A monster winter storm is currently barreling through roughly two-thirds of the United States, stretching across a massive swath of the country from Amarillo, Texas, to familiar winter hotspots like Boston, Massachusetts, and Buffalo, New York. Reports from outlets like CNN indicate that cities like Boston could see more than 36 inches of snow over the course of the weekend, while areas south of the snow line, including Charlotte and Atlanta, are expected to see less snow and more ice, a combination that makes road conditions especially dangerous.

The scale of the storm has also driven a surge of activity on social media in the days leading up to its arrival. Across the country, residents have been clearing store shelves in preparation for being snowed or iced in, posting photos of empty aisles and last-minute supply runs.

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At the same time, users online are fixated on the novelty of places like the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex seeing significant snowfall, a spectacle that tends to be fun for a few hours until the ice sets in and the state’s fragile power grid starts to strain.

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Or you could be in Florida and not see any snow, with cities like Orlando currently predicted to reach a high of 86°F on Sunday.

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Going all the way back up north, Minnesota, it's so cold that a user posted a video of pasta frozen in mid-air. As former Fox 9 meteorologist Jennifer McDermed writes on X, Minneapolis hit a low of -21°F on Friday, with wind chills around -45°F.

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This article will continue to be updated as more posts and news emerge throughout the storm.

Long before social media feeds or targeted ads, my mother used to say that life tends to show you the thing you're looking for. Or the thing you're afraid of. Or the thing you keep insisting you don't want.

If you were trying to get pregnant, suddenly everyone around you was pregnant. If you wanted out of your relationship, magazines on the grocery store rack were filled with tips on "spicing up your marriage." If you were single, you noticed couples everywhere.

At the time, it felt like a kind of folk psychology, an observation about attention, projection, and the stories we tell ourselves during moments of transition. Nothing mystical. Just the mind's tendency to organize the world around its current preoccupations.

But today, that feeling is no longer just in our heads — it's computational, built into the systems we use every day. Platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Google don't just reflect what we notice; they actively infer who we are and what comes next, based on demographics such as age and gender, as well as behavioral patterns. And once they decide what life stage you're in, they keep showing it to you, whether it fits or not.

Across social platforms, users describe being quietly ushered through a narrow, linear life script, one that often resembles something like dating → engagement → wedding → pregnancy → parenting. These systems assume users are progressing along an expected trajectory. When lives diverge from that path, for instance, after a breakup, during infertility, following divorce, or by choice, the algorithm often fails to recalibrate.

What looks like a coincidence or annoyance is something more structural: platforms building a version of identity that won't update, even as a person's life changes.

Trapped in a life phase you never chose

On social platforms, users may still encounter content they don't want, despite repeatedly muting keywords or clicking "not interested." Research shows that recommendation algorithms often rely far more on implicit engagement, such as watch time and clicks, than on explicit feedback signals, like hiding or muting, meaning the system can continue serving the life someone once searched for — or was assumed to want.

Elizabeth Losh, a media theorist, digital rhetoric scholar, and professor of English and American Studies at the College of William and Mary, said this persistence is rooted in how recommendation systems are built.

"Sites like TikTok and Instagram depend on targeted advertising and data harvesting models that emphasize demographic segmentation," said Losh, who is also the author of Selfie Democracy: The New Digital Politics of Disruption and Insurrection. "[They] slice and dice audiences by gender, age, political loyalties, and other categories, manufacturing needs and desires for each stage of life."

Those stages often reflect cultural expectations rather than real user diversity. Advertisers treat transitions like marriage, fertility, and parenting as high-value consumption moments, incentivizing platforms to sort users into life-phase categories that are difficult to exit once assigned.

"You can see how those assumptions get locked in," Losh said. "The persuasive power of the recommendation algorithms themselves continues to reinforce standardized life trajectories."

How the algorithm decides who you are

Platforms rarely explain how they infer a user's "life phase," but scrolling itself is data.

TikTok has acknowledged that time spent watching a video is weighted more heavily than most other signals in its recommendation system. Even a pause due to curiosity, confusion, or discomfort can be interpreted as interest. Once a system associates a user with a category, similar content can quickly snowball.

Lauren Klein, professor of Data & Decision Sciences and English at Emory University and co-author of Data Feminism, says these inferences reflect historic gender norms far more than neutral "user data."

"In many cases, age and gender are the only data points companies know about their users," Klein said. "In the absence of [a] meaningful signal, designers default to what they assume someone of a particular age and gender would want to see."

