On Monday, a day after TikTok came back online for the U.S., people started noticing that the app would not let them comment “free palestine.” Several TikTok users posted screenshots on X and Bluesky showing the message they received after trying to comment “free palestine” under other people’s posts. TikTok users started reporting this on…
The manufacturer of a machine that costs six figures used during heart surgery has told hospitals that it will no longer allow hospitals’ repair technicians to maintain or fix the devices and that all repairs must now be done by the manufacturer itself, according to a letter obtained by 404 Media. The change will require…
We start this week with the TikTok ban: how we got here, what happened, and, most importantly, why it means we need more decentralized services. Jason runs us through it. After the break, Joseph breaks down a site called GeoSpy which is marketing geolocation technology to the cops. In the subscribers-only section, we all scroll…
If it wasn’t already obvious, the last 72 hours have made it crystal clear that it is urgent to build and mainstream alternative, decentralized social media platforms that are resistant to government censorship and control, are not owned by oligarchs and dominated by their algorithms, and in which users own their follower list and can…
Shortly after Donald Trump was sworn in as the 47th president of the United States on Monday, many Facebook users started to report that the social network automatically made them follow Trump’s Facebook page. I’ve seen several threads on this issue on Reddit, social media, and people I know personally have also asked me why…
An issue with Cloudflare allows an attacker to find which Cloudflare data center a messaging app used to cache an image, meaning an attacker can obtain the approximate location of Signal, Discord, Twitter/X, and likely other chat app users. In some cases an attacker only needs to send an image across the app, with the…
A powerful AI tool can predict with high accuracy the location of photos based on features inside the image itself—such as vegetation, architecture, and the distance between buildings—in seconds, with the company now marketing the tool to law enforcement officers and government agencies. Called GeoSpy, made by a firm called Graylark Technologies out of Boston,…
Welcome back to the Abstract! This week, we’re going to the movies. For 77 hours straight. At the end, we’ll know whether we are doomed to villainy or driven to heroism. These are the only two options! Then, you’re not going to believe this, but the global trade for exotic ornamental plants is a bit…
This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we discuss enjoying things in the AI industry and the TikTok ban. JOSEPH: I’m going to talk about Emanuel’s great piece CEO of AI Music Company Says People Don’t…
This week, Google shoved various capabilities from Gemini, its AI tool, into Workspaces for Business and Enterprise customers, including associated Gmail accounts. You might now see buttons for “Summarize this email,” which when clicked will provide a bullet point list of what the email (allegedly) says and, in email threads, peoples’ sentiment towards it in…