Below are posts associated with the “404media.co” source.
🔗 linkblog: To Log Into WordPress, You Now Have To Agree Pineapple on Pizza Is Good'
Look, I don’t know all the finer points of this debate, but Mullenweg has repeatedly struck me as petty and juvenile, so it’s hard to imagine taking his side on any of the more substantive issues here.
🔗 linkblog: I Went to the Premiere of the First Commercially Streaming AI-Generated Movies'
This is a solid article. I think the opening is reflective and that there’s an effort to be open minded (more than I would be). It’s also amazing to me, though, how explicitly the goal here seems to be profiting from a surveillance-supported content mill.
🔗 linkblog: The Redbox Removal Team'
What a wild story.
The unceremonious end of Redbox is a reminder of how much stuff we make and buy, and how, when companies fail to plan for end-of-life or go out of business, they often leave a bunch of devices that suddenly become e-waste behind.
🔗 linkblog: Someone Made a Dataset of One Million Bluesky Posts for 'Machine Learning Research''
It’s uncomfortable for me to think about how close my “digital traces” research is to surveillance and YOLO data mining.
🔗 linkblog: X's Objection to the Onion Buying InfoWars Is a Reminder You Do Not Own Your Social Media Accounts'
This is an important take, and I appreciate that the article concludes with a reminder that indie is the answer as we move forward with the social web.
🔗 linkblog: Employees Describe an Environment of Paranoia and Fear Inside Automattic Over WordPress Chaos'
Wild to read this so soon after finishing Character Limit, because I’m getting very similar vibes.
🔗 linkblog: ‘The Community Is In Chaos:’ WordPress.org Now Requires You Denounce Affiliation With WP Engine To Log In'
This was a hell of a semester to decide to not dedicate a whole lecture to WordPress in my CMS class.
🔗 linkblog: How Telegram's Founder Pavel Durov Became a Culture War Martyr'
I’ve been trying to think through Durov’s arrest since I first heard about it—there are a lot of complex things going on here. I think this captures nicely my thoughts and taught me a few things, too.
Telegram is a sketchy platform (technically even more than in terms of content), but that doesn’t mean arresting the founder is warranted. Yet, that doesn’t mean that outcry on the right is in good faith, either.
🔗 linkblog: OpenAI, Mass Scraper of Copyrighted Work, Claims Copyright Over Subreddit's Logo'
I don’t think intellectual property is the way to fight back against generative AI, but it is wildly out of line for a company who profits off using other’s intellectual property to be this petty.
🔗 linkblog: We Can, and We Must, Clown on the Humane AI Pin Forever'
I have not been following this discourse, but I feel like I’d agree with this article even if I had and, besides, the article makes me glad I haven’t been following it.
🔗 linkblog: Amazon Turkers Who Train AI Say They’re Locked Out of Their Work and Money'
Helpful reminder that it’s low-paid, underappreciated workers who contribute to AI as much as high-paid programmers and household-name executives.
🔗 linkblog: Fanfiction Community Rocked By Etsy Sellers Turning Their Work Into Bound Books'
This strikes me as illustrating the digital labor issues associated with generative AI. It’s someone else profiting off of one’s work.
🔗 linkblog: Tumblr and Wordpress to Sell Users’ Data to Train AI Tools'
Aw, geez, and I liked Automattic, too. I get that financing Tumblr is hard, but why this?
🔗 linkblog: Reddit: 'We Are in the Early Stages of Monetizing Our User Base''
There are few phrases grosser than “monetizing our user base.”
🔗 linkblog: University of Michigan Sells Recordings of Study Groups and Office Hours to Train AI'
This is straight-up awful. Shame on the university for doing this.
🔗 linkblog: ‘Student Should Have a Healthy-Looking BMI’: How Universities Bend Over Backwards to Accommodate Food Delivery Robots'
I work on a campus with Starship robots, so this was a fascinating read.