Those assumptions are shaped by long-standing cultural expectations about users' lives, including those around beauty, partnership, reproduction, and caregiving.

Because recommendation and ad systems are profit-driven, Klein added, there is little incentive to challenge defaults that appear to perform well.

"These companies are motivated by their own bottom line," she said. "If default life-phase content seems to generate engagement or purchases, there's no obligation to consider other desires or preferences."

When the TikTok feed contradicts reality

Emerging research suggests that algorithmic systems do more than match users with content; they're also shaping people's identities. 

Researchers describe this phenomenon as "algorithmic persistence," in which systems continue to serve content tied to a presumed identity long after it is no longer applicable. Klein notes that because recommender systems are optimized for engagement rather than accuracy, they have little incentive to recalibrate unless user behavior changes significantly, something many people don't know how to do, or even realize is necessary.

"There's an added social reinforcement mechanism," Klein said, adding that users already receive constant messages about what they should care about. "The algorithm amplifies that pressure."

Over time, this creates a kind of ambient discipline, technology nudging users toward a version of adulthood they might not want, can't access, or have already outgrown.

"The isolation of personal scrolling is a kind of 'technology of the self,'" Losh said. "It subtly encourages people to regulate themselves according to dominant social scripts."

Performance, play, and structural limits

If algorithmic persistence explains why users get "stuck" seeing irrelevant content, performance helps explain why pushing back doesn't necessarily free them.

Short-form video platforms are built around visibility and play. Users duet, stitch, parody, and perform alternative selves. Queer creators experiment with gender; others engage in what Losh calls "generation-swapping," performing exaggerated versions of parents or elders. Comedy and remix culture offer highly legible ways to critique dominant life scripts.

That visibility is not meaningless. Losh notes that these platforms have created space for experiences once considered rare or invisible: intersex parents documenting their lives, people speaking openly about ectopic pregnancy or asexuality, sex workers sharing the unglamorous realities of their labor. Other forms of relational storytelling — like content about lavender marriages or the rise of "guncles" — quietly challenge heteronormative family scripts through humor and affection rather than argument.

But visibility, Losh cautions, is not the same as structural change. Even as platforms become increasingly adept at identifying and amplifying counter-narratives, they continue to circulate within algorithms optimized to sort users into marketable categories. That means wedding content becomes queer wedding content, or family content becomes nontraditional family content. The identity may shift, but the life-phase logic remains intact. In that sense, personalization doesn't eliminate the script so much as adapt it.

Within recommendation systems, critique does not reliably trigger corrections. Because engagement itself is the primary signal — watch time, interaction, repetition — even content meant to challenge a life-cycle narrative can be absorbed as evidence of interest in it. A parody of wedding culture may still be logged as engagement with wedding content; a rebuttal to parenting norms may circulate alongside the very material it critiques.

Why is it so hard to reset your algorithm?

Algorithmic identity is not something users can update with a single click. Training data reflects the past. Profit incentives favor broad categories. And recommender systems are built to optimize engagement loops, not to reflect the complex, nonlinear lives of their users.

Designing for people who don't want children, who co-parent, who are queer or polyamorous, or who move in and out of relationships requires time, care, and a willingness to challenge default assumptions.

"It takes more work to design for users at the margins," Klein said. "But those users often reveal where systems break down."

When asked what a more feminist or equitable recommender system might look like, Klein was skeptical.

"I'm not sure there's such a thing as a feminist advertising mechanism," she said. "But one feminist principle we can take seriously is refusal."

For platforms, that would mean letting users opt out of targeted ads, allowing them to withhold their age or gender without penalty, avoiding punitive privacy defaults, and giving users ways to signal life changes without automatically triggering new assumptions.

For now, most platforms offer limited transparency and little meaningful control.

Living with the algorithmic lag

The algorithm lags behind real life. It clings to who someone was — or who it decided they were — because updating that identity is less profitable than nudging it forward.

For users, that lag often mirrors the same narrow life script society has long imposed. What's new isn't the pressure, it's the infrastructure delivering it.

The feed doesn't reflect reality. It reinforces a familiar script — whether it fits or not.

Attorney General Pam Bondi announced Thursday that several organizers of a recent anti-ICE protest at a Minnesota church had been arrested. Soon after, The White House X account shared an image of one of the protesters, attorney and activist Nekima Levy Armstrong, being led away by law enforcement officers with tears streaming down her face.

