Notices by 404 Media (404mediaco@mastodon.social)

New Microsoft study finds that using generative AI at work makes employees' critical thinking skills "atrophied and unprepared"

https://www.404media.co/microsoft-study-finds-ai-makes-human-cognition-atrophied-and-unprepared-3/

"Everything I say leaks," Zuckerberg says in leaked meeting audio. "It sucks"

https://www.404media.co/zuckerberg-says-everything-i-say-leaks-in-leaked-meeting-audio/

New: Meta has deleted trans and nonbinary Messenger themes, as well as the blog posts announcing them. Happens the same week that it has changed its rules to allow users to say LGBTQ+ people are "mentally ill"

https://www.404media.co/meta-deletes-trans-and-nonbinary-messenger-themes/

New: Days after Meta had to kill its AI-generated profiles due to backlash, some Instagram users are now being shown AI-generated images of themselves that are being automatically created by Instagram and put in their feeds

https://www.404media.co/instagram-begins-randomly-showing-users-ai-generated-images-of-themselves/

Luigi Mangione fan art, merch, and photos are getting hit with bogus copyright takedown requests all over the internet. Artists and journalists affected. Very difficult to tell who is doing it, but one company says they received a request from United Healthcare:

https://www.404media.co/copyright-abuse-is-getting-luigi-mangione-merch-removed-from-the-internet/

New: At least 11 passenger planes were targeted with lasers above New Jersey last night amid drone panic, according to an analysis by @lemonodor and Air Traffic control audio we downloaded. Some audio snippets in article

https://www.404media.co/we-are-getting-lasered-nearly-a-dozen-planes-lasered-last-night-during-new-jersey-drone-panic/

X's legal filing in the InfoWars bankruptcy case is both batshit crazy and also what you'd expect. It asserts that X owns every account, can do whatever it wants with them, and can inject itself into legal proceedings that have nothing to do with it.

This is why it's incredibly important that people invest in platforms that they own, and move toward federated/decentralized/portable, noncorporate social media as rapidly as possible

https://www.404media.co/xs-objection-to-the-onion-buying-infowars-is-a-reminder-you-do-not-own-your-social-media-accounts/

AI slop is being weaponized by the internet's worst grifters, who do not care that it's not real as long as it helps them further their political agenda

https://www.404media.co/hurricane-helene-and-the-fuck-it-era-of-ai-generated-slop/

After months of digging and reporting, we have learned where Facebook's bizarre AI spam (like "Shrimp Jesus") comes from, who is making it, how it works, and how it is monetized.

Turns out Meta is directly paying people to spam FB with this stuff

https://www.404media.co/where-facebooks-ai-slop-comes-from/

NEW: Tumblr and Wordpress are preparing to sell user data to Midjourney and OpenAI, according to internal documentation we've reviewed

https://www.404media.co/tumblr-and-wordpress-to-sell-users-data-to-train-ai-tools/

Feds catch major darknet drug operation because the people running it put the return address of a real business that was confused when hundreds of pills of meth kept getting return-to-sendered

https://www.404media.co/darknet-drug-dealers-arrested-after-packages-of-meth-laced-adderall-repeatedly-returned-to-sender/