Joseph Cox

Thank you to everyone who came to 404 Media Live last night in Los Angeles. Shocked how many people came, and our test of some live-streaming tech was a success. We’ll definitely do more in the future. Recording probably on pod feed soon.

404 Media @ Rip Space hang out stream YouTube video by 404 Media

We are live streaming from LA to test our gear come check it www.youtube.com/live/URaS3Eg...

Living Next To Tesla Diner Is 'Absolute Hell,' Neighbors Say We talked to people living in the building whose views are being blocked by Tesla's massive four-story screen.

Living next to the Tesla diner is “absolute hell,” according to neighbors we spoke to. Illegal construction, people moved out. Constant noise.

www.404media.co/living-next-...

Podcast: The Tea Hack Just Keeps Getting Worse The massive Tea breach; how the UK's age verification law is impacting access to information; and LeBron James' AI-related cease-and-desist.

The 404 Media Podcast is up!
- the Tea breaches
- age verification law leads to blocks on Reddit
- subscribers: LeBron James pregnant AI

Apple/Spotify/YouTube: www.404media.co/podcast-the-...

Two data breaches in one week on social media site Tea A dating app, Tea, that was created to privately share information has been breached -- twice. We learn more about the user information that was hacked.

Went on NPR to talk about our reporting revealing the Tea breaches, and what happens when sites ask for uploads of selfies or IDs www.npr.org/2025/07/29/n...

Tea User Files Class Action After Women’s Safety App Exposes Data The Plaintiff claims Tea harmed her and ‘thousands of other similarity situated persons in the massive and preventable cyberattack.’

Tea user files a class action against Tea, cites the two data breaches we first reported. First, selfies + driver licenses. Second, more than a million DMs www.404media.co/tea-user-fil...

Gun Nerds Dismantle Infamous Pistol to Research If It Fires at Random The Sig Sauer P320 has a reputation for firing without pulling the trigger. The manufacturer says that's impossible, but the firearms community is showing the truth is more complicated.

I've been fascinated, in the last few days, with Guntubers investigating a popular and ubiquitous handgun that seemingly fires on its own, at random.

UK Users Need to Post Selfie or Photo ID to View Reddit's r/IsraelCrimes, r/UkraineWarFootage “If visibility of r/IsraelCrimes is being restricted under the Online Safety Act, it’s only because the state fears accountability,” moderators say.

Several Reddit communities dedicated to sharing news and media from conflicts around the world now require users in the UK to submit a photo ID or selfie in order to prove they are old enough to view “mature” content. Includes r/IsraelCrimes, r/UkraineWarFootage.

www.404media.co/uk-users-nee...

Los Angeles tomorrow:
- July 30, 6PM
- at RIP Space
- free for 404 Media subscribers, $10 everyone else
- free beer/wine
- live pod recording about the tech behind ICE
- tickets and subscriber code here: www.404media.co/come-party-w...

Tea App Turns Off DMs After Exposing Messages About Abortions, Cheating 404 Media first contacted Tea about the security issue on Saturday. The company disabled direct messages on Monday after our report.

New: Tea has turned off DMs after we found it was possible for hackers to get them. We obtained a cache of more than a million DMs, discussing abortions, cheating, more. I told Tea about this issue on Saturday. Tea only disabled DMs after we published on Monday www.404media.co/tea-app-turn...

Meta Is Going to Let Job Candidates Use AI During Coding Tests "This is more representative of the developer environment that our future employees will work in."

New from 404 Media: Meta is going to let job candidates use AI during coding tests, according to internal Meta communications we've seen. "This is more representative of the developer environment that our future employees will work in."

www.404media.co/meta-is-goin...

One user tells another they just discovered their husband on the app being discussed. “I am his wife,” many of the messages say. Another appears to show a woman contacting others about a man she is engaged to. Multiple messages which appear to show women discussing their abortions. Chat logs between women discovering they are dating the same man, exchanging information such as what car he drives for verification. To verify the data, 404 Media took usernames from the dump of messages and tried to create accounts on Tea with them. This was not possible because the usernames were already in use, indicating that the messages do belong to real Tea users.

We verified the Tea direct messages by taking usernames from the list and trying to make accounts on Tea with them. This wasn't possible because the usernames already existed, meaning the data relates to real Tea users www.404media.co/a-second-tea...

A Second Tea Breach Reveals Users’ DMs About Abortions and Cheating The more than one million messages obtained by 404 Media are as recent as last week, discuss incredibly sensitive topics, and make it trivial to unmask some anonymous Tea users.

Tea app had another security issue that revealed one million private messages between users. This is incredibly private and dangerous information in the wrong hands www.404media.co/a-second-tea...

Women sign up to Tea anonymously, and Tea says it will protect that anonymity. With these messages it is trivial to de-anonymize many of the women using Tea. Unclear who else has this data beyond us, malicious or otherwise. www.404media.co/women-dating...

A Second Tea Breach Reveals Users’ DMs About Abortions and Cheating The more than one million messages obtained by 404 Media are as recent as last week, discuss incredibly sensitive topics, and make it trivial to unmask some anonymous Tea users.

New from 404 Media: a second data breach at Tea has exposed more than a million direct messages between users that we obtained. Discussions of abortions, cheating. The other data was older. This is as recent as *last week*. Hard to overstate how sensitive this data is www.404media.co/a-second-tea...

