Notices by Jason Koebler (jasonkoebler@mastodon.social)

Scoop: The databases powering doge. gov are insecure, and people outside the government have already pushed their own updates to the site to prove it:

https://www.404media.co/anyone-can-push-updates-to-the-doge-gov-website-2/

Wikipedia is rolling out anonymity features piloted in countries with authoritarian governments in the US & is making a change to not show editor IP addresses in response to a global "increase in threats" from Elon Musk, Heritage Foundation, and governments

https://www.404media.co/wikipedia-prepares-for-increase-in-threats-to-us-editors-from-musk-and-his-allies/

NEW: DOGE employees have been ordered to stop using Slack while the agency transitions itself to a legal regime that is not subject to FOIA and other government transparency laws

https://www.404media.co/doge-employees-ordered-to-stop-using-slack-while-agency-transitions-to-a-records-system-not-subject-to-foia/

scoop: Musk's DOGE has brought in Stephanie Holmes, an HR consultant & attorney focused on "non-woke" HR and a version of DEI "aligned with our faith." Has spoken at Federalist Society, with members of Heritage Society, at religious conferences:

https://www.404media.co/musks-doge-brings-in-hr-consultant-focused-on-non-woke-dei-aligned-with-our-faith/

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a declassified World War II-era CIA guide to sabotaging fascism in the workplace has become one of the most popular free ebooks on the internet:

https://www.404media.co/declassified-cia-guide-to-sabotaging-fascism-is-suddenly-viral/

Turns out "incinerate money and boil the oceans" was not the smartest strategic gambit

https://www.404media.co/deepseek-mania-shakes-ai-industry-to-its-core/

New: The manufacturer of a medical device that costs six figures has told hospitals that they will no longer be allowed to fix them. Hospitals must now sign repair contracts with the manufacturer if they want the device fixed. Repair monopoly in action:

https://www.404media.co/medical-device-company-tells-hospitals-theyre-no-longer-allowed-to-fix-machine-that-costs-six-figures/

The last few weeks have really highlighted just how fragile corporate social media is, and just how beholden to political power it is. To build any sort of ground-up power we must continue to invest in decentralized alternatives that are resistant to intervention

https://www.404media.co/decentralized-social-media-is-the-only-alternative-to-the-tech-oligarchy/

The simple truth is that nonconsensual porn AI "nudify" apps are viable because they get almost all of their traffic from social media ads. One of the largest one is getting *90 percent* of its traffic from Instagram ads. 90 percent! This is only going to get worse

https://www.404media.co/instagram-ads-send-this-nudify-site-90-percent-of-its-traffic/

New: The FTC has formally sued John Deere over its tractor repair monopoly, which is the strongest punitive action the federal government has ever taken against a company over restricting right to repair

https://www.404media.co/ftc-sues-john-deere-over-its-repair-monopoly/

Meta is deleting links to Pixelfed, a decentralized, open source Instagram competitor that has had skyrocketing signups in recent days:

https://www.404media.co/meta-is-blocking-links-to-decentralized-instagram-competitor-pixelfed/

Beautiful stuff: "It’s not really enjoyable to make music now… it takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of practice, you have to get really good at an instrument... I think the majority of people don’t enjoy the majority of time they spend making music."

https://www.404media.co/ceo-of-ai-music-company-says-people-dont-like-making-music/

New: Meta has deleted trans and nonbinary Messenger themes, as well as the blog posts announcing them. Happens the same week that it has changed its rules to allow users to say LGBTQ+ people are "mentally ill"

https://www.404media.co/meta-deletes-trans-and-nonbinary-messenger-themes/

New: Meta employees are furious about a new policy that allows users to call LGBTQ+ people "mentally ill." Some have resigned in protest. Some LGBTQ+ employees have started saying they if they are 'mentally ill' they should get leaves of absence from work

https://www.404media.co/its-total-chaos-internally-at-meta-right-now-employees-protest-zuckerbergs-anti-lgbtq-changes/

We had to evacuate Los Angeles. Most of my friends have also had to leave. We are safe in San Diego and our apartment is unlikely to burn down. We are very lucky. But alongside the visceral horror of the wildfires there is also the mundanity of dystopia

https://www.404media.co/were-fine-los-angeles-wildfires/

NEW: On the same day Mark Zuckerberg announces Meta's new commitment to "Free Expression," internal employee dissent and criticism is being censored

https://www.404media.co/facebook-deletes-internal-employee-criticism-of-new-board-member-dana-white/

Hundreds of police license plate cameras are misconfigured to stream unencrypted to the open internet.

A privacy researcher took these streams and turned them into a real-time database that tracks car movements & information, highlighting how invasive this tech is

https://www.404media.co/researcher-turns-insecure-license-plate-cameras-into-open-source-surveillance-tool/

Sentences I did not think I would write: Videos of mass shootings, suicides, and gore are being run through Runway's AI, turned into Minions, and then posted to social media to evade content moderation

https://www.404media.co/minion-gore-videos-use-ai-to-post-murder-to-instagram-tiktok-and-youtube/

New: Days after Meta had to kill its AI-generated profiles due to backlash, some Instagram users are now being shown AI-generated images of themselves that are being automatically created by Instagram and put in their feeds

https://www.404media.co/instagram-begins-randomly-showing-users-ai-generated-images-of-themselves/

As of today, Pornhub is now blocked in almost all of the American South. The only place where it is still freely available is Georgia, where it will be blocked in July

https://www.404media.co/pornhub-is-now-blocked-in-almost-all-of-the-u-s-south/