Behind The Blog
Behind the Blog: 'Free Speech' and Open Dialogue
This week, we discuss "free speech," keeping stupid thoughts in one's own head, and cancel culture.
News
Why Does Google’s New Veo 3 AI Video Generator Love This Dad Joke?
“I went to the zoo the other day, there was only one dog in it…”
sex work
Sweden Expands Anti-Sex Work Law to Criminalize Paying for Custom OnlyFans Clips and Camming
The Nordic Model criminalizes buyers of sex in multiple European countries (and Maine). Sweden just voted to expand its reach to the internet.
News
Kids Say They're Using Photos of Trump and Markiplier to Bypass 'Gorilla Tag' Age Verification
Popular VR game Gorilla Tag partnered with the company k-ID to comply with age verification laws.
News
Researchers Scrape 2 Billion Discord Messages and Publish Them Online
A Brazilian team used Discord’s API to scrape 10% of its open servers.
Podcast
Podcast: AI Slop Summer
How the Chicago Sun-Times printed an AI-generated summer guide; how schools were not prepared for ChatGPT; and those funny little guys from Star Wars.
News
Scientists Explain Why Trump's $175 Billion Golden Dome Is a Fantasy
Shooting missiles out of the sky from space could require a constellation of 36,000 satellites.
AI
Viral AI-Generated Summer Guide Printed by Chicago Sun-Times Was Made by Magazine Giant Hearst
The Chicago Sun-Times said "we understand this is unacceptable for us to distribute."
News
Civitai, Site Used to Generate AI Porn, Cut Off by Credit Card Processor
Civitai, a huge platform for sharing AI models and generating videos and images, has been cut off from its payment processor.
News
Chicago Sun-Times Prints AI-Generated Summer Reading List With Books That Don't Exist
"I can't believe I missed it because it's so obvious. No excuses," the writer said. "I'm completely embarrassed."
News
'Configuration Issue' Allows Civitai Users to AI Generate Nonconsensual Porn Videos
404 Media found that people were using Civitai to create nonconsensual AI porn videos of anyone for a small price.
News
Telegram Gave Authorities Data on More than 20,000 Users
According to its newest transparency report, Telegram complied with more than 5,000 requests from authorities in the first three months of 2025.
23andMe
23andMe Sale Shows Your Genetic Data Is Worth $17
23andMe sold the genetic data of 15 million people for $256 million to a pharmaceutical company called Regeneron.