Forbes Prediction Market Gamefies Story About Mass Shooting of 8 Children In another sign that the depravity economy has no bottom, Forbes published a story about a Louisiana man that killed 8 children over the weekend containing a box that asked readers to predict whether ...

horrified by that mass shooting story? Forbes would love you to predict what comes next

Airbnb Hosts Don't Want to Talk to Guests Anymore, Are Outsourcing Messages to AI An entire industry of companies offers Airbnb hosts AI to speak to guests on their behalf. 404 Media poked around the industry after one AI tool offered a guest a recipe for French toast.

New: an entire industry now exists for Airbnb hosts to use AI to speak to their guests. I looked into it when one guest tricked the AI into providing a French toast recipe. I found companies that analyze guest message sentiment. Guests not pleased, obviously
www.404media.co/airbnb-hosts...

How the Internet Became Hell (with Whitney Phillips) ‘The Ambivalent Internet’ and ‘The Shadow Gospel’ author Whitney Phillips on how online got so bad.

Such a joy to talk to Whitney Phillips. We always talk about the worst things in the world but somehow it makes me feel better www.404media.co/how-the-inte...

WebinarTV Secretly Scraped Zoom Meetings of Anonymous Recovery Programs WebinarTV scraped and shared 12 steps-based anonymous meetings for people recovering from addiction and other private support groups.

this company is scraping and reposting anonymous support group Zoom meetings. Please be careful if you're using Zoom webinars for anything remotely sensitive www.404media.co/webinartv-se...

@dsblanch.bsky.social Hey Dan! Is there an email where I can reach you?

FBI Extracts Suspect’s Deleted Signal Messages Saved in iPhone Notification Database The case was the first time authorities charged people for alleged “Antifa” activities after President Trump designated the umbrella term a terrorist organization.

New from 404 Media: the FBI was able to extract incoming Signal messages from a phone even though the app was deleted. Why? Because parts of messages were stored in the iPhone's internal notification database. Shows how secure chat data can come from unexpected places www.404media.co/fbi-extracts...

I Wish I Didn’t Care About 'Marathon' Player Numbers, But I Do Marathon is a great game for uncs. As signs of a crash change the video game industry, there might not be a lot of those left.

Marathon is great and how popular it is shouldn't matter but it does, especially if you're an unc like me www.404media.co/i-wish-i-did...

Multiple Hackers Warned Anti-Porn App Quittr About Security Issue for Months At least three different people notified the popular app that wants to help men stop watching porn that it was jeopardizing user data.

many clowns spotted in circus for months www.404media.co/multiple-hac...

Thanks a lot for the interview @emanuelmaiberg.bsky.social! While AI has its place for specialized tools, this will be a breath of fresh air for an overwhelmed community! And my biggest hope:
"Empowering communities on other platforms to decide whether AI should be welcome. On their own terms."

Wikipedia Bans AI-Generated Content “In recent months, more and more administrative reports centered on LLM-related issues, and editors were being overwhelmed.”

after much deliberation and giving AI the benefit of the doubt, Wikipedia editors have had enough of AI slop. New policy bans LLM generated content, periodt www.404media.co/wikipedia-ba...

Also on today's podcast, @emanuelmaiberg.bsky.social goes in on Zuckerberg's failed Metaverse and its comparisons to AI. Yes, AI may stick around but it's probably not going to take all our jobs, kill the artists, and be used for reasons Big Tech wants us to believe. www.youtube.com/watch?v=79SI...

Why It's Good to Jack Off Frequently, According to Science Masturbation has long been a scientific “mystery,” but a massive cross-species study shows that increased ejaculation has fertility benefits.

the more you know www.404media.co/why-its-good...

So how did people find out their Zoom calls were being secretly recorded and uploaded to WebinarTV? Well, many got an email from a "Sarah Blair"—the supposed VP of communications at the company whose profile looks AI generated. @evystadium.bsky.social has more.

www.404media.co/this-company...

A Top Google Search Result for Claude Plugins Was Planted by Hackers Hackers paid to make a malicious link the top Google Search result.

careful out there AI grinder geniuses www.404media.co/a-top-google...

This Company Is Secretly Turning Your Zoom Meetings into AI Podcasts WebinarTV hosts 200,000 “webinars.” A Zoom call you may thought was private might be one of them.

This company is scraping your Zoom meetings and turning them into AI podcasts without permission. Extremely wild and weird www.404media.co/this-company...

