Academia
The Stanford Internet Observatory is being dismantled
House Republicans attacked the lab’s reports on misinformation and election integrity — and now Stanford is pulling the plug
Zoë Schiffer
Managing editor of Platformer
How one change to Google search blew up one independent publisher
Until last year, Retro Dodo had a growing business and a team of six. Now it’s fighting for its life
Labor
How the tech industry soured on employee activism
When social justice protests swept the country in 2020, tech companies mostly welcomed employee activism. The Gaza demonstrations are getting a much different reception
AI
Publishers gamble over AI licensing deals
Is it smarter to take the deal they can get — or fight it out in court?
Child Safety
Inside the debate over The Anxious Generation
Jonathan Haidt wrote a best-selling book about teens and social media. Not everyone buys its thesis
Startups
Marissa Mayer’s eternal Sunshine
Behind the rocky launch of a photo-sharing app was a co-founder about to quit and months of employee warnings that its new project wasn’t ready
Grindr
Inside Grindr's plan to squeeze its users
The company’s bet on AI boyfriends and other paywalled features is making some employees nervous
Meta
Meta's data dance with its Oversight Board
The board needs data to determine whether Meta is listening to its recommendations. It isn't always forthcoming
X
Who killed Twitter?
Was it Jack Dorsey or Elon Musk? Kurt Wagner and Zoë Schiffer, authors of two new books on the subject, interview each other about what they learned
Mastodon
How Mastodon made friends with Meta
Founder Eugen Rochko on helping Threads federate, dodging venture capital, and why he hopes Bluesky abandons its protocol
Newsletter
14 predictions about 2024
AI! Elections! Threads! Media! And more
Newsletter
Amazon’s Q has ‘severe hallucinations’ and leaks confidential data in public preview, employees warn
Some hallucinations could ‘potentially induce cardiac incidents in Legal,’ according to internal documents
Newsletter
Ten strategies for replacing Twitter from people who used to work there
Announcing 'Extremely Hardcore,' Zoë Schiffer’s book on Musk’s Twitter takeover
Newsletter
Why one AI executive quit his job to protest creators' rights
Q&A with Stability AI's just-departed vice presidenct of audio, Ed Rex-Newton
Newsletter
How Musk is borrowing from X to build Grok
From servers to people, Musk is looking across his empire to catch up in AI
Newsletter
Twitter is dead and Threads is thriving
One year after Elon Musk let that sink in, an elegy for the platform that was — and some notes on the one that is poised to succeed it