I think we continue to underestimate the net negative effect of twitter as a form of mediated propaganda environment, esp for in-group dynamics within media, industry, and the beltway. What made twitter good is now what makes it a cesspool for fascism, brain dead punditry, and woohoo economic policy

Once again, the "excesses" experienced were largely hallucinated through social media. People in positions of power, addicted to Twitter, scrolling through stories and opinions that they found confrontational--or reading conspiracies and horror stories from their fellow travellers.

Khan's appointment sends a message to the tech industry, whose most powerful players have already been critical of Mamdani, a Democratic socialist.

I was laid off from Teen Vogue today along with multiple other staffers, and today is my last day. certainly more to come from me when the dust has settled more, but to my knowledge, after today, there will be no politics staffers at Teen Vogue.

I'm doing a big Bluesky column today! Hit me with your where-Bluesky-is-at-this-moment-in-2025 takes

Let’s be clear, most EBT users are white. The reason he’s specifically lying about “weaves” and we’ve seen so many AI fakes of Black women ranting about food stamps is they need to make BW the face EBT because they know many Americans don’t care if Black people suffer, and some actually wish for it.

DHS says our new piece is "dishonest, slanted, and fundamentally inaccurate" but won't say why. Here's the story where we show with evidence that DHS spliced together clips spanning years and multiple locations to create its own reality. Gift link wapo.st/4nuDGwf

“I think a lot of people mentally shift into maybe I’m a discard of society, maybe I haven’t worked hard enough for this,” she said. “You deserve to be fed.” new piece by @heatherkelly.bsky.social www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

Friends choose your so-called "critics" carefully. Its not a binary. If people do circular citations and happen to never cite the women who laid the groundwork for decades and pay the price, there's a problem.

SNAP isn't about "people who don't work." It's about people who don't get paid enough to live. Of the 40 or so million people who rely on food stamps: * Two-thirds are children, seniors, or disabled * Most working-age adults who receive SNAP are employed—but in jobs that pay poverty wages

I wrote about the right's campaign against Wikipedia, the all-but-forgotten conservative co-founder who's helping to fuel it — and why its leaders aren't all that worried: www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

Oakland, this is tonight!! hope to see you there :) bsky.app/profile/nita...

Bay Area friends, if you're free Thursday night, come listen to me talk about my AI reporting with @ihetz.bsky.social at the main @oaklibrary.bsky.social Thursday 10/23 at 6.30pm @ 125 14th st. Oakland oaklandlibrary.bibliocommons.com/events/68a4e...

"D’Angelo also chafed at the description of his music as simply neo-soul. “I never claimed I do neo-soul,” he said in a Red Bull Music Academy interview in 2014. “When I first came out, I used to always say: ‘I do Black music. I make Black music.’” www.nytimes.com/2025/10/14/a...

after the 10th radioactive shrimp recall in 7 weeks, i decided to do some digging little did i know it would lead me to an underreported industrial accident that may have released an airborne plume of radioactive debris over swaths of indonesia www.consumerreports.org/health/food-...

my latest investigation for @consumerreports.org is based on months of reporting and 60+ lab tests of leading protein supplements we found that most protein powders and shakes have more lead in one serving than our experts say is safe to have in a day (🧵) www.consumerreports.org/lead/protein...

Oh god just saw this OpenAI generated video someone posted to Reddit of ‘A girl knocks on your door at 3am’ and this may be the least mentally healthy product on the planet it not most terrifying

I get to discuss AI and the environment at the San Francisco Public Library in December, more details to come. Dear librarians: Invite me to talk about AI at your book church and I will show up 📚 🤓

To all my friends in The Town: Join the incomparable @nitasha.bsky.social for a talk about AI and your 🧠 at the library downtown next week

and they're not even near addressing the mental health problem

i don't have the words to emphasise how seriously bad things are gonna get

In June, the @washingtonpost.com sent me and @byaliceli.bsky.social to witness cultural burns in California. We learned how they encourage beneficial vegetation, reduce wildfire risk, and provide traditional food and craft sources for tribes in the Klamath region. 🎁: wapo.st/3J7BQTL

BREAKING: Friday night massacre underway at CDC. Doznes of "disease detectives," high-level scientists, entire Washington staff and editors of the MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) have all been RIFed and received the following notice:

"Peter Thiel warned that Swedish activist Greta Thunberg and critics of technology or artificial intelligence are “legionnaires of the Antichrist” in private lectures on Christianity that connected gov oversight of Silicon Valley to an apocalyptic future" www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

Thiel "argued that those who propose limits on technology development not only hinder business but threaten to usher in the destruction of the United States and an era of global totalitarian rule, according to the recordings."

