Iran's shutdown is now 15 days and counting. Small amounts of service have been restored in recent days. #DigitalBlackoutIran #IranRevoIution2026 State telecom TIC (A49666) re-established many of its lost connections with outside providers, such as GBI (AS200612) at 22:02 UTC on Jan-22.

It’s depressing to see women try to claw back control of their images by imploring a chatbot not to misuse their photos. Posts like these are reminiscent of the copyright declarations you used to see on Facebook. Totally understandable but unlikely to have the desired effect.

So much interesting in this (and good work on @caseynewton.bsky.social documenting it). One thing to note though, Google's watermarking identified the image of the badge as created by its AI tool. Other image generators haven't bothered implementing anything similar, why? (Looking at you, Sora.)

Great work from @caseynewton.bsky.social and an illuminating case study in how journalists authenticate allegations/sources in an age of generative AI www.platformer.news/fake-uber-ea...

Nudify apps have been around for ages, but it's wild to see a mainstream platform like X effectively become a revenge porn machine, generating AND publishing non-consensual intimate images of women

For the first time in my career, I can’t tell people to trust what the CDC website says. And that is an incredibly sad and devastating place for this country to be.

This thread chimes with my experience on so many fronts. Whether it's conspiracy theorists, freelancers pitching stories, or people applying for jobs it's so hard to filter based on writing quality. Weirdly I end up trusting the typo-strewn, clearly-dashed-out-by-a-human-in-a-hurry emails more now.

The brutal reality of life as an Android owner in London: First you’re shocked as you’re mugged. Then you’re humiliated as the thief returns the device. www.londoncentric.media/p/london-pho...

Houthi missile attacks on vessels in the Red Sea has created huge delays to several subsea cable projects, throttling the supply of internet capacity. It's forcing companies like Meta and Google to rethink how they route internet traffic globally www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

The new poop emoji

AppLovin has shut down a product linked to user and short-seller allegations that apps were being downloaded to mobile phones without consent. The product, called Array, was offered to device-makers and carriers to promote or preload apps on phones. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

The SEC has been probing AppLovin over its data-collection practices, according to people familiar with the matter My latest for @bloomberg.com www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

AI infrastructure ouroboros: Microsoft funds OpenAI, which pays for Microsoft & other cloud/data center companies for compute, and those cloud companies buy Nvidia GPUs, and Nvidia props those companies up with investment and guarantees to buy unused compute capacity.

In 2021, a report alleged that Evolution’s casino games could be played in sanctioned markets. The company denied the allegations, saying this wasn’t possible without “sophisticated technical manipulation.” It also sued the law firm that submitted the report to a regulator.

Devastated to learn that the Ibiza club Bezos and Sanchez went to was DC10. Stick to Ushuaia!

Big Parma is watching you www.theguardian.com/food/2023/au...

A series of short-seller reports about AppLovin have exposed the ugly underbelly of mobile ad tech www.bloomberg.com/news/newslet...

I like how hyperscalers shifted from using shell companies to develop data centers as quietly as possible to avoid community pitchforks to calling them things like Gigazilla and bragging about how they will consume all of Spain’s power and water

New by @oliviasolon.bsky.social ( @bloomberg.com) and @tomasstatius.bsky.social ( @lighthousereports.com): a EU border control system - with biometric info on 1.7 million people - has extremely serious cybersecurity issues. www.bloomberg.com/news/article... This is why these stories are important:

This reporting by @tomasstatius.bsky.social @oliviasolon.bsky.social follows our previous exposé of a related EU biometric border system fiasco involving French industrial group Atos bsky.app/profile/ligh...

An information-sharing system used by EU border forces to flag illegal immigrants and suspected criminals in real time was rife with software & security vulnerabilities, according to confidential documents seen by @bloomberg.com and @lighthousereports.com www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Journalists in movies are usually depicted as highly unethical -- sleeping with sources, making covert recordings, breaking into places to steal documents. But really we're spending 6 hours trawling LinkedIn for current and former employees.

The absolute entitlement with which my kids demand water. They cannot wait 5 minutes for their thirst to be quenched. In the 80s we never had access to water. No water bottles. We survived as desiccated husks, lucky to get the occasional cup of orange squash.

