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. JASON: This is maybe not great to admit as a journalist, but I have taken a…
The dawn of our fifth year deepens our understanding of the enemies at the gate, and some tensions inside it; plus, an anniversary gift from us to you
In a newly-released podcast, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg says society just hasn’t found the “value” in AI girlfriends and therapists yet, apparently clueless that his own company hosts deceptive and harmful AI companions on its own platform. For a little over an hour, podcaster Dwarkesh Patel sets Zuckerberg up to say whatever he wants sans-pushback,…
The emergence of Chinese AI startup DeepSeek is sending shockwaves on Wall Street.
The creator of an open source genetic database is shutting it down and deleting all of its data because he has come to believe that its existence is dangerous with “a rise in far-right and other authoritarian governments” in the United States and elsewhere. “The largest use case for DTC genetic data was not biomedical…
The Wikimedia Foundation is building new tools that it hopes will help Wikipedia editors stay anonymous in part to avoid harassment and legal threats as Elon Musk and the Heritage Foundation ramp up their attacks on people who edit Wikipedia. Some of the tactics have been pioneered by Wikimedia in countries with authoritarian governments and…
The Town of Apex in conjunction with a review firm is reviewing utility bills after a cybersecurity attack in July 2024.
A new tool searches your LinkedIn connections for people who are mentioned in the Epstein files, just in case you don’t, understandably, want anything to do with them on the already deranged social network. 404 Media tested the tool, called EpsteIn—as in, a mash up of Epstein and LinkedIn—and it appears to work. “Search the…
An app that purports to help people stop consuming pornography has exposed highly sensitive data, including its users’ masturbation habits. Some of the data exposed includes the users’ age, how often they masturbate, and how viewing pornography makes them feel. According to the data, many of them are minors. An example of the personal data…
This article was produced in collaboration with Court Watch, an independent outlet that unearths overlooked court records. Subscribe to them here. 4chan and Kiwi Farms sued the United Kingdom’s Office of Communications (Ofcom) over its age verification law in U.S. federal court Wednesday, fulfilling a promise it announced on August 23. In the lawsuit, 4chan…