The post quickly received a Community Notes fact-check on X, which stated: "Digitally altered image. See original arrest photo here." The Community Note also included a link to the New York Post, which shows the real version of the image, in which Armstrong is clearly not crying.

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The White House’s X post includes the all-caps caption, “ARRESTED. FAR-LEFT AGITATOR NEKIMA LEVY ARMSTRONG FOR ORCHESTRATING CHURCH RIOTS IN MINNESOTA.”

Meanwhile, the X account of FBI Director Kash Patel released images of Armstrong and other arrested activists; none of them appear to be crying, though. Crooked Media journalist Matt Berg posted on X that he asked White House officials if the crying images were altered and was reportedly told, "the memes will continue."

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The memeification of serious news events is par for the course on the Trump administration's social media accounts. As Mashable has reported previously, the Trump administration uses X and social media to dehumanize and insult its perceived enemies, often using 4chan-style memes and artificial intelligence in the process.

Bondi also posted about the arrests on X, and the Post reported the protesters have been charged with "conspiracy against rights," which is a federal charge for preventing someone from exercising their constitutional rights. Right-wing commentators have also argued that the protesters violated the FACE Act. Ironically, the FACE Act (Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act) is a law signed by President Bill Clinton to stop protesters from blocking the entrance to abortion clinics, but it also protects protesters from blocking the entrances of houses of worship.

The First Amendment does give Americans the right to peacefully protest; however, it does not give protesters the right to enter a church without permission and shut down a religious service. In fact, this type of behavior violates other people's First Amendment right to practice their free religion freely.

Videos of the anti-ICE protest at the Cities Church in St. Paul quickly went viral, with many viewers split between supporting the protesters and attacking them for going too far. Now, videos and photos of the protesters' arrests are going viral in turn.

As more Americans get their news from social media, the Trump administration has grown skilled at turning news into reality TV-style entertainment, with Trump as the star.

Across Instagram and TikTok, influencers and would-be content creators are churning out low-effort prank and pickup artist videos using the discreet recording features of Meta Ray-Bans and other smart glasses. Many of these clips cross from cringe into outright troubling, with creators harassing women, service workers, and the homeless. In some videos, creators pretend to be mentally disabled, trans, or gay just to provoke reactions from unsuspecting people.

All of these videos have one thing in common: They show that anyone can become the unwitting star of someone else's social media video. Consent doesn't enter into it at all.

The glasses' inconspicuous nature is used to create all kinds of content that regularly pulls in hundreds of thousands of views on Instagram and TikTok. The severity and intrusiveness vary from creator to creator. Some accounts produce more positive content, sometimes referred to as "joybait," by complimenting strangers.

Other videos cross over into outright harassment. Some focus specifically on trying to get women’s phone numbers, with comment sections often dogpiling on the women based on how receptive or unreceptive they are to the advance. The BBC recently documented multiple cases in which women were approached by men wearing smart glasses, unknowingly recorded, and later subjected to sexualized and abusive comments online. Other accounts center on smaller but deliberately irritating interactions, like saying nonsense to a drive-thru worker, trapping cashiers in circular conversations, or showing up minutes before a store closes to try and place a large order.

The general setup is largely the same: go to a public place and say or do something intentionally off-putting solely to elicit a reaction. In one recurring example, a creator has posted multiple videos approaching women in beauty supply stores like Ulta or James Avery and pretending to shop for a gift for an underage girlfriend.

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However, other accounts lean into far more socially transgressive behavior. Accounts like kemobandz1 and bootyworshipping produce sexually suggestive content involving unsuspecting women. The former records himself inside massage parlors, teasing viewers through captions that his visit will end in a sexual experience, later uploading the full videos as explicit pay-per-view content on sites like No Fans. (This has also been documented by 404 Media.) The latter account is largely self-explanatory, with the creator’s Reels page filled with videos of him non-consensually filming women’s bodies and posting the footage to Instagram for thousands of views.

While reporting this article, I contacted Meta about the ways its smart glasses are being used. After I provided multiple examples, including the two accounts mentioned above, Meta disabled the Instagram accounts for violating its policy on Adult Sexual Exploitation.

In a statement, a Meta spokesperson said that users "are responsible for complying with all applicable laws and for using Ray-Ban Meta glasses in a safe, respectful manner." It continued, "as with any recording device, people shouldn't use them for engaging in harmful activities like harassment, infringing on privacy rights, or capturing sensitive information."