What's with these natalist/god complex billionaires? Telegram founder Pavel Durov says he has fathered 6 kids with three partners as well as more than 100 other kids via his sperm donations. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

“Imagine a woven butterfly”

"I'm sorry, you're right to point out the mistake. I didn't bomb the target you asked for, I bombed something statistically resembling the target you asked for. I'll do better next time!"

Stolen from a friend's IG:

I just tried to pre-order the Trump T1 Phone, the new all gold phone from the Trump Organization. The website failed, went to an error page, and then charged my credit card the wrong amount of $64.70. I have no idea whether or how I’ll receive the phone. www.404media.co/trump-mobile...

If anyone wants a dumb story then if you ask Amazon Alexa to “play More by Pulp” (the name of their new album) it just plays “more random old songs” by Pulp and is probably hitting their streaming numbers.

I imagine all these jobs will go with AI

It is astonishing how much the information ecosystem as accessed via Google search has deteriorated over the past 2 years.

Great – looks as if the White House used AI to draft a health report and wound up inserting citations for articles that don’t exist. They put cheating high schoolers to shame. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/29/w...

French movies perform well in France but it's been a while since there's been an international hit. Dimitri Rassam wants to change that with The Accursed Kings -- the riskiest movie project out of France since Luc Besson's ~$200m sci-fi flop Valerian www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

🇫🇷 🎬 French producer Dimitri Rassam is the godson of Francis Ford Coppola. He is also betting tens of millions of euros on “The Accursed Kings”, an epic medieval saga destined to revive French cinema on the world scene. By @benoitberthelot.bsky.social ⤵️ www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

The Internet of Things ended up being the internet of unsupported products. Google is ending support for 1st & 2nd generation Nests and completely pulling out of Europe. Imagine having to replace the thermostats in your home because of a reorg at some big tech meant it was no longer a priority.

🧵 There’s a thread going around misrepresenting my work and Bellingcat’s education strategy. I want to use this as an opportunity to explain what we’re actually doing—and why it matters. This is about truth, democracy, and how we build a more resilient society. x.com/buynevich/st...

Omaze, known for helping charities with its "Million Pound House Draw," only gives 17% of ticket sales to charity. What's happening to the rest of the money? (I guess a lot goes to Meta ads)

I'd be a lot more interested in a product that would correctly do my taxes than a product that writes novels more me.

Illegal ideas.

Illegal casinos and sports books dominated the US online gambling market -- earning 74% of gross gaming revenue (a whopping $67.1 billion) in 2024. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

This is delightful: Trading cards depicting local, middle-aged men take off in the Japanese town of Kawara www.tokyoweekender.com/entertainmen...

This is true: The Trump administration said it has imposed a 10% tariff on the British Indian Ocean Territory, whose only inhabitants are the U.S. and U.K. service members at the military base on Diego Garcia.

London journos! I'm speaking at this event at the Frontline Club on Friday alongside @oliviasolon.bsky.social, hosted by @lsmwilson.bsky.social. We'll be talking about how AI, algorithms, and disinformation are reshaping truth and power. Come join the discussion! www.eventbrite.com/e/feeds-fake...

“I faced political repression from the Chinese Communist Party for criticizing Xi Jinping […] I never expected to face such a distressing experience after escaping persecution from the CCP in China, only to encounter a somewhat similar situation at New College in the United States…”

Every White House correspondents dinner that I attended had a comedian mocking the President of the Day. Not this year …. www.politico.com/news/2025/03...

SCOOP: The Trump admin appears to be going into a visa database to quietly change students' immigration status. It's coming entirely by surprise — setting students up to be detained without warning. It's Mahmoud Khalil & Rumeysa Ozturk — on a wider scale.

Has an "independent" law firm hired by a company to investigate allegations of internal wrongdoing ever come out with a devastating confirmation of the allegations?

I had to get my site’s web hosts to take steps when traffic to the site went up by 200%, way over my plan and costing me a lot. All AI crawlers pretending not to be and cycling IP addresses. They are actively making smaller web projects impossible.