Louise Matsakis

Apple Pulls China’s Top Gay Dating Apps After Government Order The removal of Blued and Finka marks another setback for China’s marginalized LGBTQ+ community.

SCOOP: China's top 2 gay dating apps, Blued and Finka, became unavailable on app stores over the weekend. Apple confirmed to WIRED that it removed the two apps following "an order from the Cyberspace Administration of China."

latest with @lmatsakis.bsky.social

Apple Pulls China’s Top Gay Dating Apps After Government Order The removal of Blued and Finka marks another setback for China’s marginalized LGBTQ+ community.

SCOOP: Apple just pulled two of the most popular gay dating apps in China from after receiving an order from the country's top internet regulator. From me & @zeyiyang.bsky.social
www.wired.com/story/apple-...

One of the best newsletters I receive tbqh

Are you curious about what’s really happening in China’s tech ecosystem?? Sign up for our weekly newsletter MADE IN CHINA: www.wired.com/newsletter/e...

TikTok Shop Is Now the Size of eBay TikTok’s ecommerce arm has kept growing steadily, despite tariffs and never-ending debates over whether the platform should be banned.

Despite Trump's tariffs and never-ending political drama, TikTok's e-commerce business is exploding, @zeyiyang.bsky.social reports in this week's Made in China www.wired.com/story/tiktok...

Meta doesn't want to crack down on all the scams too quickly because it will hurt revenue

Meta itself estimates that it's involved in 1/3 of all successful scams in the United States lol

this is the craziest thing I've read in a long time???? Meta projected that 10% of its revenue last year, $16 billion, came from scams. Meta intentionally charges the scammers MORE and knows that people who click on scams are more likely to see more of them www.reuters.com/investigatio...

The Age of Anti-Social Media Is Here The social-media era is over. What’s coming will be much worse.

this is so good and really captures what's sinister about everyone befriending chatbots.

"They provide some facsimile of companionship while allowing users to avoid uncomfortable interactions or reciprocity," writes @damonberes.com www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...

Jake is incredibly well-sourced, enthusiastic, kind, and just a pleasure to work with. I am going to miss having his byline on WIRED so much

Mark Zuckerberg Opened an Illegal School at His Palo Alto Compound. His Neighbors Revolted Neighbors complained about noise, security guards, and hordes of traffic. An unlicensed school named after the Zuckerbergs’ pet chicken tipped them over the edge.

Incredible reporting from @carolinehaskins.bsky.social about a school Mark Zuckerberg opened on his Palo Alto compound and operated for years with no permits, permissions, anything at all

OpenAI Says Hundreds of Thousands of ChatGPT Users May Show Signs of Manic or Psychotic Crisis Every Week OpenAI Says Hundreds of Thousands of ChatGPT Users May Show Signs of Manic or Psychotic Crisis Every Week

The sheer volume of people showing signs of mania, psychosis, and suicidal ideation each and every week on ChatGPT is staggering, alarming, awful, all of it. from @lmatsakis.bsky.social www.wired.com/story/chatgp...

If you remember this video of Chinese guys mimicking AI, then I've got a treat for you: I just talked to its creator, a 29-year-old actor in Hangzhou named Mu Tianran 穆天然, about how he captures AI slop's essensse so well, and why Sora 2 made him worry about his job.
www.wired.com/story/made-i...

People Who Say They’re Experiencing AI Psychosis Beg the FTC for Help The Federal Trade Commission received 200 complaints mentioning ChatGPT between November 2022 and August 2025. Several attributed delusions, paranoia, and spiritual crises to the chatbot.

Scoop: I sent a public record request to the FTC for complaints mentioning ChatGPT. I got 200 complaints back, but a couple stood out.

They described experiencing severe delusions, paranoia, and spiritual crises, and they attributed it to ChatGPT:
www.wired.com/story/ftc-co...

People Who Say They’re Experiencing AI Psychosis Beg the FTC for Help The Federal Trade Commission received 200 complaints mentioning ChatGPT between November 2022 and August 2025. Several attributed delusions, paranoia, and spiritual crises to the chatbot.

