This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we discuss doxed Teslas, the concept of "amplification," and how we'd much rather be looking at cooking videos than all this mess.
EMANUEL: This week I published one of the more uncomfortable stories I’ve worked on since we started 404 Media. A lot of what we do here is look at and report on the nastier parts of the internet, and I’ve definitely seen more criminal and/or graphic media in the last year and a half, but I don’t think I’ve seen anything as…I don’t know—the word we’ve landed on in most cases is “exploitative,” but I honestly I’m grasping for the right way to describe people who are using AI to create influencers with Down syndrome, which they then monetize by selling their deepfaked nudes.