Casey Newton

Email salesman at Platformer and podcast co-host at Hard Fork. [email protected]

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Last Notes

2026-03-10 00:08:43 GMT

NEWS: Grammarly tells me it will let "experts" like me opt out of having their names used against their will and for no compensation as part of its "expert review" feature https://www.platformer.news/grammarly-expert-review-reviewed/
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2026-02-10 01:46:11 GMT

The walls are closing in on infinite-scroll feeds and other addictive design mechanics. I wrote about how lawyers and regulators may have finally found a way around Section 230 https://www.platformer.news/social-media-addiction-trial-eu-tiktok-investigation/
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2026-01-06 01:10:10 GMT

The author of a viral Reddit thread alleging fraud at a food delivery company tried to back up his claim by sending me AI-generated documents. Today I'm publishing those documents in the hopes that it helps other reporter see what we're up against in the age of AI https://www.platformer.news/fake-uber-eats-whisleblower-hoax-debunked/
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2025-12-09 01:40:57 GMT

When X banned the European Commission's ad account in retaliation for a fine, it demonstrated the exact sort of capricious behavior the DSA is designed to stop https://www.platformer.news/x-eu-fine-account-ban-bier/
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2025-11-25 02:51:27 GMT

I wrote about our interview with Roblox's CEO and how platforms got too big to feel shame https://www.platformer.news/roblox-ceo-interview-backlash-analysis/
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2025-10-17 00:57:51 GMT

I wrote about the AI slop backlash and how platforms are starting to respond to it https://www.platformer.news/thursday-newsletter-5/
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2025-08-26 00:26:12 GMT

Can Musk sue his way to the top of the App Store? I asked Stanford Law Prof. Mark Lemley about Musk's new lawsuit against OpenAI and Apple https://www.platformer.news/musk-sues-apple-openai-grok/
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2025-08-22 20:27:32 GMT

It's Hard Fork Friday! This week: the AI bubble, Jeff Horwitz on Meta's child-romancing chatbots, and a filthy song that is NOT the no. 1 country song in America right now https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/22/podcasts/is-this-an-ai-bubble-metas-missing-morals-tiktok-shock-slop.html

2025-08-20 00:30:15 GMT

I wrote about the seeming contradiction in two new survey findings: 71 percent of Americans fear AI will take their job; and 95 percent of AI tests at companies are failing to generate money. https://www.platformer.news/ai-job-loss-surveys-mit/

2025-08-15 06:23:58 GMT

This evening, I joined a small group of reporters for a wide-ranging, on-the-record dinner with Sam Altman and some of his top lieutenants. And yeah, Altman said — we're in an AI bubble https://www.platformer.news/sam-altman-gpt-5-interview-lightcap-turley/
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2025-08-13 00:19:47 GMT

Elon Musk's whining about App Store rankings is a strong signal that Grok is on the rocks https://www.platformer.news/musk-altman-grok-apple-competition-fight/
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2025-08-12 01:21:01 GMT

Wrote about the backlash to GPT-5 and the dawning awareness inside labs of just how strongly some people feel about individual models and workflows https://www.platformer.news/gpt-5-backlash-openai-lessons/
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2025-08-08 00:50:03 GMT

GPT-5 is alive! Here's what people are saying, why Google and Anthropic may be breathing a sigh of relief, and one weird AI safety trick that I think other labs should borrow: https://www.platformer.news/gpt-5-launch-release-reviews-impressions/

2025-08-06 00:27:13 GMT

Wrote about the new OpenAI models and the creeping danger of powerful models that can fit on a laptop https://www.platformer.news/open-ai-gpt-oss-open-source/
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2025-08-05 00:05:30 GMT

In the wake of ChatGPT adding a warning, I looked at the mixed record of 'nudges' to try to deter people from problematic use https://www.platformer.news/open-ai-
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2025-08-01 00:45:53 GMT

The Substack founders bragged that they were building a different kind of platform. But when they promoted a Nazi this week, they revealed that they have become a social network like any other https://www.platformer.news/substack-nazi-push-notification/
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2025-07-30 00:18:47 GMT

