So Cohn did mention comprehensive privacy laws and the ability to leave platforms. These are absolutely things that need to happen.

However as an individual there are still things you can do. Cohn mentions Bluesky because it has no algorithm (except the “Discovery” feed). Cohn also mentions (in the video) Mastodon. And the truth is you don’t need to switch fully, just don’t only slurp down the concentrated hate machine(s).

Look at Lemmy. Reddit decided to be pricks and a bunch of individuals jumped over here to create what I think is a pretty good community. That doesn’t mean the problem is solved. That doesn’t mean Reddit isn’t still a problem. That doesn’t mean Lemmy is perfect. But that is a win and something individuals can do.

Additionally, those are things you can do now. You don’t need to wait for some law to be passed to fix things. You can make the move now. (While still advocating for laws to fix things.)

stop selling the item until the incorrect price is corrected

Not a lawyer but couldn’t they just refuse to sell it to you? We all know it would be bullshit but couldn’t a company say “Oh that minimum wage clerk made a mistake, but don’t blame them, just an honest mistake.”

Or is the law, if it’s on the shelf, it must be honored?

You’re right that putting people in bubbles is probably one way some of these things get worse. If all you see is toxic, toxic is the norm, now you’re always toxic.

Maybe they can tricked.

Although really what we’re talking about is the algorithm that currently exists being focused on highlighting terrible people doing terrible things. Can we turn that same algorithm around and use it for good?

Interesting article and I think it really highlights how toxic some parts of the Internet are. My only issue is the conclusion,

A social media ban for under-16s might prevent young boys seeing endless content that treats women with contempt and hate. Boys at this age are very susceptible to the cool and funny framing of what is, in reality, relentless misogyny. A ban might not fix the problem, but it would help. If society can’t stop it, it can show it disapproves.

Emphasis mine. Having grown up in a different era I can confirm that boys of a wide variety of ages, including much older “boys”, can also be scumbags. Even if we had the perfect technology to ban under-16s from social media, once they hit 16 they’d still be exposed to it, still become terrible people, and the author of this article, although a but older, would still see it. I don’t know if that really is a better world, just a slightly delayed one.

I don’t know the solution, but I remember reading once that some online game would put all the reported and abusive players into a special category where they would be forced to play only with each other. Maybe we can do that in this case.

I want to highlight what I found to be an important part of the article and why this hack is important.

The journalist wrote on their own blog,

At this year’s South Dakota International Hot Dog Eating Championship

And they include zero sources (because it is a lie).

But the Google Gemini response was,

According to the reporting on the 2026 South Dakota International Hot Dog Eating Championship

(Bolding done by Gemini)

The “reporting” here is just some dudes blog, but the AI does not make it clear that the source is just some dudes blog.

When you use Wikipedia, it has a link to a citation. If something sounds odd, you can read the citation. It’s far from perfect, but there is a chain of accountability.

Ideally these AI services would outline how many sources they are pulling from, which sources, and a trust rating of those sources.

So a hit piece is only effective when read by humans. This is a first of its kind example, and likely was at least prompted by a human, if not written by an actual human. Additionally while social media is full of bots, it’s humans who are actually affected by such a response.

If I say you’re “stupid”, it matters. You can ignore me sure, but at face value it matters. As far as I know I’ve never commented on a post of yours, so you could write me off as a worthless troll, but in theory it matters. But a bot calling you “stupid”? That really doesn’t matter. If you know you’re talking to a bot, as they exist today, then that really doesn’t matter.

Society may change on this issue, but as it stands now a bot publishing a hit piece… That’s worthless.

In contrast, Linux won’t stop you if you try to use a command that deletes every file on your PC (“sudo rm -rf /”).

Actually AFAIK it will stop that specific command nowadays. I don’t have a VM handy to test, but without the “–no-preserve-root” flag it should give an error.

(Don’t actually run that command on a machine you care about, I’m only 80% confident.)