@carolinehaskins.bsky.social got all of the complaints Americans sent to the Federal Trade Commission about ChatGPT. A handful of them are from people who said the chatbot reinforced their delusions and made psychotic episodes worse www.wired.com/story/ftc-co...

Forget SEO. Welcome to the World of Generative Engine Optimization This holiday season, more shoppers are expected to use chatbots to figure out what to buy. ‘Tis the season for GEO.

Really interesting stuff from @zoeschiffer.bsky.social here on "GEO," the SEO equivalent for large language models like Chat GPT: www.wired.com/story/goodby...

Lmao, Chinese online sellers are already making replicas of the stolen treasures from Louvre. No one moves faster than them.

China Rolls Out Its First Talent Visa as the US Retreats on H-1Bs The Chinese government unveiled a program to woo foreign talent just as the US cracked down on H-1Bs with a $100,000 fee. The move immediately provoked xenophobic backlash.

The Chinese government has unveiled a program to woo foreign talent -- right as the US admin is cracking down on H-1B visas.

For Made in China this week, I wrote about China's new K visa program, which launched right as the US made H-1Bs dramatically more expensive. Sign up for the newsletter here: www.wired.com/newsletter

this is a really important project, and I can't think of anyone better than @damonberes.com to be leading it

Thanks for flagging this! I really appreciate it. Each edition of our Made in China newsletter has the same red gradient on the associated imagery/photograph for branding consistency, but we agree it can be confusing. We're going to see how we can improve it.

one answer to that question, Dan said, is that the US needs to learn to swallow its pride and accept investment from Chinese companies

Dan said that Moses absolutely should have been indicted by people like The Power Broker author Robert Caro, but the broader point is, how do we get the US back to a place where it can recover some of its engineering muscles?

Dan said "it doesn't make sense that we are still stomping on Robert Moses' name" at a time when NYC can't build infrastructure to save its life

Why China Builds Faster Than the Rest of the World In a his new book Breakneck, Dan Wang argues that if the US really wants to compete with China, it needs to focus more on engineering and less on litigating.

For this week's edition of Made in China, @zeyiyang.bsky.social spoke to Dan Wang about his new book, which argues that China is an engineering state and America is a nation ruled by lawyers www.wired.com/story/dan-wa...

A24’s Latest Has Already Made More Money Than Any Star Wars Movie. I Bet You’ve Never Heard Of It. It isn’t even here yet, and it’s already misunderstood.

one of the best film reviews I've read in a while, I miss when more places published work like this.

“It may shock some Americans to learn that many Chinese people, on many days, don’t even have the thought of America cross their minds,” @jennygzhang.bsky.social writes slate.com/culture/2025...

Government Staffing Cuts Have Fueled an Ant-Smuggling Boom “It’s getting out of hand,” one seller says. “They realize the US market is a gold mine.”

🐜 🐜 🐜 New from @knibbs.bsky.social: "Inside the world of illicit wildlife trafficking, there’s a growing assumption that nobody in government is paying attention."

www.wired.com/story/usda-a...

Labubus Are on Track to Be a Billion-Dollar Business This Year Pop Mart, the Chinese company behind the Labubu franchise, has sold $670 million worth of related products so far this year—more than iconic US toy lines Barbie and Hot Wheels.

Pop Mart, the Chinese company behind the Labubu franchise, says it now has 571 retail stores around the world www.wired.com/story/labubu...

$670 million worth of Labubus have been sold this year so far already, @zeyiyang.bsky.social reports

What it’s ultimately selling them is not just software, but the idea of a seamless, almost magical solution to complex problems. To do that, Palantir often uses the language and aesthetics of warfare, painting itself as a powerful, quasi-military intelligence partner. “Palantir is here to disrupt and make the institutions we partner with the very best in the world,” Palantir CEO Alexander Karp says in a February 2025 earnings call, “And when it's necessary, to scare enemies, and on occasion, kill them.”

Really really good piece from @carolinehaskins.bsky.social on Palantir: www.wired.com/story/palant...