AmbitiousProcess

Videos, images, and text can absolutely compel action or credible harm.

For example, Facebook was aware that Instagram was giving teen girls depression and body image issues, and subsequently made sure their algorithm would continue to show teen girls content of other girls/women who were more fit/attractive than them.

the teens who reported the most negative feelings about themselves saw more provocative content more broadly, content Meta classifies as “mature themes,” “Risky behavior,” “Harm & Cruelty” and “Suffering.” Cumulatively, such content accounted for 27% of what those teens saw on the platform, compared with 13.6% among their peers who hadn’t reported negative feelings.

https://www.congress.gov/117/meeting/house/114054/documents/HHRG-117-IF02-20210922-SD003.pdf

https://www.reuters.com/business/instagram-shows-more-eating-disorder-adjacent-content-vulnerable-teens-internal-2025-10-20/

Many girls have committed suicide or engaged in self harm, at least partly inspired by body image issues stemming from Instagram's algorithmic choices, even if that content is "just videos, and images."

They also continued to recommend dangerous content that they claimed was blocked by their filters, including sexual and violent content to children under 13. This type of content is known to have a lasting effect on kids' wellbeing.

The researchers found that Instagram was still recommending sexual content, violent content, and self-harm and body-image content to teens, even though those types of posts were supposed to be blocked by Meta’s sensitive-content filters.

https://time.com/7324544/instagram-teen-accounts-flawed/

In the instance you specifically highlighting, that was when Meta would recommend teen girls to men exhibiting behaviors that could very easily lead to predation. For example, if a man specifically liked sexual content, and content of teen girls, it would recommend that man content of underage girls attempting to make up for their newly-created body image issues by posting sexualized photos.

They then waited 2 years before implementing a private-by-default policy, which wouldn't recommend these teen girls' accounts to strangers unless they explicitly turned on the feature. Most didn't. Meta waited that long because internal research showed it would decrease engagement.

By 2020, the growth team had determined that a private-by-default setting would result in a loss of 1.5 million monthly active teens a year on Instagram, which became the underlying reason for not protecting minors.

https://techoversight.org/2025/11/22/meta-unsealed-docs/

If I filled your social media feed with endless posts specifically algorithmically chosen to make you spend more time on the app while simultaneously feeling worse about yourself, then exploited every weakness the algorithm could identify about you, I don't think you'd look at that and say it's "catastrophizing over videos, images, text on a screen that can’t compel action or credible harm" when you develop depression, or worse.

This whole article is just a condescending mess.

"Why does everyone who has been repeatedly burned by AI, time and time again, whether that be through usable software becoming crammed full of useless AI features, AI making all the information they get less reliable, or just having to hear people evangelize about AI all day, not want to use my AI-based app that takes all the fun out of deciding where you go on your vacation???"

(yes, that is actually the entire proposed app. A thing where you say where you're going, and it generates an itinerary. Its only selling point over just using ChatGPT directly is that it makes sure the coordinates of each thing are within realistic travel restrictions. That's it.)

And it's more expensive than the most expensive US mobile plan, which would have faster speeds, whereas Trump Mobile's drops off after a certain (lower than T-Mobile's own plans) amount of GB data usage since they're solely using T-Mobile as an MVNO, and also has deprioritized data speeds during periods of network congestion.

It would also get you the ability to switch underlying network providers if you're in a dead zone, international calling and data in more locations, better customer support given all the experiences we've seen from reviewers, and unlimited hotspot data, plus better bundle deals for families or people with smart watches that need separate data.

Hell, even T-Mobile's own own plans, which are usually substantially more expensive than other companies they solely act as an MVNO for, like Mint Mobile, (which is actually owned by T-Mobile now) which will get you the same value as T-Mobile's $50/mo plan in a $30/mo plan that is just $15/mo for new users for up to a 12 month period.

Trump Mobile is just $2.55 cheaper than T-Mobile's $50 plan.

Anyone.

According to regulations.gov:

Absolutely anyone can submit a public comment on an agency’s proposed regulation. You do not have to be an academic, expert, or even someone who knows all of the ins and outs of the policy at hand. If you have something to say and think that your perspective could constructively add to the conversation, please comment.

So it's clear: This has a link where you can give public comment against the proposed new rules!!!

Go here, and either paste in what the EFF has pre-made for you, or ideally, write your own!

I oppose the USPTO’s proposed rule changes for inter partes review (IPR), Docket No. PTO-P-2025-0025. The IPR process must remain open and fair. Patent challenges should be decided on their merits, not shut out because of legal activity elsewhere. These rules would make it nearly impossible for the public to challenge bad patents, and that will harm innovation and everyday technology users.

Never had anyone download from any IA torrents I've hosted. I'd say only do it if it's something you have a reason to believe will be taken down at some point. Whether that be from government censorship, for copyright reasons, etc.

It runs autonomously to a degree, but a lot of these sites operate via posting a wide variety of content on the same domains, after those domains have previously gained status in search engines.

So for example, you'll have a site like epiccoolcarnews[.]info hosting stuff like "How to get FREE GEMS in Clash of Clans" just because previously they posted an article about cars that Google thought was good so they ranked up the domain in their ranking algorithm.

Permanently downrank the domain, and eventually they have to start with a new domain that, as is the key part here, has no prior reputation, and thus has to work to actually get ranked up in search again.

They're also going to be making this a public database, and have said they'll use it to train AI-generated content detection tools that will probably be better at detecting "AI generated articles meant to appear legitimate by using common keywords and phrases", rather than just "any text of any form that has been generated by AI" like other AI detection tools do, which would make them capable of automating the process a bit with regard to specifically search engines.

the article says they're comparing it to their earnings and likelihood to switch jobs among other things.

Two things that are coincidentally lower (in terms of pay) and higher (in terms of propensity to switch jobs) for black people, rather than white people.

They just use the buzzword "AI", but in reality it's probably going to be a machine learning algorithm.

Take the dataset, split out the groups of people you do/don't want to hire based on whatever criteria, train the model to be more likely to pick faces with characteristics from the "do hire" group, and less likely to pick those from the "don't hire" group.

Then, use it on real people, and it will provide similar outcomes based on faces.

The study claims that they analyzed participants' labor market outcomes, that being earnings and propensity to move jobs, "among other things."

Fun fact, did you know white men tend to get paid more than black men for the same job, with the same experience and education?

Following that logic, if we took a dataset of both black and white men, then used their labor market outcomes to judge which one would be a good fit over another, white men would have higher earnings and be recommended for a job more than black people.

Black workers are also more likely to switch jobs, one of the reasons likely being because you tend to experience higher salary growth when moving jobs every 2-3 years than when you stay with a given company, which is necessary if you're already being paid lower wages than your white counterparts.

By this study's methodology, that person could be deemed "unreliable" because they often switch jobs, and would then not be considered.

Essentially, this is a black box that gets to excuse management saying "fuck all black people, we only want to hire whites" while sounding all smart and fancy.

A great Medium article on the topic that analyzes the entire situation: (coming to the conclusion that no, Proton does not really seem to be in favor of Trump/MAGA at all given their actual actions, and how the original statement was misinterpreted)

https://medium.com/@ovenplayer/does-proton-really-support-trump-a-deeper-analysis-and-surprising-findings-aed4fee4305e

And even if it's never political, so what?

Someone uses it to promote a dangerous supplement, with thousands of fake, AI-generated videos of people taking it without issues, and suddenly a bunch of people buy it, take it, and suffer severe consequences, or even die.

But good thing it's not gonna manipulate who you'd vote for amirite? Totally harmless! /s