Sam Altman, a major figure in Silicon Valley‘s burgeoning AI industry who earlier this year testified before Congress on the dangers of the technology, has been removed as CEO of OpenAI, according to a company statement. The surprise firing has set off a flurry of questions about why a startup …
Read More »The Making of That Pepsi Ad You *Think* You Watched on TV
A funny thing happened on the way to the Colosseum. That unbelievably epic three-minute Pepsi commercial you surely remember from the early 2000’s where Britney, Pink, and Beyoncé at their full-on fiercest joined forces to commandeer the ancient Roman amphitheater with a diva-liciously badass riff on Queen’s “We Will Rock …
Read More »Right-Wing Orgs Are Using a Social Media Loophole to Skirt Hate-Speech Rules
In a political landscape already fraught for the transgender community, right-wing media organizations have found a new way to bypass platform guidelines prohibiting hate speech, by producing documentaries advocacy groups are calling “propaganda” and promoting them with carefully edited trailers. Last week, many users who logged onto X (formerly Twitter) …
Read More »Internet Sleuths Want to Track Down This Mystery Pop Song. They Only Have 17 Seconds of It
Got a few seconds? Then lend your ears — you might just have the answer to a question that has perplexed forensic audio obsessives for years. Before the days of apps like Shazam, trying to identify an unfamiliar song was a team effort. WatZatSong, a social network dating back to …
Read More »They Criticized KKK-Themed Erotica. Readers Are Harassing Them Online
When 27-year-old BookTok creator Sat posted a TikTok criticizing a dark romance book for what she called “romanticizing” the Ku Klux Klan, she thought the video would spark a conversation about racism in book publishing. But even after the author, Tillie Cole, removed the book, Sat and at least two …
Read More »Is TikTok Really Boosting Pro-Palestinian Content?
As war rages on in the Middle East, with more than 1,200 Israelis killed in a terrorist attack by Hamas and more than 11,000 Palestinians killed as a result of the Israeli army’s retaliatory attack on Gaza, U.S. politicians are focusing on the real enemy: an app where you can …
Read More »Will TikTok's New Creator Program Change the App?
This December will mark the end of an era for creator monetization on TikTok, and, according to creator-industry expert Samir Chaudry, which may open up new doors for how people make money on the social media app. This week, TikTok announced it would end its inaugural creator fund, with the …
Read More »MMA Legend Rickson Gracie's Fight Against Parkinson's: 'I'm Not Scared of Death, but Quitting is Unacceptable'
T HE GREATEST BRAZILIAN JIU-JITSU fighter in the world is looking to fight me. “Put your hands up,” Rickson Gracie tells me as he advances. “Like you’re talking like an Italian.” I raise my hands as he lunges toward my head. “Don’t let me touch your face.” Gracie — the …
Read More »Jezebel Is Dead. Long Live Jezebel
On Thursday, November 9th, GMG Group CEO Jim Spanfeller announced that he was shutting down the women-centric website Jezebel, after failing to find a buyer. After 16 years, six editors-in-chief, four presidential administrations, tens of thousands of posts, hundreds of internet shitstorms, and at least one gallery of digital illustrations …
Read More »Inside a Six-Month Espionage Campaign at Facebook
My new book Broken Code tells the story ofFacebook’s — now Meta‘s — long-secret work to understand how its platforms shaped its users’ behavior and rein in societal-grade harms that the outside world didn’t understand. Drawing on records gathered by whistleblower Frances Haugen and other company employees, my book reveals …
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