I wrote about how the UK's age-gating debacle is coming to America — and what we could do differently https://www.platformer.news/age-assurance-uk-tea-apple-google-meta/
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2025-07-29 01:29:46 GMT

Trust and safety workers had a LOT to say after the column I wrote last week asking why more don't speak out publicly. Here's what they say I missed: https://www.platformer.news/trust-and-safety-workers-respond-censorship-free-speech/
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2025-07-25 01:09:11 GMT

After a visit to TrustCon, I wrote about the near-total failure of trust and safety leaders to defend human rights after conservatives successfully bullied platforms into submission https://www.platformer.news/trustcon-trust-safety-leadership-decline-2025/
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2025-07-23 00:25:31 GMT

A new Pew study offers data to back up what we have suspected for a while now: AI answers are draining all the traffic out of the web https://www.platformer.news/google-ai-overviews-pew-research/?ref=platformer-newsletter
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2025-07-22 01:14:47 GMT

I wrote about OpenAI front-running the announcement of this year's International Math Olympiad side competition among AI contestants https://www.platformer.news/google-openai-international-math-olympiad-gold/

2025-07-15 00:32:05 GMT

The conservative pressure campaign that turned all the big tech companies into Trump appeasers is now coming for AI. It's totally unconstitutional, and might work anyway. I talked to some legal experts about it: https://www.platformer.news/andrew-bailey-chatgpt-trump-jawboning-legal-case/
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2025-06-18 01:20:34 GMT

The dream of the Fediverse is alive on Threads (and Mastodon) https://www.platformer.news/threads-fediverse-feed-bluesky-mastodon/
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2025-06-17 00:25:58 GMT

The Trump phone is a joke — but the joke is on us. I wrote about some of its many problems https://www.platformer.news/trump-mobile-phone-t1-conflicts/
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2025-06-13 00:17:09 GMT

OpenAI's announcement of a partnership with Mattel today made me worry about the prospect of a sycophantic AI Barbie. But the first products will be aimed at families and users 13 and older, I'm told: https://www.platformer.news/openai-mattel-partnership-child-safety/
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2025-06-11 01:37:33 GMT

Let's talk about Meta's investment in Scale AI and whether *this* reorg will be different than the others https://www.platformer.news/meta-scale-investment-zuckerberg-wang/
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2025-06-10 01:20:17 GMT

Wrote about a ho-hum WWDC, and the sense that Apple isn't thinking big enough https://www.platformer.news/apple-wwdc-2025-ai/
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2025-06-04 00:14:53 GMT

After a proposed 10-year ban on state regulations, some Republicans are finally starting to talk about the fact that AI might be dangerous: https://www.platformer.news/state-ai-moratorium-republican-opposition-greene/?ref=platformer-newsletter
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2025-06-03 00:37:11 GMT

Is OpenAI making the same mistake Humane did? https://www.platformer.news/jony-ive-openai-ai-hardware-expectations/
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2025-05-30 00:57:43 GMT

The economic foundations of the web are crumbling, but everyone is now racing to build a new web *browser.* I wrote about the AI browser war to come https://www.platformer.news/ai-web-browsers-openai-perplexity-opera/
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2025-05-28 00:47:59 GMT

Meta's AI teams need more than a reorg. https://www.platformer.news/meta-antitrust-trial-rests-ai-llama/
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2025-05-21 01:47:35 GMT

I wrote about Google's fever dream of an I/O, where the company quietly shifted the way it's talking about AI https://www.platformer.news/google-io-2025-ai-everything-everywhere/
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2025-05-16 01:35:45 GMT

I wrote about Great Replacement Grok and the growing number of ways that AI systems are working against their own users. It's the age of adversarial AI: https://www.platformer.news/grok-white-genocide-x-adversarial-ai/
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2025-05-14 00:58:45 GMT

I wrote about AI's memory problems https://www.platformer.news/ai-memory-personalization-privacy-risks/
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2025-05-13 00:59:02 GMT

