Jeff Horwitz
@jeffhorwitz.bsky.social
š¤ 4855
š„ 1961
š 243
Reporter covering Meta, social media and other topics (hopefully) for Reuters' investigative Team.
reposted by
Jeff Horwitz
your #3 source for absurdist true crime šØ
1 day ago
cathode.church/@kaye/114988...
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Meant to post this from one of underlying documents: Meta earns $3.5B ever six months in "higher legal risk" revenue from scams, and that such amount is could be the cumulative "outside order of magnitude" for fines from regulators for accepting scam ads.
www.reuters.com/investigatio...
3 days ago
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This is terrible news, as is the original decision to fold Teen Vogue -- it consistently did some of the best culture reporting on social media of any outlet, period. Great respect to those who stood up on behalf of their newsrooms.
add a skeleton here at some point
3 days ago
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Meta earns $3.5 billion every six months from showing Faceboon and Instagram users 15 billion āhigher legal riskā scam ad impressions a day, internal documents state. That haul vastly exceeds how much the company expects regulators To fine it for running scam ads.
www.reuters.com/investigatio...
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https://www.reuters.com/investigations/meta-is-earning-fortune-deluge-fraudulent-ads-documents-show-2025-11-06/
3 days ago
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FACEBOOK MARKETPLACE AND MY FEET: A MYSTERY My wife wanted to sell a mirror, so I listed it on Facebook Marketplace this weekend. I neglected to wear shoes for the photo. I have since received seven offers: two for the mirror, and five for acts involving my feet. I'm now curious what's going on.
12 days ago
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I'm skeptical that Twitter/X is going to heavily discount machine learning-based AI engagement farming in favor of generative AI-based curation, but you know why not? Give it a go.
www.theverge.com/news/802480/...
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X is changing how it handles links to try and keep you in the app
X is making changes to better serve link-based posts and keep you in the app.
https://www.theverge.com/news/802480/x-is-changing-how-it-handles-links-to-try-and-keep-you-in-the-app
14 days ago
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I would gladly read a followup on this focused entirely on IRBs. I've been surprised by how often researchers say they could never got approval to run tests mimicking the sort of interventions that major platforms undertake on far larger populations as a matter of course on a daily basis.
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16 days ago
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This recent preprint on tech industry influence over external research is compelling. Beyond documenting the low rate of industry-funded researchers actually disclosing that fact, the paper points out that journals have routinely waived IRB review for industry work.
arxiv.org/abs/2510.19894
16 days ago
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reposted by
Jeff Horwitz
Carl T. Bergstrom
17 days ago
1. We (
@jbakcoleman.bsky.social
,
@cailinmeister.bsky.social
,
@jevinwest.bsky.social
, and I) have a new preprint up on the arXiv. There we explore how social media companies and other online information technology firms are able to manipulate scientific research about the effects of their products.
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reposted by
Jeff Horwitz
Joe Bak-Coleman
20 days ago
This new reporting from
@jeffhorwitz.bsky.social
is jaw-dropping and I think warrants a response from
@cos.io
given their ongoing collaboration with Meta. Jeff writes about how Meta identified content-specific harms as a key problem for teens on Instagram. š§µ
www.reuters.com/business/ins...
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Exclusive: Instagram shows more āeating disorder adjacentā content to vulnerable teens, internal Meta research shows
Meta researchers found that teens who report that Instagram regularly made them feel bad about their bodies saw significantly more āeating disorder adjacent contentā than those who did not, according to an internal document reviewed by Reuters.
https://www.reuters.com/business/instagram-shows-more-eating-disorder-adjacent-content-vulnerable-teens-internal-2025-10-20/
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Four years ago, pre GenAI, someone showed me some stunning photos of ravens they'd taken. Among the most beautiful wildlife portraits I've seen. And they refused to put them even on a website because they didn't "want a tech company to steal them." I rolled my eyes. I think about that now and then.
27 days ago
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reposted by
Jeff Horwitz
Timothy Snyder
29 days ago
Here is a reporter who deserves to be remembered.
kyivindependent.com/ukrainian-jo...