According to a Reuters report, Meta has sold more than 2 million pairs of smart glasses since the product’s launch in 2023, with sales tripling in 2025.

Legal doesn’t mean ethical

Credit: Screenshot courtesy of TikTok

Crucially, these activities, whether it’s rizz accounts, hassling service workers, or pretending to be mentally disabled to exploit the kindness of firefighters, don't break the law.

"[The] law has not changed, meaning that you do not have an expectation of privacy in public spaces," said Julian Sarafian, a California-based attorney who represents online content creators. "That means you can be recorded in those spaces and have limited legal recourse, if any, against people who publish content that includes you."

According to Sarafian, even when it’s not immediately obvious that cameras are present, the focus of any legal claim is where the recording takes place. That’s why many of these videos are filmed in fast food restaurants, shopping malls, or on busy streets around bars and nightlife areas.

"Some states, like California, are also two-party consent states, meaning that recording conversations where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy is not allowed unless both parties consent," Sarafian said. "With prank videos, it comes down to context. A public park? No two-party consent required. A private dining room in a restaurant? Two-party consent required."

But for some creators and observers, the fact that this content is legal misses the point entirely.

Brad Podray, a content creator who formerly went by the name Scumbag Dad, argues that videos filmed with smart glasses rely on people, particularly women, not knowing they are being recorded. In his view, legality has become a convenient shield for predatory and exploitative behavior.

"I know it’s legal. I don’t care," Brad said. "That’s not the discussion. I think it’s weird and creepy, and it shows a very predatory mindset."

According to Podray, the issue is not whether filming in public is technically legal, but how creators extract value from people who never consented to being part of the content. He describes this dynamic as turning unsuspecting subjects into unpaid labor.

He added that creators gravitate toward women and service workers because they are more likely to produce usable reactions and less likely to push back in ways that threaten the content.

"I always thought that was very cowardly, because the women don’t know they’re on camera,” said Podray, who has made several satirical, staged videos critiquing this type of behavior. "The women would roll into the comments section once the video went viral and say, ‘I was just being nice, I wanted you to leave me alone,’ and then the comments would absolutely dogpile them."

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Podray says the appeal of smart glasses is not just their discretion, but how cheaply and efficiently they allow creators to produce content at scale. Because the people being filmed are not acting, their reactions feel more authentic, which he says makes the videos perform better with audiences.

"They want people who are good on camera, so they’re going to hit fast food employees, and they’re going to hit pretty girls,” Podray said. "A lot of random women walking around aren’t going to want to participate in a skit if you ask them to, so they remove the agency entirely by just running the glasses."

He argues that this dynamic is rarely understood by viewers, who often assume everyone on camera has agreed to participate. When those assumptions are challenged, he says the response is frequently hostile.

"The audience believes everybody on camera is an actor meant for their entertainment," he said. "Any attempt to humanize them is met with cynicism or outright aggressiveness."

For Podray, that disconnect is what makes the trend so troubling. The law allows creators to film in public, and creeps know it.

Creators say it’s just "entertainment"

Image pixelated and blurred for privacy reasons. Credit: Screenshot courtesy of TikTok

Troll content like prank channels or pickup artist videos is nothing new. For a time, prank channels were among the most popular on YouTube, starting with prank-call-focused channels like Ownage Pranks. As technology evolved and smartphones became more widespread, prank creators shifted toward street content, with channels like Roman Atwood, fouseyTUBE, and LAHWF gaining massive followings.

Over time, prank channels on YouTube began to fall out of favor as larger creators pushed increasingly outrageous stunts for views. It also became clear that many of these channels were hiring actors or staging their content, undermining the original appeal of pranks that were supposedly spontaneous and authentic.

Smart glasses have made it easier than ever to capture the kind of authentic, outlandish reactions that largely disappeared when YouTube prank channels fell out of favor. While Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses include an LED indicator meant to signal when recording is taking place, outlets like 404 Media have reported that wearers can pay third-party services to disable the light. Some creators, including accounts like minddecaycam, have openly admitted to blocking the indicator light.

A screenshot from a recent @minddecaycam video. Credit: Screenshot courtesy of Instagram

Mashable reached out to several smart glasses creators for comment. While many did not respond in time for publication, one account, HeyMetaGuy, said he views his content as entertainment first.

