Dan Gillmor

Ars Technica headlines on Oct. 4: A biological 0-day? Threat screening tool may miss AI-designed proteins Google confirms Android dev verification will have free and paid tiers, no public list of devs Ars Live: Is the AI bubble about to pop? Apple removes ICEBlock, won't allow apps that report locations of ICE agents HBO Max subscribers lose access to CNN livestream on November 17

This screenshot Ars Technica's homepage headlines the other day demonstrates how completely the tech and media giants are enshittifying what they've created.

(Text of headlines in the alt of the image)

Apple and Google block apps that crowdsource ICE sightings. Some warn of chilling effects Apple and Google blocked downloads of phone apps that flag sightings of U.S. immigration agents, just hours after the Trump administration demanded that one particularly popular iPhone app be taken down.

Google joins Apple in caving in to Trump regime re ICE-spotting app.

Looks like Android side-loading will the only way forward.

Big Tech's cowardice is disgusting, though no surprise.

Don’t dwell on “democracy,” and other new findings about how to market local news "Here’s the paradox: 93% of people believe reliable local news is necessary for democracy, yet many of these same people react negatively to explicit 'democracy' messaging."

The word "democracy" has been poisoned by people who love dictatorship. BIg Journalism poisoned its own well. We need to talk up "local/community news and information" if we want people to care about saving both.

"With five congressional seats at stake, virtually all of our national legacy media made the choice not to send anyone" to cover a hearing on whether what Texas did was illegal.

Democracy Docket is there, however. More evidence that we now have to rely on small outlets.

newsletters.democrac...

Bari Weiss, Who Thinks Everything Is Woke, Will Be CBS Editor-in-Chief Anti-woke, anti-trans, pro-Israel Bari Weiss will soon lead one of the biggest media companies in the U.S.

The once-sterling CBS News has been sucked into the right-wing vortex, and its fascist-supporting owners are making no pretense about what their plans are.

So, for me, henceforth, it is CBS "News" -- and I say that with deep sadness for journalism, and our nation.

AP headline: "Democrats voted for a shutdown. Now they have to find a way out"

So Big Journalism is definitely in the tank for the Republican spin on the shutdown.

Trump is "exactly what George Washington feared could happen with an unscrupulous commander in chief," writes Tom Nichols in the Atlantic:

archive.ph/Tsfv3

Meanwhile, Big Journalism mostly treats paranoid menace as just another political story.

"Who goes Nazi?" -- everyone should read this classic from the great Dorothy Thompson.

harpers.org/archive/...

In 2022, the world axed a disease name seen as racist. US just switched back. The name was not only offensive, it was also inaccurate.

Trump regime didn't bring back a racist word despite the racism.

They did it BECAUSE it is racist.

Doesn't even begin to capture the malicious, anti-American nature of this thing.

Story lede: "In the end, it was just another campaign-style presentation. President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recited a familiar litany of partisan culture war talking points in their highly anticipated call-up of several hundred military officers on Tuesday."

NYT headline: "Trump and Hegseth Recount Familiar Partisan Complaints to Top Military Leaders"

This is how the New York Times pretends to do journalism -- treating the Trump/Hegseth fascist military event as just routine partisan politics.

The Times will go down in history as a quisling operation, and its bosses will be remembered for their cowardice.

The Mainstream Media Is Catastrophically Failing To Meet The Moment Earlier today we wrote about Trump’s extraordinary admission that he was basing military deployment decisions on old Fox News footage and lies from his advisors. But there’s an even mor…

Our "mainstream" media are consistently botching their jobs, directly -- and IMO willfully -- assisting the fascists who are destroying our nation.

Occasional pieces of real journalism do not begin to fix Big Journalism's malpractice. Mike Masnick has more:

Orders Project The Orders Project is a non-partisan program created by the National Institute for Military Justice to assist military personnel in understanding their options when faced with orders they believe may...

If you know anyone in the U.S. military at any level, please make sure they see The Orders Project, "a non-partisan program...to assist military personnel in understanding their options when faced with orders they believe may not be legal."

NYTimes headline: "Explaining the G.O.P.’s Misleading Talking Point on the Looming Shutdown"

"Misleading talking points" -- GMAFB.

As usual, the New York Times refuses to call blatant lies what they are -- apparently because they come from Republicans, who lie about almost everything but always, always get the Paper of Record's benefit of the doubt.

Criminal investigation launched after feds fire pepper ball at CBS Chicago reporter's truck CBS News Chicago reporter Asal Rezaei said she was turning away from the facility's fence when a masked agent shot a pepper ball at her truck.