I wrote about the myth of the "AI-native" startup and new data finding buyers' remorse from CEOs who have attempted to spread it throughout their organizations https://www.platformer.news/ai-native-startup-myth/
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2025-05-09 15:35:13 GMT

It's Hard Fork Friday! This week: Apple lying on the stand, author Karen Hao on AI as an oppressive force, and a lesson in Italian brainrot https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/09/podcasts/hardfork-apple-app-store.html

2025-05-09 00:27:32 GMT

Wrote about the warning hidden in the news that searches declined in Safari for the first time last month https://www.platformer.news/safari-search-decline-apple-google/
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2025-05-07 00:39:35 GMT

Wrote a rare spot of *good* news in tech: a $167 million ruling against NSO Group means it's going to be harder for commercial spyware companies to target innocent people https://www.platformer.news/whatsapp-nso-group-judgment-spyware/
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2025-05-02 14:46:51 GMT

It's Hard Fork Friday! This week: AI sycophants, Kevin's encounter with the orb, and our new segment Group Chat Chat https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/02/podcasts/hardfork-ai-flattery.html

2025-05-01 21:59:15 GMT

Mark Zuckerberg argued this week the user always knows best when it comes to relationships with bot companions. But lots of people don't even feel in control of their relationship with Instagram https://www.platformer.news/mark-zuckerberg-dwarkesh-healthy-bots-loneliness-lmarena/
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2025-04-29 22:04:56 GMT

The AI companies have been caught building AIs that only tell us what we want to hear. If we don't get a handle on it, that's gonna go really badly: https://www.platformer.news/meta-ai-chatgpt-glazing-sycophancy/
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2025-04-22 21:44:48 GMT

I wrote about revelations that Google had an exclusive deal to put Gemini on Samsung phones *this month*, despite the fact that these deals have now twice been deemed illegal in court https://www.platformer.news/google-antitrust-gemini-samsung-deals-remedies-trial/
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2025-04-21 22:57:56 GMT

I wrote about how Google's recent antitrust losses have given hope that a new, more decentralized version of the web might still be possible https://www.platformer.news/google-antitrust-search-advertising-remedies/
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2025-04-15 00:12:13 GMT

On Day 1 of the Meta antitrust trial, the government was stuck arguing about a world — and a market — that no longer really exists https://www.platformer.news/meta-antitrust-trial-zuckerberg-testimony/
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2025-04-11 00:42:18 GMT

I wrote about the grim spectacle of tech CEOs paying Trump and getting many of the policies they wanted — even when those policies undermine Trump's own agenda https://www.platformer.news/meta-antitrust-trump-nvidia-h20/
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2025-04-04 00:47:55 GMT

Among the many other stupid things today is that Trump's reported deal to save TikTok appears to let it keep running exactly as is without addressing the reasons Congress banned it in the first place https://www.platformer.news/trump-tariffs-tiktok/
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2025-04-02 00:27:18 GMT

NEW: AI bots caused Wikipedia's bandwidth costs to increase by 50 percent last year, and are still growing exponentially. I wrote about its plan to fight back — and whether it will be enough. https://www.platformer.news/wikipedia-ai-bot-traffic-costs-plan/
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2025-04-01 00:35:03 GMT

An excerpt from a new book on Sam Altman explains in the greatest detail yet why the board fired him in 2023 — and raises the question of what would have happened if the board had told us all this at the time https://www.platformer.news/we-finally-know-why-sam-altman-was-fired-from-openai/
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2025-03-21 15:36:38 GMT

It's Hard Fork Friday!! This week, we speak with the 21-year-old Columbia student who's about to get kicked out of school for building AI software to help engineers cheat on their job interviews https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/21/podcasts/hardfork-ai-action-plans.html

2025-03-19 00:35:12 GMT

Trump's call for comments on an 'AI action plan' resulted in the big tech companies asking for favors they've wanted forever — and they're using the emergence of DeepSeek to create a possibly dangerous sense of urgency https://www.platformer.news/ai-action-plan-submissions-meta-google-openai-anthropic/
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2025-03-14 00:51:53 GMT

