thanks Alex 💔 this sucks, but hopeful that I'll be back in your inbox with AI questions soon
keep subscribing!! my remaining colleagues will continue doing excellent work
🥹 thanks so much Brandon. I’ll be back at it soon mark my words!!
🥹 thanks Joe. I’m gonna miss you sm!!
Not that it'll stop me! -- you can keep following my internet culture coverage here on my new Substack. Please feel free to share.
bytatumhunter.substack.com
Not that it'll stop me! -- you can keep following my internet culture coverage here on my new Substack. Please feel free to share.
bytatumhunter.substack.com
Lost my job at the Washington Post today, along with many of the best in the business. I want to keep covering tech and the internet. If you have leads on jobs for me or my colleagues, please reach out. I’m so proud of our work.
yep!
X says Grok account will stop undressing women. I just tested the standalone Grok app, which immediately complied with my request to undress a photo of me. This is illegal, according to the legal experts I spoke with.
Critics say we're seeing a major social media app popularize -- and then profit from -- digitally undressing women and girls. This comes after Congress passed a federal anti-deepfake law last April.
4. Musk announces Thursday that Grok's image generation and editing will be limited to paying subscribers. X's in-app revenue jumps 20 percent day-over-day compared to the same period last year. Sexual deepfakes continue to soar -- about 60 percent of Grok's total public output.
3. Musk and X's head of product Nikita Bier take to the platform repeatedly to boast about X's soaring traffic and downloads.
2. X ignores questions from the press. Its safety account posts that the company is taking "action against illegal content" including child sex abuse material. Images depicting real women and children in degrading sexual clothing, poses and scenarios continue to pile up.
1. Users begin flocking to X to use its chatbot Grok to "undress" photos of real women and children. Unlike other image generators, Grok doesn't meaningfully limit these requests. Non-consensual deepfakes and child sex abuse material proliferates across X.
As we speak, non-consensual deepfakes are making the jump from shadowy forums and small nudify apps to mainstream social media. This has huge implications for women and children, who are almost always the targets. Here's what's happening: 🧵
. @maryannefranks.bsky.social to @tatumhunter.bsky.social: “All law, in order to be effective, has actually got to mean something to the person who is potentially going to violate it, right? They have to be scared that they’re going to be punished in some way" www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...
The industry has spent years fighting to contain non-consensual deepfakes. X just threw open the floodgates, seemingly with impunity?
wrote about the rise and further rise of candace owens, whose unapologetically unhinged right-wing conspiracy theories have made her one of the most popular political voices in america — and are now causing headaches for the MAGA movement that backed her wapo.st/3MKjPwg w/ @tatumhunter.bsky.social
Candace Owens has said that Bill Gates uses laced mosquitoes to make people allergic to beef, that the earth may not be round and that the moon landing was “fake and gay.” Her MAGA fellows draw the line, however, at her comments on Charlie Kirk and Israel.
wapo.st/3MKjPwg
This has interesting implications for bigger conservations about mental health, infinite scroll, self-diagnosis and the attention economy. I hope you give it a read! From @jeremybmerrill.com and me.
Exclusive: TikTok's mental health "rabbit hole" is real. We used user data to show that the algorithm bends toward this content -- watching one mental health video spawns more similar videos than watching one about sports or Taylor Swift. And it takes more work to get it back out of your feed. 🧵/1
Today is day 1 of Australia's social media ban for kids under 16. Here's how that's going.
www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...
Are you an Australian with tweenage kids? I'm a journalist who'd like to chat about your upcoming week, for reasons you've already guessed 🙃
DMs open, or tatum.hunter@washpost.com
whatever you please!
this year, mainstream corporate marketing took up the ragebait playbook, and you helped 😃
w @nitasha.bsky.social
“I understand that by posting all this on her TikTok that she has upped her ratings and gained followers,” Kathy McDonald-Choate, a congregant at East Somerset Baptist in Kentucky, told The Washington Post. “I would not want to be her on Judgment Day.”
NEW: With SNAP benefits paused, one TikToker started calling churches and asking if they'd help with a can of baby formula.
Most said no. Then their responses went viral.
from me and @michelleboorstein.bsky.social
wapo.st/4oJywOk
This pastor fell for a TikTok stunt and sparked a debate on Christian charity.
Fascinating reporting with me and @tatumhunter.bsky.social
www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...
