pg seems to have this kind of revelation every few months for... years? And then... does nothing and goes back to doing the same things he was doing before and hyping up the same people he was before. I remember when he quit Twitter for Mastodon. For like a week.

most of the 'wins' of the past year depended on people fighting for what's right. protest, litigate, organize, speak, write, argue, persuade. 2026 will be better than 2025 the more we do these things. happy new year everyone. 🥂

In a world without Section 230: 😩 Big Tech companies everyone hates would win. Giants like Meta and Google have armies of lawyers to navigate compliance 😩 Alternative platforms like Bluesky and Mastodon would likely shut down, along with Wikipedia, review sites, how-to resources, small forums, etc

Holy shit. Reuters reporting that new admin instructions on visas are if you worked at a platform in trust & safety or content moderation or on fact checking or online safety at an platform you *and your loved ones* are ineligible for H-1B visa. www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...

One thing we're vvv proud of: 404 Media independent + journalist-owned. Here's a rundown of some of our recent work: After months of 404 Media reporting and pressure from lawmakers, US airlines will shut down a program that sold millions of YOUR flight records to the government.

This is, of course, a fascinating thread from Kate asking why Google is effectively cannibalizing its own market for both digital ads on third party properties and search ads, by effectively taking away the incentive to click through to third party sites. I have a theory as to why they're doing it.

After 404 Media's months-long reporting and pressure from lawmakers, the data broker owned by the U.S.’s major airlines will now shut down a program in which it sold access to hundreds of millions of flight records to the government and let agencies track peoples’ movements without a warrant.

The GUARD Act may look like a child-safety bill, but in practice it’s an age-gating mandate that could impose a mass censorship and surveillance regime on nearly every public-facing AI chatbot. Tell Congress to oppose the GUARD Act today. www.eff.org/deeplinks/2...

If women are underrepresented in STEM, it's at least partly because men like this offer mentoring, then embarrass themselves by assuming their mentees must be into them, then decide the best solution is to cut ties, which sends the signal to other faculty that the mentee must not be good enough.

First 1 hr 20 minutes of the next video is up on Patreon if you're into that sort of thing

This Pope's subtweet game is strong

Our new, rebranded website is live. 🚀 🤓: and, look at that -- it's federated blackskyweb.xyz/.well-known/...

Cool cool cool let's continue to make it a casual endeavor to find all the information you need to radically violate the safety and privacy of anybody whose words or existence makes you personally angry.

The writers of the most recent Mission: Impossible movie, which I watched on an airplane, seem more capable of understanding the world-rending implications of AI tools like this than the people making it and that makes me sad

pretty sure the award for worst Dem response to "the current moment" is Amy Klobuchar saying we need to repeal Section 230 because the man who shot Charlie Kirk used the Internet

Conspiracy theories follow familiar patterns, repeating the same tropes over and over again, so that when a new event happens, the theorists can interpret that event through the same old corrupted frame… and blaming science for diseases has been an old, worn-out story, since long before Covid.

It’s wild to see how platforms big and small grapple with the new UK requirements for age verification. It looks like a lot of small platforms who can’t afford the expensive verification services end up choosing more ethical, privacy-preserving, and transparent approaches to verifying their users.

Update from itchio: Free NSFW content will be reindexed, Stripe points the finger at banks. Looks like it’s time to also call our banks

It’s wild that face scanning for age verification is not only a common practice but it’s basically legally required for platforms to comply. The danger of applying this universally is ☠️, seeing the Tea breach doxxing everybody who verified with ID & face scans further eroding access to anonymity.

getting my phrenology checked by my laptop camera before I can listen to WAP, a future I always wanted www.404media.co/spotify-uk-a...

ok but imagine Jackie Chan fighting all the members of the polycule in and around this thing

'The paper, published in PLOS Biology, warns that as AI makes data mining more accessible, and large language models can help write papers, “manufactured publications [could] outnumber legitimate publications in certain data-driven fields”.' 2/2

'Artificial intelligence tools designed to speed up the research process by helping to extract data have led to a flood of “low-quality” research papers that threaten to damage the “foundations of scientific rigour”, according to a new study.' 1/2

favorite genre of linkedin bro-posting

Archivists are working to identify and save thousands of datasets disappearing from Data.gov 🔗 www.404media.co/archivists-w...

Meta has told employees that they're laying off 5 percent of staff on Feb. 10, sources tell me & @mikeisaac.bsky.social @sheeraf.bsky.social. Layoffs are coming after employees have pushed back on new content moderation rules.

I’ll miss the era of human-generated slop

Something to consider when mainstream Dems start getting mad at Big Trans all over again

NEW: I've obtained internal Meta docs revealing an array of sample posts that are now allowed under new hate speech rules. Examples include calling children "trannies," “Jews are flat out greedier than Christians," and “immigrants are grubby, filthy pieces of shit” theintercept.com/2025/01/09/f...

Master doc of mutual aid groups helping people and animals on the ground in LA. Please share docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

For SoCal friends, Here is a list of resources for shelter, animal boarding, free items, and distribution hubs. These places can also use donations (e.g., food, water, masks, and blankets). Please consider donating if you can. For more info, visit Instagram: mutualaidla

Meta's policy is that group-based harassment is generally bad and forbidden *except for this one particular group*

OpenAI is completely screwed. If they're losing money on $200/month, they're losing it on $20/month and their real costs are so much higher than they can ever get anyone to pay. A pale horse. techcrunch.com/2025/01/05/o...

tired: fearing that robots will become so smart they take your job wired: fearing that robots will still be dumb but take your job anyway

What’s a girl gotta do to offload a thousand Oreos in Los Angeles

The reviews are in for the new patron content www.patreon.com/posts/new-ye...

“Why wouldn’t you want an AI to summarize your work while adding numerous errors, sucking out any meaning or subtly, but keeping an artificial veneer of complete confidence? It’s like you don’t even want your job replaced by something worse and far less useful?”

If you've never donated to Wikipedia, now's the time. Elon Musk is attacking it because it's one of the only sources of honest, curated information that he can't control. www.newsweek.com/elon-musk-ta...

I made a gingerbread panopticon

It’s insane how far gamers will go to give transparently bad actors with many allegations (or the companies that enable them) the benefit of the doubt just so they can buy a video game with a clear conscience.

QUICK! You should go support this game about running a social media platform from people who know how it actually works. These guys make shockingly fun games that truly enlighten you about how social media platforms operate (and maybe give you some ideas about what we can actually do about them).

Please check your emails and all your DMs!!! (yes including on LinkedIn)

Journalists: How's your digital security looking for 2025? Track your progress with our checklist: freedom.press/digisec/blog...

This is why Democrats supporting KOSA is so fucking dumb

There are four or five distinct arguments that get called "AI skepticism" and the tactic of pretending that the least serious of them—"AI is bad at hands, hurr"—represents the whole stack is very Chamber of Commerce–coded.

Last month I was shopping for a fire blanket to hang over the pellet stove for safety, and the 5-star blanket had thousands of reviews about how easy it was to install, how good it looked, and how safe it made them feel. The 1-star reviews all said "the fire blanket caught on fire"

Why did they make toy chica sexy