A survey of 7,000 Facebook, Instagram, and Threads users found that most people feel less safe on Meta’s platforms since CEO Mark Zuckerberg abandoned fact-checking in January. The report, written by Jenna Sherman at UltraViolet, Ana Clara-Toledo at All Out, and Leanna Garfield at GLAAD, surveyed people who belong to what Meta refers to as…
A large image dataset used to develop AI tools for detecting nudity contains a number of images of child sexual abuse material (CSAM), according to the Canadian Centre for Child Protection (C3P). The NudeNet dataset, which contains more than 700,000 images scraped from the internet, was used to train an AI image classifier which could…
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 getting stories from Twitter, the metaverse, and the new game Marathon. EMANUEL: I think I’m addicted to Twitter again. We haven’t written a ton about the war…
A startup is throwing chatbots at “ghosting”—being abandoned by someone abruptly and without explanation—by roleplaying as your ex, former friend, or absentee job recruiter who is just so sorry about how it all went down. Closure is currently in open beta, and launched on Product Hunt on Thursday. The company has been running ads on…
Over the weekend, AI-generated audio of vice president JD Vance saying Elon Musk is “cosplaying as a great American leader” who is making the administration “look bad” circulated widely on social media. On Sunday, Vance’s communications director William Martin said on X that “This audio is 100% fake and most certainly not the Vice President.”…
We start this week with exciting news: we bought a Super Bowl ad! For… $2,550. We explain how. After the break, Jason tells us about Ring’s recently launched Search Party feature, and gives us a very timely reminder of what Ring really is and how we got here. In the subscribers-only section, Joseph breaks down…
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 “free speech,” keeping stupid thoughts in one’s own head, and cancel culture. JASON: In August 2014, I spoke to Drew Curtis, the founder of Fark.com, a timeless,…
The Belarusian government is threatening three HAM radio operators with the death penalty, detained at least seven people, and has accused them of “intercepting state secrets,” according to Belarusian state media, independent media outside of Belarus, and the Belarusian human rights organization Viasna. The arrests are an extreme attack on what is most often a…
Elon Musk’s Grok, an AI chatbot that people can interact with via X, is being used to undress photos women are posting to the social media platform. All a user has to do is reply to an image someone has posted to X with a request to Grok to “remove her clothes.” Grok will then…