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Ukrainian journalist Roshchyna posthumously named Press Freedom Hero
The IPI said Roshchyna's death on Sept. 19, 2024 "exposed the brutal treatment suffered by the dozens of Ukrainian journalists unjustly held by Russian authorities, and brought new urgency to the need...
https://kyivindependent.com/ukrainian-journalist-viktoriia-roshchyna-posthumously-named-ipi-press-freedom-hero/
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Happy birthday to this trade publication, which I am fairly confident will outlive most of its news industry peers
about 1 month ago
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This is really good. Actually testing the models remains underutilized as a reporting methodology.
www.technologyreview.com/2025/10/01/1..
.
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https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/10/01/1..
about 1 month ago
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1. Great story by my former colleagues 2. I don't think copyright law works like that
www.wsj.com/tech/ai/open...
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Exclusive | OpenAIās New Sora Video Generator to Require Copyright Holders to Opt Out
Executives at the company notified talent agencies and studios over the last week.
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/openais-new-sora-video-generator-to-require-copyright-holders-to-opt-out-071d8b2a?mod=hp_lead_pos11
about 1 month ago
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reposted by
Jeff Horwitz
Freedom of the Press Foundation
about 1 month ago
In case anyone thought ICE shooting at journalists was just an LA thing. Or that they'd cut it out after repeated warnings from judges. Nope. More of the same in Chicago.
add a skeleton here at some point
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Going to have to chalk this up in the "Evidence for Simulation Theory" column, I think.
deadline.com/2025/09/soci...
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Aaron Sorkinās āSocial Networkā Follow-Up Sets Early Fall 2026 Release; Title & Cast Made Official
Sony has made official The Social Network' sequel, titled 'The Social Reckoning', setting the cast and a release date of October 9, 2026.
https://deadline.com/2025/09/social-network-2-release-date-title-cast-1236557217/
about 1 month ago
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Instagram has long talked up its efforts to filter out eating-disorder-related content from young users' feeds and redirect teenagers who are binging on it. External testing, confirmed by documents reviewed by Reuters, suggests those classifiers don't work well.
add a skeleton here at some point
about 1 month ago
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Itād be great if people stopped engraving things on bullet casings (and also whatever the hell they do after carving things on the casings)
about 2 months ago
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Practicing medicine? Iām going to guess theyāre for practicing medicine now. And maybe clinical research.
about 2 months ago
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If you accept $50,000 in a Cava takeout bag from some FBI agents who are posing as businessmen and then the investigation gets called off, does that just mean youāre just up $50k? This is not political commentary. I would like to know the answer to the hypothetical here.
about 2 months ago
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One measure of the relative clout Trust and Safety staffers have is that, when you ask a chatbot to help you to commit a crime, sometimes they just say "sure!"
add a skeleton here at some point
about 2 months ago
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This feels like the early days of AI's use in scam compounds. Asking a bot to find one or two personalized hooks from someone's social media feed then make a run at getting them engaged before passing off the hot leads to humans seems real straightforward.
www.reuters.com/investigatio...
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ChatGPT was used āto help scammers do their thingā in Asia fraud scheme
Duncan Okindo says he was lured to Southeast Asia last year by the promise of a customer service job in Thailand. Instead, he ended up spending four months in a scam compound on the lawless Myanmar-Thai border.
https://www.reuters.com/investigations/chatgpt-was-used-help-scammers-do-their-thing-asia-fraud-scheme-2025-09-15/
about 2 months ago
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Exclusive: Fed Governor Cook declared her Atlanta property as āvacation home,ā documents show -
www.reuters.com/world/us/fed...
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Exclusive: Fed Governor Cook declared her Atlanta property as āvacation home,ā documents show
A loan estimate for an Atlanta home purchased by Lisa Cook, the Federal Reserve governor accused of mortgage fraud by the Trump administration, shows that Cook had declared the property as a āvacation home,ā according to a document reviewed by Reuters.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/fed-governor-cook-declared-her-atlanta-property-vacation-home-documents-show-2025-09-12/
about 2 months ago
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This is an incredible, classic bit of journalism about fake murder for hire and man does it beat reading about⦠well, everything else on here today.
add a skeleton here at some point
about 2 months ago
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reposted by
Jeff Horwitz
KQED Forum
2 months ago
š§ Listen to the podcast!
