age verification
North Carolina and Montana Just Lost Access to Pornhub
As North Carolina and Montana enact new age verification laws effective January 1, residents can’t view sites in Pornhub’s parent company network.
Behind The Blog
Behind the Blog: A Gift Guide, Goals, and Some End of Year Nostalgia
This week, we discuss the year we've had, technology journalism as a complicated feeling, and some gift ideas for your last minute shopping.
Labor
‘No Laughing Matter:’ Clowns Sue Clowns.com for Wage Theft
Former employees of the party entertainer company say they are victims of stolen wages and misclassification. The federal lawsuit details claims of QAnon conspiracy theorist bosses and retaliation for discussing allegedly illegal practices with colleagues.
AI
Largest Dataset Powering AI Images Removed After Discovery of Child Sexual Abuse Material
The model is a massive part of the AI-ecosystem, used by Stable Diffusion and other major generative AI products. The removal follows discoveries made by Stanford researchers, who found thousands instances of suspected child sexual abuse material in the dataset.
Behind The Blog
Behind the Blog: Marketing Company Claims It's Listening To Your Convos
This week, we discuss the media giant that claimed to have technology that can actively listen to consumers through their devices.
medicine
Freezing My Eggs Felt Like Spinning a Slot Machine With My Ovaries
The cost of medications, testing, retrieval, and storage involved in egg freezing is just one series of numbers in a process and procedure that feels like a combination of math, alchemy, and luck.
inflation
Hackers Popped a Porn Site for Inflation Fetishists
InflateVids went down after it was hacked in what administrators say was a random attack.
Twitter Is Just Running Ads for Stealing Semen Now
Tweets with the videos, advertising a DIY artificial insemination kit, say “Making him a dad without his permission 😋” and “Should I tell him it’s his kid?”
Behind The Blog
Behind the Blog: 'Wow Technology,' AI Content Creators, and Fake Cops
This week, we discuss staying connected in remote places, the future of the "content creator," and how a stalker posing as a cop tricked Verizon.
AI
Nicki Minaj Stans Have Built an AI-Generated, Sci-fi World
This is your captain speaking: Ahead of Minaj's 'Pink Friday 2' out on December 8, fans flock to an AI-generated world of their own making.
patreon
‘The Community Is Scrambling:’ Patreon Banned a Ton of 'Adult Baby/Diaper Lover' Furries
Patreon told creators that their accounts were banned for sexualizing minors, which members of the AB/DL community say is unfair and untrue — and throws many of them into real financial hardship.
AI
Alibaba's 'Animate Anyone' Is Trained on Scraped Videos of Famous TikTokers
The new image-to-video model went viral this week because people saw potential to replace TikTok personalities, but ripping content creators' work is already baked into the tech.