Meta's embrace of Community Notes over professional fact-checkers means people are going to see more nonsense. What a waste of everyone's time and attention https://www.platformer.news/meta-community-notes-launch/
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2025-03-07 01:27:11 GMT

I tested out Google's new AI mode and wrote about the uncertain future it suggests for the web https://www.platformer.news/google-ai-mode-hands-on/
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2025-03-05 02:23:24 GMT

The collapse of Chegg offers a preview of what is going to happen to a lot of companies when AI is finished pulping the web https://www.platformer.news/chegg-google-lawsuit/
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2025-03-04 01:09:03 GMT

Some thoughts on GPT-4.5 https://www.platformer.news/gpt-4-5-ai-policy/
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2025-02-28 01:00:29 GMT

Wrote about Apple's clever answer to the child safety lobby: instead of sacrificing everyone's privacy by making us upload IDs to app stores, create an API to pass along an age range from devices to developers. Child advocates and privacy folks I spoke to like it https://www.platformer.news/apple-age-assurance-child-safety/
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2025-02-26 02:19:08 GMT

I called around to try to figure out why platforms are resisting a push to make them verify kids' ages — which feels like the most privacy-preserving way to address a lot of child safety issues. Here's what I learned: https://www.platformer.news/app-store-age-verification-google-apple/

2025-02-25 01:47:13 GMT

NEW: Google used to warn you when you were seeing low-quality search results. Then, in the weeks leading up to the 2024 election, the company quietly turned that warning off https://www.platformer.news/google-data-voids-warning-banners-2024-election/
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2025-02-21 17:13:59 GMT

It's Hard Fork Friday! This week: Grok 3, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev, and Kevin experiments with vibe coding: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/21/podcasts/hardfork-grok-robinhood.htmlhttps://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/21/podcasts/hardfork-grok-robinhood.html

2025-02-21 02:09:39 GMT

The new chairman of the FTC wants to investigate cENsORsHiP on social platforms and boy do I have a platform for them! https://www.platformer.news/ftc-censorship-investigation-meta-x-community-notes/
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2025-02-19 01:22:58 GMT

Training Grok 3 took Elon 200,000 GPUs and untold billions, and it's ... decent at best? I wrote about AI's commodity problem
https://www.platformer.news/too-many-ai-companies/
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2025-02-14 01:33:17 GMT

Wrote about how Meta backing off of content moderation and continued pressure from the Trump administration now has OpenAI saying it's going to loosen up, too https://www.platformer.news/openai-model-spec-refusals-adult-content/
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2025-02-12 00:34:51 GMT

America's new plan for AI safety is "let's see what happens." I wrote about JD Vance in Paris https://www.platformer.news/paris-ai-action-summit-vance-safety/
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2025-02-11 02:00:40 GMT

At at time when the very idea of content moderation is under assault, I wrote about an effort that gives me hope: a $27 million project to transform trust and safety with open-source tools in the same way that open source transformed cybersecurity https://www.platformer.news/roost-open-source-trust-safety/
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2025-02-07 01:26:20 GMT

I wrote about Google unveiling its 'responsible AI progress report' by quietly deleting the part of its AI principles where it promised not to work on weapons https://www.platformer.news/google-ai-principles-military-safety/
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2025-02-07 01:26:16 GMT

I wrote about Google's leaked 'AI mode' for search and the dwindling number of reasons to post anything for free on the web https://www.platformer.news/google-ai-mode-web-decline-design/
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2025-02-05 02:04:52 GMT

2025-01-24 22:10:01 GMT

I wrote about my first experiences with OpenAI's Operator agent https://www.platformer.news/openai-operator-ai-agent-hands-on/
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2025-01-10 18:39:00 GMT

NEW: Meta just killed its diversity, equity and inclusion program. Employees aren't buying the company's argument that it's the result of a 'shifting legal landscape.' What they're saying inside the company ➡️ https://www.platformer.news/meta-kills-dei-program-diversity-inclusion/
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2024-12-06 01:34:17 GMT

