This week Joseph talks to Samuel Bagg, assistant professor of political science at the University of South Carolina. Bagg recently wrote a fascinating essay, linked below, about how the problem with lots of things might be knowledge-based (people believing stuff that’s wrong or dangerous) but the solution is not more knowledge. It’s all about social identity. This is an incredibly interesting discussion, and definitely check out more of Bagg’s writing.

• The Problem is Epistemic. The Solution is Not

• The Dispersion of Power: A Critical Realist Theory of Democracy

YouTube version:  https://youtu.be/lNKOqp-rZL8

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We start this week with Sam’s piece about ManyVids, and how some creators believe its CEO, and the person who controls their livelihood, may be experiencing ‘AI psychosis’. After the break, Jason gives us an update on some mysterious disappearing ICE footage. In the subscribers-only section, we talk about Flock and what police are being told to do: not describe what they’re using the AI cameras for.

Timestamps:

0:00 - Intro 2:41 - Aliens and Angel Numbers: Creators Worry Porn Platform ManyVids Is Falling Into ‘AI Psychosis’; Amid Backlash, Massive Porn Platform ManyVids Doubles Down on Bizarre, AI-Generated Posts 32:12 - DHS Says Critical ICE Surveillance Footage From Abuse Case Was Actually Never Recorded, Doesn't Matter

YouTube version: https://youtu.be/EFv0rD9F9es

• Aliens and Angel Numbers: Creators Worry Porn Platform ManyVids Is Falling Into ‘AI Psychosis’
• DHS Says Critical ICE Surveillance Footage From Abuse Case Was Actually Never Recorded, Doesn't Matter
• Police Told to Be ‘as Vague as Permissible’ About Why They Use Flock

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This week, Sam is in conversation with Kolina Koltai. Kolina is an investigator, senior researcher and trainer at Bellingcat. Her investigations focus on the people and systems behind AI companies and platforms that peddle non-consensual deepfake explicit imagery. They discuss how she found herself in this field, her recent investigation uncovering the man behind two deepfake porn sites, and how it feels to watch these sites go down after exposing the people running them.

YouTube Version: https://youtu.be/CbmUwwVGaf4

Stories discussed:

• Profiting From Exploitation: How We Found the Man Behind Two Deepfake Porn Sites

• Behind a Secretive Global Network of Non-Consensual Deepfake Pornography

• Unmasking MrDeepFakes: Canadian Pharmacist Linked to World’s Most Notorious Deepfake Porn Site
  

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We start this week with Joseph’s article about ELITE, a tool Palantir is working on for ICE. After the break, Emanuel tells us how AI influencers are making fake sex tape-style photos with celebrities, who can’t be best pleased about it. In the subscribers-only section, Matthew breaks down Comic-Con’s ban of AI art.

0:00 - Intro

2:16 - ‘ELITE’: The Palantir App ICE Uses to Find Neighborhoods to Raid

22:45 - Instagram AI Influencers Are Defaming Celebrities With Sex Scandals

Subscriber's Story: Comic-Con Bans AI Art After Artist Pushback

YouTube version: https://youtu.be/b-QHWpqjD-E

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The Wikimedia Foundation’s chief technology and product officer explains how she helps manage one of the most visited sites in the world in the age of generative AI. 

Wikipedia is turning 25 this month, and it’s never been more important. 

The online, collectively created encyclopedia has been a cornerstone of the internet decades, but as generative AI started flooding every platform with AI-generated slop over the last couple of years, Wikipedia’s governance model, editing process, and dedication to citing reliable sources has emerged as one of the most reliable and resilient models we have. 

And yet, as successful as the model is, it’s almost never replicated. 

This week on the podcast we’re joined by Selena Deckelmann, the Chief Product and Technology Officer at the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit organization that operates Wikipedia. That means Selena oversees the technical infrastructure and product strategy for one of the most visited sites in the world, and one the most comprehensive repositories of human knowledge ever assembled. Wikipedia is turning 25 this month, so I wanted to talk to Selena about how Wikipedia works and how it plans to continue to work in the age of generative AI.  

YouTube Version: https://youtu.be/39LR9ouJR3c

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Listen to the weekly podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. 

