Browsed by
Category: Social media

Andreessen Horowitz-backed startup hacked, exposing phone farm

Andreessen Horowitz-backed startup hacked, exposing phone farm

WebProNews reports: In the shadowy underbelly of social media’s content machine, a recent hack has pulled back the curtain on a sophisticated operation blending artificial intelligence, venture capital muscle, and old-school automation tactics. A hacker, operating under the pseudonym “Kira,” infiltrated the systems of Doublespeed, a startup backed by powerhouse investor Andreessen Horowitz, known as a16z. What they uncovered was a sprawling network of over 1,100 mobile phones housed in a nondescript warehouse, all programmed to churn out AI-generated influencer…

Read More Read More

The most powerful politics influencers don’t typically speak about politics

The most powerful politics influencers don’t typically speak about politics

Wired reports: Donald Trump’s appearances on the podcasts of Joe Rogan and Theo Von, among others, were seen by many as a key part of securing his second term in office. But while Trump was speculating about alien life on Mars with Rogan, he had a team of acolytes appearing on dozens, if not hundreds, of much smaller niche podcasts hosted by right-wing content creators who typically don’t talk about politics. This is how, just six days before the election,…

Read More Read More

People are ditching a life led on screens for the real thing

People are ditching a life led on screens for the real thing

John Harris writes: If 2025 has had any kind of defining cultural theme, it perhaps boils down to people’s increasing sense that a life completely beholden to screens is no life at all. To this, add two connected trends: a drop in millions of people’s use of social media, and a rising yearning for experiences that are more authentic. This is not, just to be clear, any kind of suggestion that we are about to reject digital technology and wind…

Read More Read More

White-supremacist influencer, Nick Fuentes, is laying the groundwork to go even bigger

White-supremacist influencer, Nick Fuentes, is laying the groundwork to go even bigger

Ali Breland writes: Before each episode of America First With Nicholas J. Fuentes begins, a surreal mix of images and video clips runs, like a screen saver, for an unpredictable and seemingly eternal amount of time. Gentle plains of swaying grass, trickling streams, and the show’s logo flash across the screen. EDM kicks in. Psychedelic depictions of Christian imagery, including Jesus’s crucifixion, come and go. So do snippets of Fuentes talking about, among other things, borders, drag queens, and his…

Read More Read More

Meta shuts down global accounts linked to abortion advice and queer content

Meta shuts down global accounts linked to abortion advice and queer content

The Guardian reports: Meta has removed or restricted dozens of accounts belonging to abortion access providers, queer groups and reproductive health organisations in the past weeks in what campaigners call one of the “biggest waves of censorship” on its platforms in years. The takedowns and restrictions began in October and targeted the Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp accounts of more than 50 organisations worldwide, some serving tens of thousands of people – in what appears to be a growing push by…

Read More Read More

Trump’s new social media rule poses threat to World Cup and U.S. tourism industry

Trump’s new social media rule poses threat to World Cup and U.S. tourism industry

Politico reports: U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to require tourists to hand over their social media data ahead of next year’s World Cup generated outrage on Wednesday. An elected European official, human rights groups and fan organizations condemned the move and urged the world football governing body, FIFA, to pressure the Trump administration to reverse course. Visitors to the U.S. — including those from visa-free countries such as France, Germany and Britain — would have to submit five years of…

Read More Read More

Authorities monitor online criticism of New Orleans immigration crackdown

Authorities monitor online criticism of New Orleans immigration crackdown

The Associated Press reports: State and federal authorities are closely tracking online criticism and protests against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in New Orleans, monitoring message boards around the clock for threats to agents while compiling regular updates on public “sentiment” surrounding the arrests, according to law enforcement records reviewed by the Associated Press. The intelligence gathering comes even as officials have released few details about the first arrests made last week as part of “Catahoula Crunch”, prompting calls for…

Read More Read More

The bad reasoning in the Meta antitrust ruling isn’t even the worst part

The bad reasoning in the Meta antitrust ruling isn’t even the worst part

Tim Wu writes: On Tuesday, the federal judge James Boasberg dismissed the U.S. government’s main antitrust case against Meta, ruling that the company, worth more than $1.5 trillion, does not possess a monopoly in personal social networking. He did so in the face of strong evidence to the contrary, not to mention common sense. But to dwell on the shortcomings of Judge Boasberg’s reasoning is to overlook something even worse: the message that his ruling sends to the country. The…