The tech billionaire and Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel says the antichrist is ... Greta Thunberg www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

They honestly don't care. OpenAI just released their new Sora model and told big studios that they had to opt-out. They are working hard to remove people's protections and rights. And if that doesn't work they are buying up the studios and IP rights. Larry Ellison (Oracle) just bought TikTok and-

#OpenAI wants all the power and none of the transparency. Great reporting by @nitasha.bsky.social & @kevinschaul.bsky.social laying it out in detail. #Sora #EthicalAI #Accountability

Whose video did OpenAI take to train Sora? @kevinschaul.bsky.social and I are back on our training data bullshit to find out. Gift link 🎁 t.co/c3Zg4gcYIT

While going through text messages from Kaleb—insert an image of Charlie Brown saying “sigh” here—I found this, from about a year ago. The point he was making applies to all of us.

Just ran some evals on Claude Sonnet 4.5. It's better than 4 on some but worse on a lot. LLM progress is so weird. You really gotta test this stuff on what you care about.

(unions inventing sunday evening) we need a dedicated time to worry about the workweek

Companies are marketing “alternatives” to immigration detention such as ankle monitors, GPS-enabled watches, and biometric reporting apps. But research by Petra Molnar, Daniel Ghezelbash, Carolina Gottardo, and Antonella Napolitano finds that tech doesn’t dismantle detention—it expands it.

while it’s bad that robots are taking our jobs, it’s nice to see them returning to office and revitalizing our urban core

The media company that can figure out how to produce news or news adjacent video content without relying on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Twitch, broadcast TV, cable, or corporate streamers will make a billion dollars and probably help save American democracy — or exist long enough to document its end

For @onthemedia.bsky.social I spoke with @ryanhatesthis.bsky.social (whose Garbage Day newsletter is absolutely essential these days) about radicalization and what mainstream outlets get wrong about internet culture and memes. Really enjoyed this one: www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm...

this exists it is called thinking

OpenAI’s video generation tool, Sora, can create high-definition clips of just about anything you could ask for, but whose data OpenAI used to create its groundbreaking system is a mystery.

“Altman has said on multiple occasions that artists should be compensated if an AI system creates something in their style. [..] Wood, the OpenAI spokesperson, declined to comment on whether the company has made progress on such a program.” www.washingtonpost.com/technology/i...

Somehow I don't think Netflix is gonna settle for $3,000 per movie...

By the way, I'm posting short videos and gift links for my tech stories now at the below links, despite having a face for radio. Would love if you followed along www.instagram.com/bydrewharwell/ www.tiktok.com/@drewharwell

New by me: OpenAI won’t say whose content trained its video tool. We found some clues. Gift link: wapo.st/3KeqLR0

OpenAI won't say whose content its video tool was trained on. So @nitasha.bsky.social & @kevinschaul.bsky.social did a deep dive and turned up some telling clues... www.washingtonpost.com/technology/i...

Whose video did OpenAI take to train Sora? @kevinschaul.bsky.social and I are back on our training data bullshit to find out. Gift link 🎁 t.co/c3Zg4gcYIT

Thanks to creators Karla Ortiz (www.karlaortizart.com; visual artist) and @bcmerchant.bsky.social (www.bloodinthemachine.com; writer/journalist) for their leadership on this issue, and thanks to @nitasha.bsky.social and @kevinschaul.bsky.social for their work on this piece.

🤖 Great piece about how GenAI generates amazing visuals. Critically, creators whose work powers GenAI want to be able to consent to having their work used. That core issue gets drowned in discussions about a related but distinct issue: copyright. www.washingtonpost.com/technology/i...

By @kevinschaul.bsky.social & @nitasha.bsky.social Gift link: wapo.st/3KeqLR0

Sora can mimic Netflix shows, movies, TikTok videos and Twitch streams, suggesting it was trained on versions of the originals. Netflix said it didn't provide data to OpenAI. Twitch said it doesn't have a partnership w/ OpenAI.

OH MY GOD