One of the most important debates in tech right now is the group of folks who think AI is fake and sucks vs. the people who think AI is real and dangerous. I wrote about why I'm in the latter camp, and talked about my differences with Gary Marcus https://www.platformer.news/ai-skeptics-gary-marcus-curve-conference/
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2024-10-08 00:10:13 GMT

I wrote about the tension between Facebook redesigning its app to appeal to younger users while its older users simultaneously fill it up with AI slop https://www.platformer.news/facebook-gen-z-redesign-ai-slop/
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2024-09-27 00:24:59 GMT

OpenAI is a weird company https://www.platformer.news/openai-murati-leaves-x-bans-klippenstein/
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2024-09-10 00:03:32 GMT

Today a new terrorism indictment of white supremacists who allegedly ran their operation on Telegram shows that the app's problems are only beginning https://www.platformer.news/telegram-durov-terrorgram-indictment/
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2024-06-13 23:05:46 GMT

NEWS: After sustained attacks from House Republicans, the Stanford Internet Observatory is being dismantled. A huge blow to academic freedom and our ability to understand platforms and influence operations https://www.platformer.news/stanford-internet-observatory-shutdown-stamos-diresta-sio/
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2024-05-22 00:03:18 GMT

A few more words about the OpenAI / Scarlett Johansson situation https://www.platformer.news/platform-sales-tax-california-sb1327-glazer/
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2024-05-21 00:48:34 GMT

The past week of news out of OpenAI illustrates how a company that once prized moving with caution is now dead set on winning at all costs, whatever Scarlett Johansson or anyone else thinks about it https://www.platformer.news/open-ai-scarlett-johansson-her-voice-sam-altman/
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2024-05-15 00:23:46 GMT

With today’s announcements at Google I/O, the web has entered a state of managed decline https://www.platformer.news/google-io-ai-search-sundar-pichai/

2024-05-10 00:05:26 GMT

I wrote about Reddit, Stack Overflow, and how this new more extractive era of the internet has changed the bargain between platforms and users https://www.platformer.news/ai-data-licensing-reddit-stack-overflow-protest-openai/
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2024-04-26 00:27:55 GMT

All your questions about the TikTok ban, answered! https://www.platformer.news/tik-tok-ban-bytedance-faq-timeline/
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2024-04-17 00:16:59 GMT

My review of Airchat is that Clubhouse was actually a lot more fun!! https://www.platformer.news/airchat-naval-ravikant-audio-app-x-brazil/
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2024-04-16 00:07:57 GMT

Brutal reviews for Humane Ai Pin suggest that the tech industry's overpromising about AI is starting to catch up with it. I wrote about where the company went wrong https://www.platformer.news/humanes-folly-and-the-ai-hype-hangover/
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2024-04-10 00:07:52 GMT

I wrote about the case of the missing TikTok ban. A month after that bill passed the House, ByteDance is not acting like a company that is scared of what the Senate might do https://www.platformer.news/tiktok-ban-senate-april-house-schumer-cantwell/
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2024-04-03 00:08:52 GMT

Threads will be nine months old on Friday. I wrote about the competing visions of what the app is for — and how in spite of itself, it has become a place to catch up on the news: https://www.platformer.news/threads-news-politics-gas-leak-network/
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2024-04-02 00:04:11 GMT

Now that Perplexity said that 'sponsored queries' are coming to its plagiarism engine, I wrote about the risks of ad-based chatbots https://www.platformer.news/perplexity-ai-ads-privacy-risks/
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2024-03-20 00:10:13 GMT

It's hard to get too excited about Reddit as a business on the eve of its IPO. But its vision of decentralized moderation and niche communities is still one of my favorite versions of the internet https://www.platformer.news/reddit-ipo-business-content-moderation-decentralization/

2024-03-15 00:08:15 GMT

On the occasion of CrowdTangle being sunset, I talked with Nick Clegg, Brandon Silverman, Kevin Roose and the Oversight Board's Naomi Shiffman about what it meant and the future of platform transparency https://www.platformer.news/meta-crowdtangle-shutdown-dsa-platform-transparency/

