News
The Software Engineers Paid to Fix Vibe Coded Messes
Linkedin has been joking about “vibe coding cleanup specialists,” but it’s actually a growing profession.
News
Instagram Account Promotes Holocaust Denial T-Shirts to 400,000 Followers
Meta decided to not ban the account and the vast majority of its racist posts even after 404 Media flagged them to the company.
Behind The Blog
Behind the Blog: Sleeping With Slop
This week, we discuss slop in history, five-alarm fires, and AI art (not) at Dragon Con.
News
How OnlyFans Piracy Is Ruining the Internet for Everyone
Innocent sites are being delisted from Google because of copyright takedown requests against rampant OnlyFans piracy.
Behind The Blog
Behind the Blog: Dogfooding and Datasets
This week, we discuss our top games, “dense street imagery," and first-person experiences with apps.
404 Media
404 Media at Two Years: How We've Grown, and What's Next
We're reflecting on the impact our journalism had in year two, how we've grown with your support, and what we aspire to accomplish in year three.
Behind The Blog
Behind the Blog: Our Second Anniversary Party!
This week, we have some party pics and musical selections from last night.
Wikipedia
Jimmy Wales Says Wikipedia Could Use AI. Editors Call It the 'Antithesis of Wikipedia'
Wikipedia's founder said he used ChatGPT in the review process for an article and thought it could be helpful. Editors replied to point out it was full of mistakes.
Features
How Tea’s Founder Convinced Millions of Women to Spill Their Secrets, Then Exposed Them to the World
A 404 Media investigation reveals how the man who started Tea, the ‘women dating safety’ app, tried to hire a female ‘face’ for the company and then hijack her grassroots community.
Behind The Blog
Behind the Blog: Exercises in OSINT and Storage Pains
This week, we discuss OSINT for chat groups, Russell Crowe films, and storage problems.
Behind The Blog
Behind the Blog: Speculation, Distraction, and Smart Glasses
This week, we discuss Wikipedia's ethos and zooming in on a lot of pictures of cops' glasses.
News
Wikipedia Editors Adopt ‘Speedy Deletion’ Policy for AI Slop Articles
“The ability to quickly generate a lot of bogus content is problematic if we don't have a way to delete it just as quickly.”