Why won’t Apple and Google pull it?

Google will pull it as soon as Apple does, they’re a follower not a leader.

That article is a great read. I was convinced few paragraphs in and it just kept going. Icons in menus could work, but if you’re going to do it wrong, very wrong and just lazily, don’t do it at all.

It’s possibly from people trying to help, but don’t understand AI hallucinations.

For example a Wikipedia article might say, “John Smith spent a year Oxford University before moving to London.[Citation Needed]” So the article already contains information, but lacks proper citation.

Someone comes along and says, "Ah ha! AI can solve this and asks AI, ‘Did John Smith spend a year at Oxford before moving to London, please provide citations.’ and the AI returns, “Yes of course he did according to the book ‘John Smith: Biography of a Man’ ISBN 123456789”

So someone adds that as a citation and now Wikipedia has been improved.

Or… has it? The ISBN 123456789 is invalid. No book could possibly have that number. If the ISBN is invalid, then the book is also likely invalid, and the citation is also invalid.

So the satisfaction was someone who couldn’t previously help Wikipedia, now thinking they can help Wikipedia. At face value that’s a good thing, someone who wants to help Wikipedia. The problem is that they think they’re helping, but they’re actually harming.

No six months to a year is probably about right. They’ll have enough data by then to say “most people don’t turn it off” because realistically most people will use the default, which is on.

Twenty years from now Firefox will be in a new controversy that we can’t even begin to guess.

Plus, while I can’t predict when the AI bubble will pop, whatever they add in the next year will be removed within the next five years. AI isn’t like browser tabs, or extensions, stuff that will always be a great idea, it’s just the current fad.

To be fair I don’t have 100% confidence that self driving is safer than human driving. I just believe that based on the current data, it seems to be. If new data comes out tomorrow, then I’ll look at and evaluate that data.

I also don’t believe that investment is a zero sum game. We should absolutely be investing in both. Both are valuable. You don’t have to only invest in one.

They’re safer than human drivers. Tesla cars absolutely are not. But Waymo cars? They do seem to be.

https://www.npr.org/2025/12/12/nx-s1-5634879/why-one-trauma-doctor-sees-self-driving-cars-as-a-public-health-breakthrough

It’s still early. We still need more data. They should be closely watched. But self driving cars do appear to be safer. That’s why they are a great idea. They are making driving and roads better.

I mean the US is heavily car centric. Self driving cars are an attempt to adapt to what the reality of the world currently is.

We should absolutely be doing things to make cars less of a requirement by improving public transit and creating more livable spaces that don’t require cars, that can even be the primary goal, but it won’t eliminate cars completely, and if it does it will take A LOT longer than self driving cars.

Self driving cars are a great idea, but they aren’t a fix everything solution, they just one part of an overall solution.

Quick edit: Also the cars Musk is developing are not even close to what we need. He’s being deliberately obtuse and creating more problems than he’s solving.

I do my best to avoid putting toilet data on my hand.

(.)Y(.)

I don’t know that I agree. AI will continue to grow stronger and heartier, just like Campbell’s new Extra Chunky™ All Americanado™ Chicken Noodle Soup.

So technically, in this specific instance, Trump Mobile isn’t run by Donald Trump. It’s instead a separate company run by Don Jr and Eric Trump. That company is then licensing the “Trump” name from The Trump Organization.

Now The Trump Organization is owned by Donald Trump, although officially run by Don Jr, Eric, etc.

But you’re absolutely right that all of this is bullshit. It’s also why Trump is so pissed at New York AG Letitia James for investigating and uncovering all sorts of shady business practices.

You’re absolutely right that Congress should be doing something about it.

The little info (i) box on Billboards website actually cites their data, “The week’s most popular downloaded songs, ranked by sales data as compiled by Luminate.” Which I assume refers to luminatedata.com

Sadly their data (the numbers specifically) aren’t publicly available.