8 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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Reddit is profitable for the first time ever, with nearly 100 million daily usersReddit is profitable for the first time ever, with nearly 100 million daily users
Emma Roth
Emma Roth
WordPress reportedly asks WordCamp organizers to delete posts that “don’t align” with its views.

Screenshots shared on X show emails from WordPress.com parent company Automattic asking the owners of WordCamp Sydney — a community-organized WordPress conference — to remove posts related to WP Engine.

Meanwhile, a separate email from the company requests that event organizers share “all active social media accounts” login credentials with Automattic to ensure “safe storage for all future events.”

WordPress demands conf organizers share social media logins

[The Register]

The company behind Arc is now building a second, much simpler browserThe company behind Arc is now building a second, much simpler browser
Google Calendar gets a redesign and dark modeGoogle Calendar gets a redesign and dark mode
Emma Roth
Emma Roth
“WordPress.org is not WordPress.”

The attorneys for WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg make that very clear in a legal response to WP Engine’s lawsuit. The response also blames WP Engine for relying on WordPress.org, “a website owned and run by Defendant Matt Mullenweg individually:”

WP Engine, a private equity-backed company, made the unilateral decision, at its own risk, to build a multi-billion dollar business around Mr. Mullenweg’s website. In doing so, WP Engine gambled for the sake of profit that Mr. Mullenweg would continue to maintain open access to his website for free. That was their choice.

Google’s taking the extra search box out of your search resultsGoogle’s taking the extra search box out of your search results
Adi Robertson
Adi Robertson
The ‘archive’ part of the Internet Archive is back.

IA is slowly recovering from the cyberattack it faced earlier this month, and its latest update brings back a read-only version of archive.org — its digital library full of old games, magazines, videos, and more.

Internet Archive Services Update: 2024-10-21

[Internet Archive Blogs]

The IDF and Hamas wage a social media war: here’s what you need to knowThe IDF and Hamas wage a social media war: here’s what you need to know
The Internet Archive hackers still have access to its internal emailing toolsThe Internet Archive hackers still have access to its internal emailing tools
WP Engine asks court to stop Matt Mullenweg from blocking access to WordPress resourcesWP Engine asks court to stop Matt Mullenweg from blocking access to WordPress resources
Automattic offered employees another chance to quit over WordPress dramaAutomattic offered employees another chance to quit over WordPress drama
David Pierce
David Pierce
“RSS basically works like social media should work.”

Cory Doctorow makes a strong case for replacing pretty much your entire internet feeds experience with an RSS reader, and spoiler alert he’s right and you should:

Using RSS is a chance to visit a utopian future in which the platforms have no power, and all power is vested in publishers, who get to decide what to publish, and in readers, who have total control over what they read and how, without leaking any personal information through the simple act of reading.

Pluralistic: You should be using an RSS reader (16 Oct 2024)

[Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow]

The character assassination of Janet Jackson by the coward Justin TimberlakeThe character assassination of Janet Jackson by the coward Justin Timberlake
Melodrama!Melodrama!
Joanna Nelius
Google Flights makes it easier to find the cheapest airfareGoogle Flights makes it easier to find the cheapest airfare
What Gmail did to emailWhat Gmail did to email
Barbara Krasnoff
A long time ago, we used to be friendsA long time ago, we used to be friends
Facebook put us out thereFacebook put us out there
Alex Heath
Google Chrome’s uBlock Origin phaseout has begunGoogle Chrome’s uBlock Origin phaseout has begun
Where did our 2004 photos go?Where did our 2004 photos go?
Allison Johnson
The internet’s homepageThe internet’s homepage
David Pierce
They’re called “Podcasts”They’re called “Podcasts”
David Pierce
2004? 2024? Or Both?2004? 2024? Or Both?
Kevin Nguyen
WordPress.org’s latest move involves taking control of a WP Engine pluginWordPress.org’s latest move involves taking control of a WP Engine plugin
The Internet Archive is still down but will return in ‘days, not weeks’The Internet Archive is still down but will return in ‘days, not weeks’
Jacob Kastrenakes
Jacob Kastrenakes
“Automattic is completely out of line, and the potential damage to the open source world extends far beyond WordPress,”

writes David Heinemeier Hansson, the CTO at 37signals and creator of the open-source framework Ruby on Rails.