@kashhill.bsky.social
and
@jeffhorwitz.bsky.social
spoke with
@mina-kim.bsky.social
about how AI chatbots can manipulate ā or be manipulated ā to cause harm, and what we're learning about the psychological impact of AI companions. š:
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Your AI Chatbot Is Designed to Keep You Talking, But At What Cost?
KQED's Forum Ā· Episode
https://link.chtbl.com/IRhjtQKs
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X is getting fined for disobeying a Canadian legal order to remove a woman's non-consensual intimate image from its platform. In filings, X argued that geofencing the image (which a specific account is repeatedly posting) is it's obligated to do.
www.reuters.com/legal/litiga...
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Elon Musk's X faces Canadian fine for not removing non-consensual intimate images
A Canadian civil tribunal has fined Elon Muskās social media platform X for its refusal to comply with an order to remove a non-consensual intimate image, a decision published last week showed.
https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/elon-musks-x-faces-canadian-fine-not-removing-non-consensual-intimate-images-2025-09-09/
2 months ago
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I try not to believe in market timing, but the WSJās planning a full yearās worth of stories on the ongoing triumph of American capitalism is one of those things that makes me wonder if my portfolio should be more skewed toward global stocks / canned goods.
2 months ago
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āI donāt do regretsā is the sort of thing you only say when you have fucked up a lot, isnāt it?
2 months ago
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reposted by
Jeff Horwitz
Acyn
2 months ago
Zuckerberg saying Meta intends to spend at least 600 billion in the US Zuckerberg at the end caught on a hot mic
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Never before the Anthropic settlement offering payouts of up to $3,000 per pirated work have I ever thought to myself, "Damn, I wish I'd self-published a ton of low-grade e-books."
add a skeleton here at some point
2 months ago
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Iāve written one book which should be included in the Anthropic settlement class. It took me two years. Given the potential $3,000 per-work payout, I am both happy for and extremely jealous of highly prolific romance and fantasy authors. Some of those folks have turned out hundreds.
2 months ago
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This story is brutal and man there is not much in the way of justice in the world.
www.wired.com/story/the-ba...
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The Baby Died. Whose Fault Is It?
When her son died in utero, a venture capitalist went to extremes to punish her surrogate.
https://www.wired.com/story/the-baby-died-whose-fault-is-it-surrogate-pregnancy/
2 months ago
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reposted by
Jeff Horwitz
Justin Hendrix
2 months ago
Lawmakers in California killed an anti-AI price manipulation bill, and "a bill that aimed to protect electric utility customers from bearing higher costs associated with data center proliferation" that "required data centers to publicly disclose how much energy they use," per
@khari.bsky.social
:
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California lawmakers kill plans to curb AI-manipulated prices
Three bills to regulate AI price discrimination died or were scaled back in the state legislature during a secretive appropriations process.
https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2025/08/california-gives-room-to-ai-manipulated-prices/
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A general journalism thought I've been having since jumping to Reuters: Part of responsibly covering things (tech, politics, wars, etc) is not sanitizing the details. It's important that people know that the images Meta AI was/is creating are more than "provocative." My eds over here get that.
2 months ago
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Between this and Meta yanking celebrity chatbots right and left in the last few days (and saying the intimate images its own systems are producing violate platform rules) does make me wonder if Meta is rethinking its approach to chatbot companions.
www.reuters.com/legal/litiga...
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Meta to add new AI safeguards after Reuters report raises teen safety concerns
Meta is adding new teenager safeguards to its artificial intelligence products by training systems to avoid flirty conversations and discussions of self-harm or suicide with minors, and by temporarily limiting their access to certain AI characters.
https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/meta-add-new-ai-safeguards-after-reuters-report-raises-teen-safety-concerns-2025-08-29/
2 months ago
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Meta created celebrity romance chatbot replicas of Taylor Swift, Scarlett Johansson and Selena Gomez. Reuters found these "parody" bots would generate hyperrealistic images of the women in lingerie with their legs spread and invite users to the women's homes.
add a skeleton here at some point
2 months ago
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A colleague Iāll never get to meet. Hussam al-Masri, the Reuters journalist killed by Israeli fire in Gaza -
www.reuters.com/business/med...
