404 Media

News

Israel Is Running a Synthetic Think Tank to Influence AI Search Results

AI

Subtlefakes: Slightly Altered Nonconsensual AI Images Are Taking Over X

Podcast

Podcast: Amazon is Destroying Rare Books to Train AI

The Abstract

Brand Hype Has Existed Since the Bronze Age, Scientists Discover

Behind The Blog

Behind the Blog: Early Birthday Reflections

ICE

ICE Wants the Country’s Voter Data

FOIA

We Sued ICE to Get Its Spyware Contract. The Agency Is Redacting Essentially Everything

Privacy

Meta Patents AI Glasses to Use Facial Recognition to Identify People, Make Highlight Reels of Your Dinner Party

Flock

Man Charged With 3 Felonies For Breaking 3D-Printed ‘Decoy’ Flock Camera

Features

AI Made Cloning Games Easier Than Ever

Meta

Researchers Show How Meta's 'Pervert Glasses' Are Used to Harass Women

Hacking

Hackers Are Hijacking Entire Roblox Games Now

Impact

Company Offering Printed Books to Train AI Stops After 404 Media Coverage

Facebook

'Careless People' Is the Book About Facebook I've Wanted for a Decade

AI Slop

Disney's Sora Disaster Shows AI Will Not Revolutionize Hollywood

Google

Google Has Chosen a Side in Trump's Mass Deportation Effort

repair

John Deere Must Face FTC Lawsuit Over Its Tractor Repair Monopoly, Judge Rules

Surveillance

Footage Shows Cop Stalking Woman He Met on a TV Set After Surveilling Her With a License Plate Reader

Right to Repair

Farmers Finally Get a John Deere Right to Repair Agreement That Doesn’t Screw Them Over

age verification

The SCREEN Act is a Christian Nationalist Nightmare

OpenAI

OpenAI Catches Up to AI Market Reality: People Are Horny

Amazon

'Knockoff' Browser Extension Hides Sketchy Brands on Amazon

Deepfakes

K-pop Fans Are Calling Out Creepy Deepfakes of Idols

porn

Porn Platform Gives Sex Workers Stake in the Company's Profits

Donald Trump

AI Video of Trump Sucking Musk's Toes Blasted on Government Office TVs

chatbots

Chatbots Keep Telling Stories About Lighthouse Keeper 'Elias Thorne'. We Might Know Why

TikTok

TikTok Shop Sells Viral GPS Trackers Marketed to Stalkers

Instagram

I Almost Lost My Mind in the Bridal Algorithm

ChatGPT

Texting a Random Stranger Better for Loneliness Than Talking to a Chatbot, Study Shows

Elon Musk

Masterful Gambit: Musk Attempts to Monetize Grok's Wave of Sexual Abuse Imagery

Apple

Apple's ‘Private Relay’ Is Exposing Users’ Real IP Addresses

podcasts

How the World Became a Casino

Reddit

It Is Trivially Easy to Use Reddit to Manipulate AI Search, Research Suggests

Announcements

We Bought 404media.com

science

Paper-Crumpling Study About the Nature of Anger Is the Best Thing I've Read in a Long Time

FOIA Forum

Our New FOIA Forum! 7/30, 1PM ET

DOGE

Judge Allows DOGE Deposition Videos Back Online

Twitter

Afghanistan Resistance Account Says ‘Tour of Booty’ Porn Scene Is The Taliban

girls do porn

Woman Who Helped Coerce Victims into GirlsDoPorn Sex Trafficking Ring Sentenced to Prison

Artificial Intelligence

Asking ChatGPT to Repeat Words ‘Forever’ Is Now a Terms of Service Violation

YouTube

Unionized YouTube Workers Learn Google Laid Them All Off During City Council Meeting

pornhub

Pornhub Will Pay $5 Million Over Allegations of Hosting Child Sexual Abuse Material

DHS

DHS Plans to Buy More Predator-Style Drones

Ticketmaster

Ticketmaster Used Revolving Barcodes to Control Ticket Resale Market and Surveil Customers, DOJ Alleges

CBP

Man Charged for Wiping Phone Before CBP Could Search It

Spanish

We're Publishing Our ICE Reporting In Spanish

archiving

Constitution Sections on Due Process and Foreign Gifts Just Vanished from Congress' Website