An Adrenaline Junkie Millionaire’s Quest to Become a Cocaine Kingpin Marty Tibbitts made millions as a Detroit telecommunications executive. But he wanted more.

this is a wild wild tale about a millionaire that seemingly got into smuggling cocaine for the thrill of it www.404media.co/an-adrenalin...

I have literally watched something like 5 hours of this DOGE bro testimony. I'm completely obsessed, it's weirdly captivating. The circular arguments, the disdain from everyone involved, a true pleasure to watch

Follow 404 Media on Instagram (www.instagram.com/404mediaco/) for more like this

Hey! Wanna email me about this? emanuel@404media.co

Viral 'Quittr' Porn Addiction App Exposed the Masturbation Habits of Hundreds of Thousands of Users A couple of 20-year-old developers make $500,000 a month promising to help men to stop watching porn, but exposed their private porn watching habits.

these kids are making Ferrari money telling people to use their app in order to stop watching porn, but they exposed their most intimate data and then lied to me about it www.404media.co/viral-quittr...

Understanding Roblox’s Grooming Problem Cecilia D’Anstasio on Roblox’s efforts to protect children from pedophiles.

Sat down with @cecianasta.bsky.social, one of the best in the biz, to talk about Roblox's many controversies www.404media.co/understandin...

How to Talk to Someone Experiencing 'AI Psychosis' Mental health experts say identifying when someone is in need of help is the first step — and approaching them with careful compassion is the hardest, most essential part that follows.

this is something we deal with on a daily basis now as reporters. unfortunately I think more and more people are going to find themselves struggling with a friend or family member who is going through "ai psychosis" www.404media.co/ai-psychosis...

Thanks for the interview! My biggest worry wrt the current situation is that our remedies mostly focus on the exploited "freelancers" themselves, and we've had little luck regulating the broader structural issue. For me, the organization bears the most responsibility, not the individual translators.

AI Translations Are Adding ‘Hallucinations’ to Wikipedia Articles AI translated articles swapped sources or added unsourced sentences with no explanation, while others added paragraphs sourced from completely unrelated material.

low paid workers in the global south are using AI translation to generate Wikipedia articles that, surprising no one, include errors and hallucinations www.404media.co/ai-translati...

The FBI Is Using AI to Hack Targets AI is a “game changer” for what the FBI calls remote access operations, an FBI official said in response to a 404 Media question on Tuesday.

New from 404 Media: the FBI is using AI to hack targets. FBI official was talking about "remote access operations," FBI's term for hacking. FBI said it's a "game changer". The comments were unusually candid about FBI's very secretive hacking operations. www.404media.co/the-fbi-is-u...

With Iran War, Kalshi and Polymarket Bet That the Depravity Economy Has No Bottom Gambling markets have conveniently found a stance that allows them to continue to profit from death and war.

prediction markets' depravity economy is the culmination of deregulation and kleptocracy, lobbying to legalize sports gambling, the collapse of advertising markets, hustlebro culture, crypto, memestocks, ai bubble ... venn diagram of horrible:

www.404media.co/with-iran-wa...

With Iran War, Kalshi and Polymarket Bet That the Depravity Economy Has No Bottom Gambling markets have conveniently found a stance that allows them to continue to profit from death and war.

America is out of ideas. A demented president is trying to tie up all the loose boomer plot threads before he dies. fuck it bet it all on black www.404media.co/with-iran-wa...

Company Helps Men Scrub Negative Posts About Them from Tea App “We just want to take down posts about people who are being defamed," the company's founder said. “And when I say defamed, it means like, ‘this guy has a small penis,’ or ‘this guy smells.’"

You can pay this company to scrub negative posts about you on the Tea app. The guy behind the company told me his employees, all men, have tea accounts, which is allegedly for women only www.404media.co/company-help...

The Islamic State Is Using AI to Resurrect Dead Leaders and Platforms Are Failing to Moderate It The group is talking about Epstein and filming propaganda videos in Roblox as a form of 'digital Jihad,' researchers say.

the Islamic State is still around and is mostly interested in posting. It's using AI to kirkify dead leaders, trying to recruit in Roblox, and talking about Epstein to build clout

so ... Daesh is just like everyone else online

The Government Just Made it Harder to See What Spy Tech it Buys On Wednesday, the government stopped supporting FPDS.gov, an indispensable resource for finding what ICE, the FBI, and every other agency is buying. Its replacement site completely sucks.

New: the government just made it harder to see what spy tech it buys. This includes ICE, the FBI, essentially any agency. Why? Because they decided to retire the perfectly good system for searching contracts and replaced it with one that fucking sucks

www.404media.co/the-governme...