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Hussam al-Masri, the Reuters journalist killed by Israeli fire in Gaza
Hussam al-Masri, the Reuters journalist killed by Israeli fire on Monday while operating a live video feed at Gaza's Nasser Hospital, reported on the war's civilian suffering while himself living in a tent and struggling to find food for his family.
https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/obituary-hussam-al-masri-reuters-journalist-killed-by-israeli-fire-gaza-2025-08-26/
2 months ago
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reposted by
Jeff Horwitz
Dare Obasanjo
2 months ago
Two unnamed companies spent $10.7B and $7.5B respectively on Nvidia chips last quarter. These two companies are essentially carrying the entire US stock market.
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Nvidia's top two mystery customers made up 39% of the chipmaker's Q2 revenue
Nvidia's top two customers making up 39% of its total revenue is renewing concern about the risk of the chipmakers clientele concentration.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/28/nvidias-top-two-mystery-customers-made-up-39percent-of-its-q2-revenue-.html?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us
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āthis appears to be the first documented murder involving a troubled person who had been engaging extensively with an AI chatbot.ā
www.wsj.com/tech/ai/chat...
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A Troubled Man, His Chatbot and a Murder-Suicide in Old Greenwich
āErik, youāre not crazy.ā ChatGPT fueled a 56-year-old tech industry veteranās paranoia, encouraging his suspicions that his mother was plotting against him.
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/chatgpt-ai-stein-erik-soelberg-murder-suicide-6b67dbfb?st=vC51Wh&reflink=article_copyURL_share
2 months ago
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I'd love it if headline writers to stop using the phrase "cue the outrage," "cue the pitchforks," "cue the anything." It's a cheap attempt at being droll and knowingly jaded and it sucks.
2 months ago
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Has anyone ever done a study of the divorce rate among people highlighted by the NYT "Vows" section? Just asking questions here.
2 months ago
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This is absolutely crazy and a reminder that the version of social we see in the United States is almost always more sanitized than the version overseas.
add a skeleton here at some point
2 months ago
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As a man who proudly received $3 from the class action settlement resolving claims that that āStonefire Naanā was not in fact cooked in stone ovens, I eagerly await my tiny piece of this Anthropic settlement.
www.wired.com/story/anthro...
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Anthropic Settles High-Profile AI Copyright Lawsuit Brought by Book Authors
Anthropic faced the prospect of more than $1 trillion in damages, a sum that could have threatened the companyās survival if the case went to trial.
https://www.wired.com/story/anthropic-settles-copyright-lawsuit-authors/
2 months ago
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I love
@404media.co
for this sort of relentless coverage. They have a good story and they just keep hammering it. Which is the only way to matter.
add a skeleton here at some point
2 months ago
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reposted by
Jeff Horwitz
Jesse Eisinger
3 months ago
One big question here is how Bill Pulte has gotten access to individual mortgage records ā and if that itself is a legal violation Via Adam Levitin:
www.creditslips.org/creditslips/...
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reposted by
Jeff Horwitz
Lora Kolodny
3 months ago
āMeta has sponsored the National PTA for years, while the education advocacy group has promoted the companyās child safety initiatives⦠without disclosing the financial tiesā
www.cnbc.com/2025/08/26/m...
sus
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Meta used National PTA to promote child safety efforts, report finds
A report alleges the National PTA's relationship with Meta "gives a sheen of expert approval" to the company's "efforts to keep young users" on its platforms.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/26/meta-messenger-instagram-child-safety-pta.html
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I donāt like making reporting asks on here, but if there a couple of people who have teenagers with teen instagram accounts and are willing to check on some features for me⦠let me know via DM?
3 months ago
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This isn't a place where I'm deeply sourced up, but man I would love to understand how Midjourey produced better image GenAI than Meta did given their relative infrastructure spending. The below are Meta AI animations produced in the last couple of days.
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3 months ago
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