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.”
FOIA
Inside ICE’s Database for Finding ‘Derogatory’ Online Speech
Thumbs up, or thumbs down: that's the option presented to analysts when the tool Giant Oak Search Technology surfaces content from social media and other sources for ICE to scrutinize.
GTA V Mod Makes It a Better Social Media Platform Than Twitter
2girls1comp bring a fine art sensibility to the GTA V modding community.
AI
Riley Reid on AI: ‘I Don’t Want Porn to Get Left Behind’
Riley Reid talks about creating her virtual self with Clona.ai, and how compassion and consent play a role in AI's future.
Behind The Blog
Behind the Blog: Drones, Journalism and Disinformation
This week, we discuss Jason's entry into journalism via drones and Emanuel and Sam's thoughts on the state of social media and disinformation today.
Social media
Mastodon Is the Good One
Mastodon is interoperable, decentralized, operated by a nonprofit, lively, and, ACTUALLY, isn't hard to use. So why is everyone championing Threads as the main Twitter alternative?
News
Inside a $30 Million Cash-for-Bitcoin Laundering Ring in the Heart of New York
Court records provide rare insight into an alleged IRL criminal Bitcoin exchange involving men dropping massive bags of cash to one another.
News
Instagram ‘Sincerely Apologizes’ For Inserting ‘Terrorist’ Into Palestinian Bio Translations
The "see translation" feature for user bios was auto-translating phrases that included "Palestinian" and “alhamdulillah” into "Praise be to god, Palestinian terrorists are fighting for their freedom."
News
Town Repeatedly Surveilled Man's Yard With Drone Without a Warrant
A town in Michigan hired a commercial drone company to repeatedly take photos of Todd Maxon's property. The case is now going to the Michigan Supreme Court.
News
Hackers Target Company That Vets Police Data Requests for Tech Giants
Kodex acts as a buffer between law enforcement and tech giants to verify requests for customer data. Now hackers have pivoted to Kodex as a target in its own right. Screenshots show Meta, LinkedIn, Discord, Snapchat, Roblox, and more on a request creation dashboard.
News
‘Verified’ OSINT Accounts Are Destroying the Israel-Palestine Information Ecosystem
The problem with profit and engagement driven misinformation from pseudo-OSINT accounts during the Israel-Palestine conflict is "unprecedented." One expert said after Musk's recent changes "all hell broke loose."
News
Bandcamp’s Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off
Songtradr, which has acquired Bandcamp from Epic Games, said it did not have union membership information, but Songtradr’s CEO invited the bargaining team to a meeting last week.
Podcast
Podcast: AI is Muddying the Horrors of War, and a Film Community Implodes
In this week's episode we talk about how AI image detectors are making things worse in the Israel-Palestine conflict, and how a community of film photographers is dealing with a trademark issue.