"Realistically, I’ve made a few other pages for things that are not in the same field, but I just saw content in this way," HeyMetaGuy said. "I was like, I want to make content like this myself, because I know how to edit and whatnot, and just generally pranking people, messing with people, getting their reactions is cool."

When asked about the ethics of filming people who may not realize they’re being recorded, HeyMetaGuy compared the practice to the everyday surveillance already present in public life.

"For the ethical standpoint, I believe no matter where we go nowadays, we’re being recorded," he said. "Whether you walk into an establishment, there’s security cameras everywhere. We’re being recorded."

HeyMetaGuy said he does not disable the LED indicator on his glasses, though he acknowledged that most people don’t understand what the light signifies when they notice it.

"It’s not really hidden," he said. "It’s just more the fact that people don’t know what’s going on. Like, when they see a light, they don’t really know what’s going on."

HeyMetaGuy added that while most people he records laugh about his trolling, he has faced at least one threat of legal action, but he states that filming in public places is clearly permitted.

A serious threat to privacy

For privacy and civil liberties advocates, that growing adoption raises deeper concerns about how easily wearable cameras can blend into everyday life. Jake Laperruque, the deputy director of the Security and Surveillance Project at the Center for Democracy and Technology, said the rise of prank and "social experiment" content filmed with smart glasses highlights how difficult it is to recognize these devices in use.

"It’s very concerning that these and other interactions seem to show these glasses are too inconspicuous to be recognized when they’re recording people," Laperruque said. "Being able to easily buy and use tech to secretly record people creates serious dangers."

While Laperruque does not believe wearable cameras represent a fundamental shift in surveillance culture just yet, he said pushback may come from the public rather than lawmakers.

"People and places of public accommodation might decide this isn’t the type of social engagement they want and push back," he said, adding that he would not be surprised if gyms, bars, and other businesses began banning wearable recording devices altogether.

Looking ahead, Laperruque said the biggest concern is how discreet recording could intersect with other technologies.

"I’m most worried about the risk of people wanting anonymity in sensitive situations and being doxxed," he said. "If devices are able to record secretly and combined with facial recognition, it could be a serious threat to privacy and civil liberties."

Netflix is planning to redesign its mobile app (again) amid changing priorities for the streaming giant. And you should expect — like lots of other apps — a shift toward TikTok-style vertical video.

Netflix indicated its plans during an earnings call this week. Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters noted in the call that the planned mobile redesign followed a similar overhaul of its TV user interface.

"Just as you've seen us do with the new TV UI, we're working on a new mobile UI that will better serve the expansion of our business over the decade to come," Peters said in the call. "We're gonna roll this out later in 2026. And just like our TV UI, it then becomes a starting point. It becomes a platform for us to continue to iterate, test, evolve, and improve our offerings."

At the investor earnings call, Netflix's other CEO, Ted Sarandos, also called out Instagram as a competitor to watch.

"TV is not what we grew up on. TV is now just about everything,” he said, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter. “The Oscars and the NFL are on YouTube. Networks are simulcasting the Super Bowl on linear TV and streaming. Amazon owns MGM, Apple is competing for Emmys and Oscars, and Instagram is coming next.”

The planned redesign also follows Netflix's recent push into podcasts, a medium that often creates viral vertical videos.

"You can imagine us bringing more clips based on new content types like video podcasts," Peters noted.

The exact details of Netflix's mobile redesign remain undisclosed, but you can expect an app that integrates the many ways in which the streaming giant has infiltrated our lives. That could mean clips from a podcast, an NFL highlight, or the somewhat disappointing end to a hit show.

The pressure is mounting on social media companies to enforce their rules and protect children on the platforms. Australia recently instituted a ban on children under the age of 16 from social media platforms. Gaming platforms like Roblox are now using facial recognition technology to prevent kids from interacting with adults in chats.

And now TikTok, the social media platform well known for its popularity with young people, will be rolling out its own age verification system in Europe to detect underage users on its site, according to a Reuters report.

TikTok's age-detection system analyzes a user's profile information, published videos, and behavioral signs to estimate if a user is under the age of 13. Per TikTok policy, users must be at least 13 to sign up for the platform. Once the age detect system flags an account, the user will be reviewed by specialist moderators. User accounts will not be banned automatically.

TikTok told Reuters the age-detection system will be rolled out across Europe in the coming weeks after testing the program in Britain for the past year. The system was specifically designed to comply with European regulatory requirements.

