Winning the AI Slop Propaganda War
“White House videos—AI or otherwise—are like group-chat in-jokes aimed at keeping cohesion.”
News
Instagram Removes Account That Unmasked ‘Jew Haters’
For the last several days, an Instagram account has been unmasking people it claimed were “jew haters,” many of whom appeared to pull down posters showing Hamas’ kidnapping victims.
AI
AI Seinfeld Is Broken, Maybe Forever
Nothing, Forever is getting another round of virality as people gawk at what might be the end of the first big AI show.
News
YouTube Is Monetizing Human Suffering at an Open Air Drug Market
Volunteers in Philadelphia’s Kensington say YouTubers and TikTokers are increasingly exploiting drug users as “trauma porn stars.”
Behind The Blog
Behind the Blog: 'Transcendence,' Blogging on an iPad, and Freedom of Information
This week, we discuss what a sci-fi movie from 2014 has to say about our AI debate today, what it's like to blog on an iPad, and the importance of freedom of information laws.
News
Netanyahu’s Government Is Trying to Suspend the Freedom of Information
A proposed law would prevent journalists and the Israeli public from seeing how the government is managing one of the worst crises in the country’s history.
Israel
Elon Musk Broke All the Tools Historians Need to Archive Tweets About Israel-Gaza War
“It’s really important for there to be a persistent, trusted archive of who said what and when for public figures, because it’s not always clear at the time what’s going to be significant.”
News
SIM Swappers Are Working Directly with Ransomware Gangs Now
Hackers connected to “the Comm,” a nebulous group that includes SIM swappers, are working with ALPHV, a ransomware group that has impacted some of the biggest companies on the planet, including MGM Casinos.
Lost Media
A 104-Year-Old Lost Silent Movie Has Been Found in a Basement
'Sealed Hearts' was made in 1919 and had been thought lost forever. "The film had been in the cellar for many years," a film historian said. "Exciting!"
News
The Truth Behind ‘GiantCockNYC’
Someone on Grindr presented themselves as an employee that could remove blocks on the platform. That’s probably not the case, but the activity still hints at a moderation problem.
Podcast
Podcast: OSINT, Twitter, and a $30 Million Bitcoin Ring
In this week's episode we talk about how Instagram is very, very sorry it auto-translated sentences containing "Palestinian" to add "terrorist." We also talk about the downward trend of OSINT on Twitter, and how the FBI cracked an alleged $30 million cash-for-Bitcoin ring.
AI
Instagram Is Hiding Its 'Palestinian Terrorists' Translation Problem Inside a Black Box
While we still don't know for sure what happened, researchers are looking at ways faulty AI models could have caused Instagram to auto-translate Arabic text into calling Palestinians “terrorists.”
News
Bandcamp Editorial Director: “Fuuuuuck Bandcamp United”
"Bandcamp United is privileged tech workers cosplaying as Amazon warehouse workers," he said.