Wikipedia

Jimmy Wales Says Wikipedia Could Use AI. Editors Call It the 'Antithesis of Wikipedia'

Generative AI

AI Slop Is a Brute Force Attack on the Algorithms That Control Reality

lawsuits

Woman Sues Sex Toy Retailer Adam and Eve, Claims It Shared Data About Her Dildos

wall

grok

Grok Exposed a Porn Performer’s Legal Name and Birthdate—Without Even Being Asked

iPhone

A 'US-Made iPhone' Is Pure Fantasy

wired

Chinese Livestreaming 'Virtual Human' Salespeople Are Outselling Their Human Counterparts

Immigration

Government Shutdown Causes Even More Confusion for U.S. Visa Applicants

nuclear

wordpress

Automattic Inc. Claims It Owns the Word 'Automatic'

Security

Do Spencer’s Vibrators Have Malware on Them? An Investigation

archives

Visualize All 23 Years of BYTE Magazine in All Its Glory, All at Once

law

Lawyer Caught Using AI While Explaining to Court Why He Used AI

Tariffs

$2,000 Shipping: International Sellers Charge Absurd Prices to Avoid Dealing With American Tariffs

Tesla

'Honk If You Hate Elon:' Two Days of Protest at the Tesla Diner

Court Watch

How a Network of Volunteers Is Liberating Critical Court Records for Everyone

X

Labor

CEO Attempted to Navigate Anti-LGBT Hate Incident By Telling Employees His Mentor Was a KKK Member

advertising

Google Just Removed Seven Years of Political Advertising History from 27 Countries

sex

Analysis of 34 Hours of Orgasm Recordings Finds People Cum Quietly

Anthropic

Anthropic’s Text Watermarking Proves AI Companies Do Not Care at All About Writing

Ticket Scalping

Microsoft

Satya Nadella ‘Not Sure’ Who Said Microsoft Wanted to Make Addictive AI, Is Looking for Guy Who Did This

AI Porn

Aliens and Angel Numbers: Creators Worry Porn Platform ManyVids Is Falling Into ‘AI Psychosis’

Sora

People Are Farming and Selling Sora 2 Invite Codes on eBay

Jeffrey Epstein

The DOJ Redacted a Photo of the Mona Lisa in the Epstein Files

libraries

Libraries Not Doing Pride Displays Say They ‘Shouldn’t Be Judged’

war

palantir

Here is the Contract for Palantir’s Super API for the IRS

Books

Data centers

Data Centers Are Easy to Build. Powering Them Is Complicated, Slow, and Expensive

platforms

Massive Creator Platform Fansly Bans Furries

Music

Why I Quit Streaming And Got Back Into Cassettes

ALPR

'I Saw a Shiny Thing': Cop Explains Why He Used License Plate Reader to Stalk Woman

Trump administration

waymo

Cops Say Waymo Snitched on Teens for Allegedly Drinking and Shooting a Toy Gun

1201

The Astronomer CEO's Coldplay Concert Fiasco Is Emblematic of Our Social Media Surveillance Dystopia

Content Moderation

Former Moderator Sues Chaturbate for 'Psychological Trauma'

union

LinkedIn

LinkedIn Introduces a 'Seems Like AI Slop' Button

Zoom

Watch Man Park His Car On Zoom While Appearing Before a Judge For Suspended License Trial

Car Repair

It Is Now Legal to Hack McFlurry Machines (and Medical Devices) to Fix Them

open source

Here's a PDF Version of the CIA Guide to Sabotaging Fascism

copyright

Shein Is Suing Temu For Copyright Infringement

automattic

A WordPress ‘Firehose’ Allows AI Companies to Buy Access to a Million Posts a Day

texas

Texas Solicitor General Resigned After Fantasizing Colleague Would Get 'Anally Raped By a Cylindrical Asteroid'

publishing

Cybersecurity

Tons of Peoples’ Claude Chats and Creations are Exposed on Google

Video Games

13-Year-Old Becomes First Person to Ever Beat Tetris

23andMe

23andMe Sale Shows Your Genetic Data Is Worth $17

Ticket Brokers

Palestine