EU regulators have been pushing for social media platforms to act on child safety issues, including ensuring users are of the minimum age required for a platform. The European Parliament is looking into potentially instituting a social media ban similar to the one in Australia for children under the age of 15.

As Mashable covered earlier this week, some online platforms are discovering the difficulties with online age verification. Roblox users, for example, have been uncovering simple workarounds to the platform's age verification, which involved simply uploading animated avatars or even drawing facial hair on their image with a Sharpie.

TikTok's method is bound to pick up some false positives on users who are over 13 but mistakenly get flagged or even removed for being underage. We'll have to see just how accurate it is, and how many disgruntled users it leaves in its path once it rolls out more broadly.

After finally making moves to stop its Grok AI from creating nonconsensual sexualized images and CSAM, Elon Musk's X has announced another major platform overhaul today.

X's head of product Nikita Bier announced on Thursday that the social media platform was going to ban apps that reward users for posting on the site. Bier specifically mentioned it was going to block "InfoFi" apps and developers from accessing its API. 

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InfoFi stands for Information Finance and has become popular in the Web3 space for rewarding users for engaging with online communities and posting on social media.

Why is X banning these types of apps? According to Bier, these apps were encouraging users to post low-quality content solely to receive crypto tokens.

"We are revising our developer API policies: We will no longer allow apps that reward users for posting on X (aka 'infofi')," Bier posted on X. "This has led to a tremendous amount of AI slop & reply spam on the platform."

According to X, many users of these InfoFi apps appeared to be posting spammy, low-quality AI-generated content solely to get paid in crypto tokens by these apps. The mass posting of this kind of content on a social network harms the platform's overall quality.  

Bier went on to say that X has "revoked API access from these apps, so your X experience should start improving soon (once the bots realize they’re not getting paid anymore)." X's head of product then joked that if a developer had their account terminated, they could reach out, and X would help get them set up on competitor platforms like Threads and Bluesky.

X's Bier has recently butt heads with the cryptocurrency community on X over low-quality engagement. Earlier this month, Bier was critical of users who just mass reply "gm," a common phrase within the crypto community, and then complain that the X algorithm doesn't boost their content. 

This latest decision is likely to cause an uproar with X's crypto users as well. As Decrypt noted, the token for the popular InfoFi platform Kaito dropped by more than 15 percent shortly after Bier's announcement.

As a result of Bier's announcement, Kaito shared that it was sunsetting its Yaps app, which paid users to post on X.

Before Reddit became the de facto "front page of the internet," there was Digg. 

Digg, the crowdsourced content platform, is where "upvoting" links was popularized. However, a failed redesign wrecked the site's popularity with its user base, who fled to Reddit – and the rest was history. Digg flailed under different curated, editorial visions and Reddit became one of the internet's biggest websites.

Now, Digg's original founder Kevin Rose is teaming up with Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian to relaunch the platform. Digg is back (again) and looking to take on Reddit with the help of the guy who founded Reddit. (Ohanian left Reddit in 2020.)

On Wednesday, the beta version of Digg officially launched to the public at Digg.com. Interested users can sign up for the beta now.

In an interview with TechCrunch, Rose shared his goals with the newly relaunched Digg of building trust with its user base and making sure it's not overtaken by AI bots looking to manipulate the platform. For example, a Digg community for those who own a particular piece of tech hardware could be asked to prove they own said piece of technology.

At launch, the new Digg has 21 general communities around topics such as science, funny, tech, gaming, and entertainment. Around 67,000 users were invited on the platform before the public launch.

With the public launch, anyone can now sign-up and a community could be created around any specific topic or niche. However, at the time, each community can only have one manager. Digg CEO Justin Mezzell told TechCrunch that the company wanted to launch the platform and then build and ship features weekly as Digg evolves.

Digg is also launching with an AI-created podcast called Digg Daily which recaps the biggest stories on the platform each day. According to the company, it's considering bringing in human hosts after hearing feedback from users.

Following the aforementioned failed 2010 redesign which led to the platform's downfall, Digg has been bought and sold by various entities, until Rose and Ohanian acquired the platform and subsequently announced their intent to relaunch Digg last year.

Users can sign up for the new Digg at Digg.com now.

Google Gemini — the tech giant's generative AI video model — is launching the ability to generate social media-ready vertical video. That's all well and good, but it raises the question: Does that mean even more AI slop?

Google Veo is widely regarded as the leading AI video model (different versions of Veo claim the top four spots on LMArena's text-to-video leaderboard), so the answer is almost certainly yes.