DHH says it “occasionally irks” him to see companies failing to contribute to Ruby on Rails, but that’s the rules:

None of the major licenses, however, say anything close to “it’s free but only until the project owners deem you too successful and then you’ll have to pay 8% of your revenues to support the project”. That’s a completely bonkers and arbitrary standard based in the rule of spite, not law.

Automattic is doing open source dirty

[world.hey.com]

The Internet Archive is under attack, with a breach revealing info for 31 million accountsThe Internet Archive is under attack, with a breach revealing info for 31 million accounts
Jacob Kastrenakes
Jacob Kastrenakes
The latest volley in the WordPress beef:

WordPress.org’s contributor login page now requires users to certify that they are “not affiliated with WP Engine in any way, financially or otherwise.” 404 Media spotted the new checkbox.

A screenshot of WordPress.org’s login page with a checkbox stating, “I am not affiliated with WP Engine in any way, financially or otherwise.”
Read more: The messy WordPress drama, explained.
Screenshot: The Verge
How a UK treaty could spell the end of the .io domainHow a UK treaty could spell the end of the .io domain
Jay Peters
Jay Peters
iCloud.com finally gets dark mode.

You can also set a background color, see pinned notes, and more. MacRumors has the full list of updates.

A screenshot of new features promoted on iCloud.com.
Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge
Mastodon switches things up to make its app a little easier to useMastodon switches things up to make its app a little easier to use
Wes Davis
Wes Davis
The shortcut to AI-generated smartphone-style photos.

As a reminder that AI image generators’ training data tends to include peoples’ regular smartphone photos, try entering an iPhone-like picture file name into the prompt field for Flux1.1 Pro, as this person did.

I got some similar results when I tried prompts like “IMG_4001.JPG” with its predecessor, Flux.1, a model that drives xAI’s Grok-2 image generation.

The much simpler way to keep track of everythingThe much simpler way to keep track of everything
Wes Davis
Wes Davis
Lego’s site was hacked to promote fake crypto.

An X post spotted by The Brick Fan flagged to the company yesterday that its online shop was displaying a “LEGO Coin” cryptocurrency banner.

Naturally, there is no such thing; Lego tells Engadget that the situation was quickly resolved and no user data was compromised.

Wes Davis
Wes Davis
YouTube has almost reversed all the damage from a channel-deleting glitch.

After a bug “incorrectly flagged” some channels for spam and removed them, YouTube started working on getting the channels back. That’s done, the Team YouTube X account posted — now it’s just working to get the last few videos reinstated.

Wes Davis
Wes Davis
Texas is suing TikTok for sharing minors’ personal data.

State Attorney General Ken Paxton alleges that TikTok has violated the Securing Children Online through Parental Empowerment Act by not giving parents control of their kids’ privacy and account settings, writes Reuters. TikTok denied the allegations in a statement to The Texas Tribune.

TikTok A federal judge blocked part of the act requiring large social networks to stop harmful content from reaching minors just prior to the law taking effect on September 1st.

Texas sues TikTok for violating children's privacy

[Reuters]

Matt Mullenweg: ‘WordPress.org just belongs to me’

The lines between the WordPress open-source project, the nonprofit backing it, and the commercial arm owned by Automattic are blurring.

Emma Roth
WordPress cofounder is paying employees to leave if they disagree with himWordPress cofounder is paying employees to leave if they disagree with him
Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Mozilla on the future of advertising and privacy.

In a blog post, Mozilla president Mark Surman writes about the organization’s plans to fix the “fundamentally broken” online advertising industry:

We have the beginnings of a theory on what fixing it might look like — a mix of different business practices, technology, products, and public policy engagements. And we have started to do work on all of these fronts.

You can read Mozilla’s full plan in the post linked below.

A free and open internet shouldn’t come at the expense of privacy | The Mozilla Blog

[The Mozilla Blog]

Google’s AI search summaries officially have adsGoogle’s AI search summaries officially have ads

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