• Wikipedia’s value in the age of generative AI

• The Editors Protecting Wikipedia from AI Hoaxes

• Wikipedia Pauses AI-Generated Summaries After Editor Backlash

• Wikipedia Says AI Is Causing a Dangerous Decline in Human Visitors

• Jimmy Wales Says Wikipedia Could Use AI. Editors Call It the 'Antithesis of Wikipedia'
  

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We start this week with Joseph’s article about Webloc, a tool ICE bought that can monitor phones in entire neighborhoods. After the break, Emanuel and Sam talk about their recent coverage of Grok. In the subscribers-only section, Jason explains how police inadvertently unmasked millions of their surveillance targets through a Flock redaction error.

Timestamps: 0:00 - Intro 2:50 - First Story 23:00 - Second Story

YouTube version: https://youtu.be/rurJo6vPhUY

• Inside ICE’s Tool to Monitor Phones in Entire Neighborhoods
• DHS Is Lying To You
• Inside the Telegram Channel Jailbreaking Grok Over and Over Again
• Masterful Gambit: Musk Attempts to Monetize Grok's Wave of Sexual Abuse Imagery
• Police Unmask Millions of Surveillance Targets Because of Flock Redaction Error

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This week, Jason is talking to YouTuber Benn Jordan, who has done some of our favorite reporting on Flock, the automated license plate reader surveillance company. A couple months ago, he found vulnerabilities in some of Flock’s license plate reader cameras. I have been following Benn’s work for a while, and soon after that video came out, he reached out to me to tell me he had learned that some of Flock’s Condor cameras were left live-streaming to the open internet. In this episode, we discuss how he discovered the issue and what happened next.

YouTube Version: https://youtu.be/tSd0nXolnIs

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We start this week with Matthew’s story about an organization tracking the location of AI data centers around the U.S. and elsewhere in the world. After the break, Jason tells us all about what Grok got up to over the holiday break, and we ruminate on what the breakdown in the information ecosystem means. In the subscribers-only section, we talk about how we bought 404media.com!

Timestamps:

1:38 - Researchers Are Hunting America for Hidden Datacenters

25:58 - Grok's AI CSAM Shitshow

Subscriber's Story: We Bought 404media.com

YouTube version: https://youtu.be/zT9lEyHnZIk

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On this special guest episode of the 404 Media Podcast, Sam talks to Alexzandra Kekesi, VP of Brand and Community at Pornhub. Kekesi started in her current role in August 2023, after working for Pornhub and its parent company for more than a decade. She joined us from Montreal, where Pornhub is headquartered. They discuss the stigma facing the adult industry, Luigi Mangione porn, the trad wife to feet pics pipeline, and algorithms that shut you down for showing side boob. Kekesi also breaks down Pornhub’s choice to pull out of states in more than a third of the U.S., following regressive age verification laws.

Pornhub Sees Surge of Interest in Tradwife Content, ‘Modesty,’ and Mindfulness

Pornhub Is Now Blocked In Almost All of the U.S. South

Age Verification Laws Drag Us Back to the Dark Ages of the Internet

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This is a special interview episode with Meredith Whittaker, the president of the Signal Foundation. I'm sure you all know, and maybe even use, the Signal messaging app. Here we sat down with Whittaker to talk all about the state of Signal today, the threat of AI to end-to-end encryption, what backdoors actually look like, and much more. This is a wide-ranging discussion where one of the few journalists who has revealed new details about backdoors (Joseph) gets to speak to one of the most important people in the world of encryption (Whittaker). Definitely take a listen. Paid subscribers got access to this episode early by the way.

YouTube Version: https://youtu.be/kconAXZgsxg

• Dark Wire: The Incredible True Story of the Largest Sting Operation Ever

• Signal page on government data requests

• Microsoft Will Switch Off Recall by Default After Security Backlash

• Telegram CEO Pavel Durov interview

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Joseph speaks to Craig Silverman, one of the co-founders of Indicator. Indicator is a new, independent media company that Craig runs with Alexios Mantzarlis. For years Craig has covered the world of ad fraud and disinformation using all sorts of open source intelligence (OSINT) techniques. Definitely check out Indicator at Indicator.media. The site publishes its own investigations but also tips and tricks you can use yourself. Indicator’s site: https://indicator.media

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