Google announced this week that Veo 3.1 — the latest version of Gemini's text-to-video generator — could now generate "social-ready 9:16 videos directly." In other words, the videos are generated with the vertical, scroll-ready format that you see on TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Reels.

"Designed for mobile-first applications, this mode delivers faster results and optimized composition by generating full-frame vertical video rather than cropping from landscape," read a statement from Google.

The online world is increasingly populated by AI-generated vertical video, some of which is the much-maligned slop. Meta, for instance, launched Vibes, a social site entirely dedicated to generating and scrolling AI videos. AI critics call it an "infinite slop machine."

It tracks that Google would give users the ability to generate social-ready video — people want it — but it might not make your scrolling experience any better.

Is Reddit down?

The website is operating normally as of this writing, but thousands of Reddit users were asking this question on Tuesday, Jan. 13, when the popular online discussion platform appeared to suffer a brief outage. According to Downdetector, the problems started around 11:33 a.m. ET, with tens of thousands of Downdetector users reporting problems accessing the Reddit website and app. (Disclosure: Mashable and Downdetector are both owned by Ziff Davis.)

Reddit's status had returned to normal at Downdetector by 12:18 p.m. ET. Credit: Downdetector

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At the peak of the outage, Downdetector received 89,943 user error reports.

"Reddit is currently experiencing a significant internal outage causing widespread service disruptions," reads a Downdetector summary (emphasis in original). "The impact is categorized as Very High, primarily affecting mobile app access (55%) and website connectivity (39%)."

Again, as of this writing, Reddit's website and app appear to be fully operational.

Mashable reached out to Reddit for more information, and we'll update this story if we receive a response.

This is a developing story...

Instagram users had a scare over the weekend after many users were sent mysterious password reset emails that seemed to come directly from Instagram. Some users thought this might be a phishing email, but as Mashable reported earlier today, many of the emails are legitimate.

Instagram said in a weekend statement that it had fixed a bug that allowed an external party to trigger unnecessary password reset emails. The good news: no one’s accounts were actually impacted. The social media giant urged people to simply delete the emails and move on. 

Still, we thought we’d take a close look at the email that was sent to people to see if we could identify any red flags. Phishing emails can almost always be identified with a little patience and know-how, so we put that knowledge to the test to see if there was anything wrong with the email itself. If what Instagram said is accurate (spoiler: it was accurate), then we shouldn’t spot anything untoward. 

In any case, here is one of the emails in question, received by a Mashable editor on Saturday, Jan. 10, with the account information blurred out for privacy reasons. 

One of the password reset emails received by Instagram users. Credit: Mashable

Okay, so let’s go through a checklist of the most common ways to spot a phishing email and see how this one holds up.

First, a phishing email will usually come from an unknown email with no ties to the real company. In this case, the email is from security@mail.instagram.com, which is a real Instagram email address. Please note that scammers will often try to dupe legit email addresses by using variations and alternative domains, such as "instagram.password.net".

Next, I check the footer, which also looks clean. I actually signed out of my own Instagram account and had a password reset link sent to me, and I can verify that the footer is exactly identical to the one in the above email. So, we’re off to a great start. 

Phishing emails can often look legitimate, though, so the next step is to see where this email sends you if you were to click the link. However, instead of clicking the link, hover your mouse over the link to see the URL destination. In this case, hovering over the “Reset password” button does, in fact, show a real Instagram link, as seen in the screenshot below. 

Credit: Mashable

Remember: You should check every link in an email from an uknown sender before clicking. So, I checked the “let us know” link, which also shows an official Instagram URL.

Many phishing emails also contain spelling or grammar errors. However, after a close reading of the email, there aren’t any red flags, and all of the logos are correct. 

The only other thing I could think to check was if this was a user-generated password reset request. So, as I said earlier, I signed out and had one sent to me, and I confirmed the emails are identical.

There is one more step you can take to verify if the email is legitimate, but it actually doesn't work in this particular case.

In your Instagram account settings (go to your account settings, then click "Accounts Center," then "Password and security," then "Recent emails"). Normally, this section would show all recent emails from Instagram. However, for unknown reasons, the weekend's mysterious password reset emails do not show up, even though they appear to be legitimate.

This discrepancy is one reason the emails seemed so suspicious at first, and why some experts determined they were phishing emails.

When you receive a suspicious email, never click the links.