Former Moderator Sues Chaturbate for 'Psychological Trauma' “Without these safeguards, Mr. Barber eventually developed full-blown PTSD, which he is currently still being treated for,” the former mod's lawyer said.

A former Chaturbate moderate is suing the live-streaming porn platform for psychological trauma after being exposed to "extreme, violent, graphic" content. We've all heard of Facebook, Instagram, etc moderators; rare insight into Chaturbate moderation
www.404media.co/former-moder...

Here's the letter Amazon sent us about "inaccuracies" it believed it found with our reporting showing a hacker put 'wipe' code into a version of Amazon's Q AI-powered assistant. The piece is accurate, we didn't update, Amazon wanted us to cut a lot. More here: www.404media.co/behind-the-b...

Tea's statement said images from some direct messages were also impacted www.404media.co/women-dating...

After publication of this article, Tea confirmed the breach in an email to 404 Media. The company said on Friday it “identified unauthorized access to one of our systems and immediately launched a full investigation to assess the scope and impact.” The company says the breach impacted data from more than two years ago, and included 72,000 images (13,000 selfies and photo IDs, and 59,000 images from app posts and direct messages). “This data was originally stored in compliance with law enforcement requirements related to cyber-bullying prevention,” the email continued. “We have engaged third-party cybersecurity experts and are working around the clock to secure our systems. At this time, there is no evidence to suggest that current or additional user data was affected. Protecting our users’ privacy and data is our highest priority. We are taking every necessary step to ensure the security of our platform and prevent further exposure.”

Update: Tea just confirmed breach in an email to us. Says impacted older database, also includes some direct message images www.404media.co/women-dating...

Tea, the viral women's safety dating app, has been breached: www.404media.co/women-dating...

The thread says the issue was an exposed database that allowed anyone to access the material. While reporting this story, a URL the 4chan user posted included a voluminous list of specific attachments associated with the Tea app. 404 Media saw this list of files. In the last hour or so, that page was locked down, and now returns a “Permission denied” error.

We observed the database being shut off in real time. Originally we could see a list of the files; while we were writing, that changed to a "permission denied" error www.404media.co/women-dating...

Women Dating Safety App 'Tea' Breached, Users' IDs Posted to 4chan “DRIVERS LICENSES AND FACE PICS! GET THE FUCK IN HERE BEFORE THEY SHUT IT DOWN!” the thread read before being deleted.

The viral app Tea left part of its database exposed and 4chan is posting the IDs of its users. Vuln closed but only after it went viral on 4chan

www.404media.co/women-dating...

404 Media verified that Tea does contain the same storage bucket URL that 4chan claims was related to the exposure. 404 Media did this by downloading a copy of the Android version of the app and decompilinglying its code.

We verified in part by taking the URL of the Firebase bucket that contained the exposed photos, and checking this matched the one used by Tea. I did this by downloading Tea APK, decompiling, finding it in there. It matched www.404media.co/women-dating...

Women Dating Safety App 'Tea' Breached, Users' IDs Posted to 4chan “DRIVERS LICENSES AND FACE PICS! GET THE FUCK IN HERE BEFORE THEY SHUT IT DOWN!” the thread read before being deleted.

New from 404 Media: viral woman's dating safety app Tea breached. 4chan taking peoples' uploaded photos, used to verify its a woman-only app. App recently hit no. 1 in App Store. “DRIVERS LICENSES AND FACE PICS! GET THE FUCK IN HERE BEFORE THEY SHUT IT DOWN!” www.404media.co/women-dating...

Grindr Won’t Let Users Say 'No Zionists' An error message appears saying "The following are not allowed: no zionist, no zionists" when users try to add the phrase to their bios, but any number of other phrases about political and religious p...

New: Grindr won’t allow users to add “no Zionists” to their profiles, but allows any number of other phrases that state political, religious, and ethnic preferences, according to 404 Media’s tests of the platform and user reports www.404media.co/grindr-no-zi...

LeBron James' Lawyers Send Cease-and-Desist to AI Company Making Pregnant Videos of Him Viral Instagram accounts making LeBron 'brainrot' videos have also been banned.

New from 404 Media: LeBron James' lawyers send cease-and-desist to AI company making pregnant videos of him. Marks one of the first known times that a celebrity has threatened legal action against an AI company for enabling nonconsensual AI imagery of their likeness www.404media.co/lebron-james...

We discussed this now clear cultural phenomenon, especially on TikTok: people feel it's their duty to film people in public they may not agree with, or find hot, or whatever, and then do whatever they can to track them down. It's fucking weird! Sub to hear the rest: www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFYy...

search term -ai

produces results without the ai summaries btw

Google’s AI Is Destroying Search, the Internet, and Your Brain Google’s AI Overview, which is easy to fool into stating nonsense as fact, is stopping people from finding and supporting small businesses and credible sources.

Google's AI summaries are
- killing traffic to legitimate sites
- producing summaries that can be wrong
- in the long run probably making you a dumbass

www.404media.co/googles-ai-i...

Google’s AI Is Destroying Search, the Internet, and Your Brain Google’s AI Overview, which is easy to fool into stating nonsense as fact, is stopping people from finding and supporting small businesses and credible sources.

the research showing Google AI Overview is stopping people from clicking links is a huge huge huge problem not just for websites but for people's brains which are about to be absolutely mangled www.404media.co/googles-ai-i...