A profile of nonprofit Common Crawl, which has scraped billions of webpages since 2013, including paywalled ones, to build an archive used by OpenAI and others
Editor's note: This work is part of AI Watchdog, The Atlantic's ongoing investigation into the generative-AI industry. X: @kait_tiffany . Bluesky: @katienotopoulos , @damonberes.com , @justinhendrix ,...
Some parent groups are hosting Alternative Device Fairs, which showcase phones with limited features, social media blocking, and AI age-based content filters
Kaitlyn Tiffany / The Atlantic :
GIF, once called “the file format of the internet generation”, is declining in use as young users say GIFs are “cringe” and MP4 videos make the format outdated
The internet's file format has been diagnosed as “cringe,” but there are other threats to its existence. Tweets: @apollozac , @ianbetteridge , @cooksipgo , @kendallbaker , @laurenshippen , @mangmangma...
A writer created a politically bland Facebook profile to test the app's algorithm for extreme content, and ended up being shown low-quality, clickbait posts
In 2019, a researcher at Facebook conducted an experiment to see whether the platform really has a tendency to send users … Tweets: @golikehellmachi , @joshtpm , @jbouie , @mckaycoppins , @jaywillis ,...
A look at Remember the Internet, a series of pocket-sized books dedicated to immortalizing subcultures and combating the ephemerality of being online
often because the people in charge cast things off on a whim https://www.theatlantic.com/ ... Adrienne LaFrance / @adriennelaf : “We really thought we were doing something revolutionary... in a very a...
A look at the growing online movement against multilevel-marketing companies, as TikTok becomes the first major platform to explicitly ban multilevel marketing
Kaitlyn Tiffany / The Atlantic : Tweets: @iansherr , @scottgerber , @kaitlinmaud , and @theatlantic Tweets: Ian Sherr / @iansherr : How is it that TikTok is so much on top of it than Facebook and Twi...
A look at teen TikTok stars like “Mooptopia”, who achieved sudden viral fame and found it hard to contend with the devotion and nonstop attention of fans
Teens are making it big overnight, but that kind of fame can be a mixed bag. — A girl sits alone on an ugly couch … Tweets: @mattnavarra , @mikeelgan , @adriennelaf , @justinbrookman , @kait_tiffany...
Inside DayLife Army, a social media cult, spun off from a Facebook group, that seduces young people with empty promises of a better world
The DayLife Army always seemed like a troll. Then it became a nightmare. — started with a tweet. In the fall of 2013, Matthew had recently turned 18 … Tweets: @judyberman , @charlottejee , @adhoce...
American teens, stuck at home during the pandemic, are looking to recreate the fun of prom online, with many turning to TikTok
Kaitlyn Tiffany / The Atlantic :
Profile of Downdetector, a resource for determining website and platform outages; Downdetector relies almost exclusively on user reports since 2001
Kaitlyn Tiffany / The Atlantic : Tweets: @mattnavarra , @kait_tiffany , and @slaskow Tweets: Matt Navarra / @mattnavarra : A glimpse inside the place we all head when Twitter or Facebook is down http...