-
Tech NewsWho on Earth Taught You People How to Eat?
Depending on where you’re eating and who you’re eating it with, the rules around food can be stunningly complex. The core concept, however, is that food is inserted into the mouth, and once it’s there, if you find it impossible to masticate with human teeth or discover the object to be a source of pain/bleeding, … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
io9
This Clever Westworld Sleuth Found the ‘Raj’ Park Months Ago, and There’s Still More to Uncover
Westworld’s latest park reveal may have seemed like a surprise to many viewers, but there have been hints about Park 6 for months. Of course, they weren’t easy to find, but someone did. We’ve got an interview with the fan who first came across the code to “the Raj,” and what he’s since found that … Continued
-
Tech News
Reddit Is Helping Some People Deal With Their Mental Health Struggles
Reddit’s gotten plenty of deserved criticism over the years for hosting some of the most toxic communities on the internet. But a new study published this month in the Journal of Medical Internet Research suggests that at least some subreddits are helping people dealing with depression and other mental health issues come out of their … Continued
By Ed Cara -
Tech News
Reddit CEO Confirms Racial Slurs Are Just Fine on His Site [Updated]
In the midst of Mark Zuckerberg’s hours-long testimony before the Senate Commerce and Judiciary Committees, Reddit dropped its 2017 transparency report. It contained a list of nearly 1,000 user accounts the company believed were involved with the Russia-backed Internet Research Agency—and unlike other social media companies, Reddit has also preserved those banned accounts’ posts for … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
Tech NewsPrivacy & Security
Reddit: We’ve Found 1,000 Suspected Russian Troll Accounts, But Most of Them Sucked at Getting Upvotes
Reddit says it has identified and plans to purge 944 accounts suspected to be tied to the Internet Research Agency (IRA), a Russian troll farm that has been linked to an alleged campaign to spread disinformation and propaganda on US social media sites before the 2016 elections. In a post to the site’s announcements subreddit, … Continued
By Tom McKay -
Tech News
Reddit’s Big, Dumb Meme War Ends in Tears
An imagined war between dozens of meme communities on Reddit has been called off following the hacking of a chat server and the posting of a moderator’s personal information online. From start to finish, the entire conflict took less than a week. Early skirmishes of the Meme World War, as it came to be known, … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
Tech News
Tumblr’s State-Sponsored Disinformation Blogs, Ranked
America was the target of broad, state-sponsored disinformation campaigns waged through social media platforms. Tumblr, one of the less popular targets, released a list of 84 accounts it believes to be associated with this nefarious plot, which the company plans to maintain as more information becomes available. (It also alerted uses via email if they … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
Tech News
Reddit Bans Slew of Communities Amid New Rule Targeting Sales, Trades, and Giveaways
Reddit’s bread and butter may be links and comments, but the site has a long history as a facilitator of gift swaps, and a backwoods marketplace. New site rules enacted today make much of that behavior prohibited. A post in Reddit’s site announcements community (aptly titled r/announcements) states: As of today, users may not use … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
Tech News
The Greatest Flamewar of 2018 Is Two Redditors Calling Each Other ‘Twat’ for Four Straight Weeks
No matter how wrong you are or how petty the infraction, the only rule of an online slapfight is to never, ever back down. As a result, a Russian novel’s worth of insults have been written on Our Cursed Internet, ranging from incisive quips to sourced-and-cited takedowns. For two Redditors with strong feelings and a … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
io9Television
Westworld‘s Creators Want the Show’s Online Fan Theorists to Help Shape the Second Season
Given that the first season of Westworld’s puzzle-like plot was designed to keep audiences guessing up until the finale, it’s unsurprising that a vibrant community of fan theorists quickly sprung up to unpack the show’s many mysteries. Westworld co-creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy are well aware of the fandom (particularly the show’s Reddit community) … Continued
-
