Katie Notopoulos over at Business Insider used Meta’s personal chatbot feature to create a bot of herself trained on her posts — and its main personality trait, she says, was “millennial cringe.” There’s also an incredible follow-up when Katie realizes her bot has been trained on her Threads posts, which are overrun with rage bait.
Elon Musk has been having secret conversations with Russian president Vladimir Putin since 2022, The Wall Street Journal reports, discussing “personal topics, business, and geopolitical tensions.”
Musk is in a powerful position: not only is he rich, but he has proximity to the federal government via SpaceX. Musk’s support of Donald Trump reached new levels this month when he appeared at rallies — and Trump himself has reportedly been in touch with Putin.
A t-shirt company is running thousands of ads claiming to donate a portion of sales to Trump, Harris, and other political causes, 404 reports. In reality, the company appears to be based abroad — which means it’s either lying about making campaign contributions, or illegally making campaign contributions.
Last year the YouTuber sued his business partner in charge of MrBeast Burgers, after customers complained about “inedible” and “revolting” food. Undeterred, this year MrBeast partnered with Logan Paul and KSI to launch Lunchly, a line of Lunchables-style snack boxes — that are apparently full of mold. If your kid asks for them maybe show them these pictures.
The company is adding a STEM feed for all US, Great Britain, and Ireland-based users that surfaces technology and science content. The feed itself isn’t new, but now it will be enabled by default.
An educational feed could be a way for TikTok to push back against a potential ban in the US and lawsuits that say the app is dangerous to kids.
Mike Jeffries, the longtime head of the mall fashion brand, has been charged with sex trafficking. Multiple men say they were sexually exploited at events held by Jeffries and associates, according to a BBC investigation.
A&F has an unsavory history involving racism and discrimination, recently chronicled in a 2022 documentary. Even so, business has been booming for the company in recent years.
For over 100 years, M&S Schmalberg, a factory in New York’s garment district, has made artificial fabric flowers — the only remaining business of its kind in the US.
I stumbled upon this short documentary by Joshua Charow and was mesmerized by the detail and precision of this craft. Schmalberg’s flowers have adorned clothing worn by everyone from Met Gala attendees to hotel employees.
Over the last few years, tech companies have rolled back transparency tools, laid off trust and safety teams, and submitted to right-wing, Republican-led campaigns calling for less moderation online.
CNN has a deep dive into how some platforms have loosened rules to permit disinformation and other harmful content, especially around 2020 election lies.
