We start this week with our articles about Trump’s tariffs, and how they’re impacting everything from LEGO to cameras to sex toys. After the break, Emanuel explains how misfired DMCA complaints designed to help adult creators are targeting other sites, including ours. In the subscribers-only section, we do a wrap-up of a bunch of recent…
An old school ransomware attack has a new twist: threatening to feed data to AI companies so it’ll be added to LLM datasets. Artists&Clients is a website that connects independent artists with interested clients. Around August 30, a message appeared on Artists&Clients attributed to the ransomware group LunaLock. “We have breached the website Artists&Clients to…
It’s now illegal in Michigan to make AI-generated sexual imagery of someone without their written consent. Michigan joins 47 other states in the U.S. that have enacted their own deepfake laws. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed the bipartisan-sponsored House Bills 4047 and its companion bill 4048 on August 26. In a press release, Whitmer specifically…
The internet is becoming harder to use because of unintended consequences in the battle between adult content creators who are trying to protect their livelihoods and the people who pirate their content. Porn piracy, like all forms of content piracy, has existed for as long as the internet. But as more individual creators who make…
Welcome back to the Abstract! What an extreme week it has been in science. We’ve got extreme adaptations and observations to spare today, so get ready for a visually spectacular tour of deep seas, deep time, and deep space. First up, a study with an instant dopamine hit of a title: “Extreme armour in the…
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 our top games, “dense street imagery,” and first-person experiences with apps. JOSEPH: This week we published Flock Wants to Partner With Consumer Dashcam Company That Takes ‘Trillions…
Add LEGO to the list of hobbies that Trump has made more expensive and worse with his tariff policy. Thanks to America’s ever shifting trade policies, LEGO has stopped shipping more than 2,500 pieces from its Pick a Brick program to both the United States and Canada. Pick a Brick allows LEGO fans to buy…
Here’s the podcast recorded at our recent second anniversary party in New York! We answered a bunch of reader and listener questions. Thank you to everyone that came and thank you for listening to this podcast too! SPONSORED Thanks again to DeleteMe, use code 404media for 20% off. Listen to the weekly podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube….
The Trump administration is throwing various hobbies enjoyed by Americans into chaos and is harming small businesses domestically and abroad with its ever-changing tariff structure that is turning the United States into a hermit kingdom. It has made buying and selling things on eBay particularly annoying, and is making it harder and more expensive to,…
The front page of Imgur, a popular image hosting and social media site, is full of pictures of John Oliver raising his middle finger and telling MediaLab AI, the site’s parent company, “fuck you.” Imugrians, as the site’s users call themselves, telling their business daddy to go to hell is the end result of a…