Tech News
Reddit Bans AI-Powered Fake Porn
Following Twitter, Discord, Imgur, and Pornhub, Reddit has taken action to ban the posting of AI-generated fake porn—commonly called “deepfakes.” There’s nothing especially new about the sort of doctored images where a popular celebrity’s face is stitched onto a nude body. It’s smut as old as the internet. But the FakeApp greatly lowers the technological … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
Tech NewsPrivacy & Security
Pornhub Says Digitally Generated ‘Deepfakes’ Are Non-Consensual and It Will Remove Them
After Reddit and image-hosting platform Gfycat began removing porn videos digitally altered via machine-learning techniques to swap performers’ faces with those of someone else’s—a genre known as deepfakes—porn site Pornhub is following their lead. Per Motherboard, Pornhub said that it considers generating deepfakes of other people to be clearly non-consensual. It compared deepfakes to revenge … Continued
By Tom McKay -
Tech News
Cops: Guy Who Crashed Boston Trolley Was Trying to Delete Reddit Post
In December, 17 people were injured after a trolley car collided with another in Boston, which was initially attributed to an “operator error.” But more details have now emerged, with authorities saying the trolley driver was trying to delete a Reddit post right before the crash. Police say the driver, 42-year-old Leroy H. Mattison, also … Continued
-
Tech NewsPrivacy & Security
There’s a Reddit Clone Phishing People Who Type Too Fast
People make mistakes, and that’s why Gooogle.com, Yaho.com, and Amazan.com redirect to the websites you’d hope they would point to. Reddit.co? We don’t recommend you visit it. It’s common practice—codified in the days before browser autocomplete—for major websites to register misspelled domains and have them jump to the name butterfingered users meant to type. Among … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
Tech NewsPrivacy & Security
The Purge of AI-Assisted Fake Porn Has Begun
It was only a matter of time before more sophisticated fake porn videos surfaced online. But a crackdown on this super-realistic fake porn is already beginning. Reddit and Gfycat, two popular platforms where users have been uploading the fake porn, have begun to eradicate the manipulated smut, which is often so convincing that it blurs … Continued
-
Tech News
American Psychiatrist In Japan Sues Redditors For Talking Shit Online
In a twisting and intercontinental case of ‘mad online,’ an American psychiatrist practicing in Tokyo has filed a defamation suit against Redditors who derogated his services. In a suit filed in Florida, Dr. Douglas Berger is seeking damages in excess of $15,000, alleging libel and defamation after anonymous commenters called him a “scam artist” and … Continued
-
Tech News
How a Reddit Email Vulnerability Led to Thousands in Stolen Bitcoin Cash
Beginning over two weeks ago, reports have trickled in on Reddit community “r/btc”—the de facto hub for supporters of bitcoin rival bitcoin cash (BCH)—of accounts being compromised by a new and worrying attack vector. What may have read to skeptics as infighting between two contentious factions was confirmed today as a genuine and novel hack … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
Tech News
Movie Theater Chain Kills Uber-Style Surge Pricing After Internet Backlash
An Australian movie theater chain said it has ended “dynamic pricing” trials on Wednesday after Redditors complained of “price gouging.” Last week, an anonymous user uploaded an internal memo from Village Cinemas describing concession stand increases during busy periods. After images of the memo circulated online, Village Cinemas announced that all pricing trials had been … Continued
-
Tech News
Netflix Freaks Out Users with Creepy Black Mirror Marketing Stunt
Users of Turkey’s equivalent to Reddit received an unsettling message late last night. Across the site, users began complaining that they’d received a mysterious DM from an account named “iamwaldo” that left many people feeling paranoid and anxious. It appears that was the intention of the message, which is actually a viral marketing ploy to … Continued
By Rhett Jones -
Tech News
Study Says Most Redditors Won’t Read This Story Before Voting on It
Most people are guilty of sharing a story on Facebook or Twitter that they didn’t read. And according to a new study, users are no different when it comes to performatively upvoting articles on Reddit. What’s most surprising is just how often those votes are impulse clicks. According to Motherboard, a new paper by a … Continued
By Rhett Jones