2024-03-13 00:09:48 GMT

The fact that most synthetic media is mediocre hasn't stopped it from spreading everywhere — even in politics, where some of the same officials who warn about the dangers of AI are using it to promote themselves and attack their rivals https://www.platformer.news/chatbot-industry-2024-mediocrity-politics/
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2024-03-12 00:48:37 GMT

Sam Altman gets what he wants https://www.platformer.news/sam-altman-openai-board-wilmer-hale-investigation/
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2024-02-23 15:49:10 GMT

It’s Hard Fork Friday! This week, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis on all those new models, life after AGI, and the whole woke chatbot thing https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/23/podcasts/google-deepmind-demis-hassabis.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb

2024-02-16 01:03:37 GMT

Who killed Twitter — Jack Dorsey or Elon Musk? @npub1c2e…hqs2 and @npub1699…lrzs, authors of two new books on the subject, interview each other about what they learned: https://www.platformer.news/kurt-wagner-battle-for-the-bird-interview-zoe-schiffer-extremely-hardcore/

2024-02-09 15:39:09 GMT

It's Hard Fork Friday! This week, Bluesky CEO Jay Graber on our decentralized future. Plus, how Adobe's failed acquisition of Figma shook up Silicon Valley ➡️ https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/09/podcasts/hard-fork-bluesky-figma.html

2024-02-06 01:59:07 GMT

After experiencing a kind of visceral revulsion using the Arc Search app, I wrote about how tech platforms are accelerating the decline of the web https://www.platformer.news/arc-search-quora-poe-perpexity-journalism-web-future/
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2024-01-30 01:07:23 GMT

Apple's Vision Pro is a really compelling device, and I loved my short time with it. But I'm not sure we quite understand yet what it's *for* https://www.platformer.news/apple-vision-pro-hands-on-impressions/?ref=platformer-newsletter
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2024-01-26 01:16:27 GMT

The Taylor Swift harassment campaign on X is a warning. These same tools are already being used to harass average people across lots of platforms, and the response from tech companies and lawmakers hasn't been nearly good enough https://www.platformer.news/taylor-swift-deepfake-nudes-x/
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2024-01-23 01:30:55 GMT

I've never quite understood how Meta plans to make money by investing billions in AI language models and then giving them away for free. So I spent the day talking to people in and out of the company about it https://www.platformer.news/meta-bets-bigger-on-ai/
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2024-01-19 16:54:50 GMT

It’s Hard Fork Friday! This week, Kevin and I talk through OpenAI's election plans. Then, David Yaffe-Bellany stops by to explain how Bitcoin ETFs came to Wall Street. And finally, New York's John Herrman joins to discuss what he learned selling a used mechanical pencil on TikTok https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/19/podcasts/ai-elections-bitcoin-tiktok.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

2024-01-12 15:22:49 GMT

It's Hard Fork Friday! This week, Kevin grills me about leaving Substack. Then, WSJ's Kirsten Grind joins to talk about Elon's drug use, and researcher Felix Wong tells us how AI may have discovered a new treatment for MRSA https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/12/podcasts/hard-fork-substack-controversy-musk-drugs.html

2024-01-12 01:03:45 GMT

Platformer is leaving Substack https://www.platformer.news/p/why-platformer-is-leaving-substack
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2024-01-08 22:53:19 GMT

Some news: Substack will remove some Nazi publications, it tells Platformer. It insisted this is not a reversal of its previous stance but a fresh interpretation of its existing guidelines https://www.platformer.news/p/substack-says-it-will-remove-nazi
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2024-01-05 18:25:29 GMT

- reply

@npub1qag…9gyn oh god forbid anyone ever try to change anything for the better! keep your armchair sanctimony to yourself

2024-01-05 01:29:27 GMT

Some thoughts on Substacks and Nazis https://www.platformer.news/p/why-substack-is-at-a-crossroads