Read More Read More

Elon Musk’s X where nothing is as it appears and everything is possible

Elon Musk’s X where nothing is as it appears and everything is possible

Charlie Warzel writes: Over the weekend, Elon Musk’s X rolled out a feature that had the immediate result of sowing maximum chaos. The update, called “About This Account,” allows people to click on the profile of an X user and see such information as: which country the account was created in, where its user is currently based, and how many times the username has been changed. Nikita Bier, X’s head of product, said the feature was “an important first step…

Read More Read More

How Trump lost control of the Epstein spin cycle

How Trump lost control of the Epstein spin cycle

David Gilbert writes: For almost a decade, President Donald Trump has managed to control the conspiracy theory spin around disgraced financier and registered sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The conspiracy theories benefited him; they were one of the factors buoying him to office. It’s only been in the last few weeks—spurred by the release of new Epstein documents and the public defection of GOP lawamkers—that the complex web of misinformation has spun out of Trump’s control. It all began with QAnon….

Read More Read More

The rise of the white-nationalist streamer, Nick Fuentes, should worry us even more than it already does

The rise of the white-nationalist streamer, Nick Fuentes, should worry us even more than it already does

Jay Caspian Kang writes: Part of what separates Fuentes from his fellow-streamers is that he is capable of keeping his thoughts in a coherent, if odious, order. He once offered a trollish, occasionally captivating, and always grossly bigoted hour-long act; that has evolved into something more like a daily address, one that presents a code of behavior and a set of distinct ideas. As recently as a year ago, I’m not sure I could have told you what Fuentes thought…

Read More Read More

‘I’m not a foreign agent,’ says Laura Loomer. But is she just a hired gun?

‘I’m not a foreign agent,’ says Laura Loomer. But is she just a hired gun?

Antonia Hitchens writes: One night at Ned’s Club, a members-only lounge with views of the White House, Nigel Farage, the British politician who heads the populist Reform Party, was hosting a bash for the right-wing television channel GB News, which was opening a bureau in D.C. Several members of Trump’s Cabinet were there; Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, gave a toast. Loomer was at home in Florida, but longtime lobbyists and consultants were discussing her activities on two…

Read More Read More

How Gen Z toppled Nepal’s leader and chose a new one on Discord

How Gen Z toppled Nepal’s leader and chose a new one on Discord

Wired reports: At 11:30 pm on Tuesday, September 9, Rakshya Bam stepped down from an army jeep outside military headquarters in a pitch-dark, locked-down Kathmandu. The 26-year-old hadn’t slept in more than a day. Her eyes were red-rimmed and glassy, the whites threaded with thin lines of fatigue. A wave of youth-led protests had rocked Nepal, born on Discord servers, TikTok feeds, and encrypted messaging apps. In just a few days, Bam had seen friends gunned down, watched parliament buildings…

Read More Read More

How Joe Rogan misleads listeners about climate change

How Joe Rogan misleads listeners about climate change

By Dana Nuccitelli, Yale Climate Connections November 7, 2025 Joe Rogan has one of the most popular podcasts on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and a combined 50 million followers on YouTube, Spotify, and Instagram. And like nearly all of today’s most popular online shows, Rogan’s spreads climate misinformation. In an October episode of his podcast, Rogan interviewed two octogenarian fringe climate contrarians, Richard Lindzen and William Happer, who together have been spreading climate misinformation since at least 2012. For over…

Read More Read More

How Meta has become pillar of the global fraud economy by delivering 15 billion scam ads a day

How Meta has become pillar of the global fraud economy by delivering 15 billion scam ads a day

Reuters reports: Meta internally projected late last year that it would earn about 10% of its overall annual revenue – or $16 billion – from running advertising for scams and banned goods, internal company documents show. A cache of previously unreported documents reviewed by Reuters also shows that the social-media giant for at least three years failed to identify and stop an avalanche of ads that exposed Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp’s billions of users to fraudulent e-commerce and investment schemes,…

Read More Read More

The psychology of trolling may start with a specific type of envy

The psychology of trolling may start with a specific type of envy

PsyPost reports: A new study reveals a psychological pathway that connects narcissistic personality traits with the tendency to engage in social media trolling. The research suggests this link is partially explained by a person’s feelings of malicious envy and their exposure to antisocial media content. The findings were published in the journal Behaviour & Information Technology. To understand the study, it helps to first understand the concepts involved. Narcissism is a personality trait characterized by a grandiose sense of self-importance,…

Read More Read More