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 ,...
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of the internet generation”, is declining in use as young users say GIFs are “cringe” and MP4 videos make the format outdated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 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...
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...
A profile of wikiHow, which draws an estimated 125M visitors each month and views its commitment to the principles of the open web as a key differentiator
and on the better internet that we could maybe still have if we wanted it—is just! so! good! https://www.theatlantic.com/ ... https://twitter.com/... Cooper Fleishman / @_cooper : “It became one of th...
A moderator for r/relationships, a subreddit with 2.6M members, talks about the rigid moderation policies that have kept the subreddit from devolving into chaos
and when it is, it's reduced to the alt-right stuff. but while the decentralization + anonymity make it hard to study, they also make it so unique. https://twitter.com/... Leah Libresco / @leahlibresc...
Most period-tracking apps are designed more to aid marketers and medical companies in collecting health data for ad targeting than for women
The golden age of menstrual surveillance is great for men, marketers, and medical companies. — A cartoon cloud told me I might be pregnant. Tweets: @kait_tiffany , @jamespmcleod , @nishachittal , @p...
Profile of Know Your Meme, a website and video series that has been documenting viral online content and internet meme culture for over ten years
Kaitlyn Tiffany / The Verge : Tweets: @kait_tiffany , @claire_mcnear , and @mikerugnetta Tweets: Kaitlyn Tiffany / @kait_tiffany : i love love the gorgeous pics by my hero, @Holowaty and the lil meme...