Can local/state law enforcement do anything about criminal feds? At least one blue state is going to try, it seems.

YouTube to pay $24.5 million to settle Trump lawsuit | CNN Business YouTube agreed to pay $24.5 million to settle a lawsuit filed by President Donald Trump after he was suspended by social media platforms following the January 6, 2021, insurrection.

Just like the other Big Media payoff "settlements" to Trump in his string of bogus lawsuits, Google's millions are proof that he is a successful extortionist -- and that they are willing to pay bribes. Don't think otherwise.

Google just erased 7 years of our political history Google appears to have deleted its political ad archive for the EU; so the last 7 years of ads, of political spending, of messaging, of targeting - on YouTube, on Search and for display ads - for countless elections across 27 countries - is all gone. We had been told

Google deletes history:

Conde Nast has by far the most frustrating digital subscription system I've ever encountered. It would have to improve to be merely bad.

Nexstar and Sinclair bring Jimmy Kimmel's show back to local TV stations Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair Broadcast Group have brought Jimmy Kimmel's late-night show back to their local TV stations.

A rare bit of good news: right-wing media companies Nexstar and Sinclair decided the advertising money the Kimmel show spins off is more important than doing Dear Leader's bidding. This is a loss for Trump, at least for the moment.

Kristi Noem Fast-Tracked Millions in Disaster Aid to Florida Tourist Attraction After Campaign Donor Intervened The DHS chief has been widely criticized for slowing down FEMA’s response after natural disasters. Texts and emails obtained by ProPublica point to an effective way to get help faster: have one of Noem’s big donors make the ask.

All corruption, all the time in Trump world, Exhibit 56,045:

ByteDance (TikTok owner) valuation is north of $300 billion. Trump "deal" to give it to his oligarch supporters is "valued" at $14 billion, says Vance.

So correct me if this is wrong: They're essentially nationalizing a foreign company and giving it to cronies who'll pay pennies on the dollar.

Billions in Taxpayer Dollars Have Become Virtually Untraceable The Trump administration’s aggressive approach to overhauling the executive branch has obscured how federal dollars are actually being spent — even for the members of Congress.

www.notus.org/trump-...
3/3

A few journalists from smaller organizations are trying -- Big Journalism is mostly AWOL -- but they don't have subpoena power.

Given Trump world's epic corruption, the unaccountable billions are plainly that way by by design.
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Trump regime has disappeared billions of dollars of taxpayers' money -- not even Congress has been able to trace what it's being spent on, and who's getting the loot.

Congress isn't trying very hard -- the Republicans are complicit and the Democrats are not just powerless but incompetent.
1/3

Why are people planning to boycott Chobani yogurt? What to know What to know about the Planet Harvest controversy.

I was a fan -- and regular customer -- of Chobani yogurt. No more, since its deal with the corrupt Trump family.

www.yahoo.com/news/a...

(Good grief, this article needs a copy editor to fix basic grammar...)

Justice Dept. Official Pushes Prosecutors to Investigate George Soros’s Foundation

This is, without any exaggeration, exactly how Putin and Orbán proceeded — using antisemitism to discredit the idea of civil society and political opposition, and as an excuse to undo the rule of law.
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/25/u...

Live updates: Former FBI Director Comey indicted on charges of making false statement, obstruction Follow the latest news on President Donald Trump and his administration | September 25, 2025

Comey's blatantly political intervention in the 2016 election put Trump in the White House in the first place.

Now the Trump regime has indicted him on transparently political grounds.

It's a total abuse of power, and sickeningly ironic.

AI Slop Invades the Office AI slop is taking over workplaces. Workers said that they thought of their colleagues who filed low-quality AI work as "less creative, capable, and reliable than they did before receiving the output."

Increasingly common use of "AI" in workplaces is "not proving to be that useful, has not resulted in widespread productivity gains, and often ends up creating messes that human beings have to clean up."

www.404media.co/emai...

Solid roundup from 404 Media, one of the best new journalism orgs...

How ICE Raids Are Making It Easier for Civilian Men to Assault Immigrant Women "This phenomenon is only possible because of the outsized power that state agents have always had to abuse and control women and victims' bodies," argues Kylie Cheung.

From Teen Vogue, which is doing some of the best journalism about the extremist cult now in charge of the U.S. government:

www.teenvogue.com/st...

We need to assume that every masked person kidnapping people off the street is a criminal, whether employed by the Trump regime or not.