The 404 Media Podcast

This week Sam unpacks how social media algorithms manipulate our emotions around everything from engagement rings to wedding dresses to babies, and what it feels like getting lost in the #Weddingtok sauce, and Emanuel breaks down a satirical but functional AI tool that rips off open source software. There’s a long history in “clean room” software that’s really interesting. In the section for subscribers at the Supporter level, Jason walks us through “tokenmaxxing” and startups obsessed with spending as much money as possible on AI—and as little as possible on humans.

Listen to the weekly podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Become a paid subscriber for access to this episode's bonus content and to power our journalism. If you become a paid subscriber, check your inbox for an email from our podcast host Transistor for a link to the subscribers-only version! You can also add that subscribers feed to your podcast app of choice and never miss an episode that way. The email should also contain the subscribers-only unlisted YouTube link for the extended video version too. It will also be in the show notes in your podcast player.


I Almost Lost My Mind in the Bridal Algorithm


This AI Tool Rips Off Open Source Software Without Violating Copyright

YouTube Version: https://youtu.be/-NEjEaOp1tI
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This week, Sam is joined by Maddy Myers, editor-in-chief of Mothership. She’s also a co-host of the video games podcast Triple Click. 

Maddy launched Mothership with co-founder Zoë Hannah in January. It’s a queer and women-owned independent publication that focuses on gender and games. They discuss Maddy’s early days of games journalism via a (print!) alt-weekly in Boston and then at the Mary Sue, how she and Zoë decided it was time to quit Polygon and launch their own indie outlet, and the importance of owning your own work as a journalist.

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Why I’m launching a feminist video games website in 2026 - The GuardianMothership and a History of Women in Games Media - the Post Games podcast

YouTube Version: https://youtu.be/sQUqYKXW3fE

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We start this week with Joseph’s story on the inherent friction between secure chat apps like Signal and the phone they’re running on. Incoming message content can be stored in a phone’s internal notification database. After the break, Matthew tells us the latest about the data center pushback. Then in the subscribers’ only section, Emanuel tells us all about Marathon and its player numbers.

(00:00) Intro

(01:21) FBI Extracts Suspect’s Deleted Signal Messages Saved in iPhone Notification Database

(26:01) Maine Is Close to Passing a Moratorium on New Datacenters

(33:21) Farmer Arrested for Speaking Too Long at Datacenter Town Hall Vows to Fight

Subscriber's Story: I Wish I Didn’t Care About 'Marathon' Player Numbers, But I Do

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‘The Ambivalent Intent’ and ‘The Shadow Gospel’ author Whitney Phillips on how online got so bad

Why does the internet feel like it’s getting worse every single day, and why does it feel like the political landscape is getting worse in response? The answer might seem obvious, especially if you read 404 Media on a regular basis, where we’ve been documenting this decline, but it’s important to occasionally zoom out and ask the big questions. 

That’s why this week on the podcast I’m joined by Whitney Phillips. Phillips is the author of several books about internet culture and ethics, including This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things and The Ambivalent Internet. She’s a professor of information politics and media ethics at the University of Oregon, and also one of my favorite people to talk to and listen to because she’s a genius when it comes to the kind of internet culture and platform dynamics we report on every day at 404 Media. 

I wanted to talk to Whitney today because it’s been a few years since we talked in depth about the state of the internet and so much has changed in that time, sadly for the worst, and I really wanted some help in understanding the current state of things, as bad as they are. We also spent quite a bit of time talking about her upcoming book, The Shadow Gospel: How Anti-liberal Demonology Possessed U.S. Religion, Media, and Politics.

YouTube Version: https://youtu.be/gp_n6vDmFfc
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This week we start with Jason’s story about how wildlife cops are doing Flock lookups for ICE. It shows that ICE is gaining access to this sort of information through pretty unexpected ways. After the break, Emanuel tells us all about the AI ban at Wikipedia. In the subscribers-only section, Joseph breaks down a set of vulnerabilities in the ‘secure’ chat app TeleGuard.

 Wildlife Conservation Police Are Searching Thousands of Flock Cameras for ICE

 Wikipedia Bans AI-Generated Content

 An AI Agent Was Banned From Creating Wikipedia Articles, Then Wrote Angry Blogs About Being Banned

Subscriber's Story - A Secure Chat App’s Encryption Is So Bad It Is ‘Meaningless’

Youtube Version: https://youtu.be/YrHYwCb5aM8

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