In this case, the best thing you can do is simply ignore the email entirely.

Is the Instagram email a scam?

Kind of, just not in the way you would think. The emails were sent, albeit indirectly, by a third party. However, the email our editor received was real and sent by Instagram. Clicking the links and buttons would not harm the recipient, and the worst thing that could happen is that you'd wind up with a new password.

However, if you did open this mysterious Instagram email, click the link, and change your password without verifying its authenticity, you got lucky this time.

We recommend checking out this guide on identifying phishing scams, just in case. 

Jujutsu Kaisen has entered its Culling Game arc, and its opening sequence makes one thing clear: This is not a game anyone survives unchanged.

Released online yesterday alongside the Season 3 premiere, the opening sequence abandons straightforward hype in favor of something more symbolic and, dare I say, disturbing. Set to King Gnu's "Aizo," the opening depicts the Culling Game as a curated gallery of violence and spectacle, where participation is compulsory for jujutsu sorcerers.

Its visuals draw heavily from fine art, weaving echoes of Egon Schiele, Paul Rubens, Claude Monet, Edvard Munch, Gustav Klimt, and John Everett Millais into its compositions. Schiele's influence surfaces in a striking image of Yuji Itadori in the womb, his tiny body distorted and compressed, while Rubens' baroque excess recontextualizes Maki and Mai Zenin as sleeping children — an image of softness already haunted by what's to come. (Don’t get me started on the tragedy of Mai as Ophelia.)

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And then there's Klimt's "The Kiss," reimagined as a slightly terrifying embrace between Yuta Okkotsu and the special-grade cockroach cursed spirit Kurourushi. IYKYK.

All of it unfolds under the shadow of Satoru Gojo, whose continued absence — still sealed — hangs over the season. The opening shifts its attention to the characters we already know, now forced to carry the weight of the Culling Game themselves, while teasing the arrival of new players manga readers will recognize instantly, and anime-only viewers are about to meet. (Kirara and Hakari fans, now is our time.) Looming over everyone is Kenjaku, leering at the chaos like pieces on a game board.

This season isn't just raising the stakes. It’s changing the rules entirely.

New episodes of Jujutsu Kaisen Season 3 premiere at 12 p.m. ET on Thursdays on Crunchyroll.

There was something undeniably weird about 2016. Not weird in the charming, "remember Vine?" sense, but weird in the way history feels right before it tips over.

It marked a slow descent into collective unease, beginning with the surreal recapture of El Chapo, winding through celebrity deaths and the mainstreaming of one particular cartoon frog, and finally cratering with the presidential election of reality TV star Donald Trump. At the time, many outlets openly wondered whether 2016 was the worst year ever.

And yet, for a certain slice of Gen Z, 2016 wasn't the beginning of the end. It was the last good summer of our lives. According to GWI, 42 percent of Gen Z respondents report feeling nostalgic for the 2010s — a sentiment especially visible on TikTok, where obsession with 2016 has become its own trend.

It's not surprising, as nostalgia is an inevitable part of life. People are already talking about how "good we had it" in 2020, even though, by some crucial metrics, that year was even worse. But for older Gen Z, 2016 — more specifically, the summer of 2016 — hits a particular part of the brain. For many of us, it was the last time we were allowed to be kids.

It was the year I graduated high school. Senior prom. My first election. The last time I saw my dad. And, inexplicably, the one brief week when I genuinely cared about Pokémon.

As Tess May writes for Rowdy, maybe it's a longing for a time before — when the internet meant Vine, Harambe memes, Snapchat dog ears, and rainbow filters. "It's Gen Z saying, 'We want the internet to feel human again,'" May writes.

Part of what makes 2016 nostalgia so sticky is how thoroughly it's been repackaged by platforms. On TikTok alone, "2016 vibes" has become its own aesthetic: filters that blur the present just enough to resemble memory, POV videos about being a teenager again, and rankings of songs that somehow sound better when they’re stripped of everything that came after.

As one breakdown of the trend notes, it’s not a coincidence that so many people are yearning for the internet before it became fully algorithmic, before every post felt like it was auditioning for engagement.

That yearning isn’t really about the year itself. It’s about what life felt like before everything became so performative and optimized; before being online meant building a brand; before politics consumed every feed; and before the future felt permanently foreclosed. In that sense, 2016 becomes a stand-in for a broader desire. A time when things still felt lighter, even if that lightness was more a product of youth than reality.

The danger, of course, is that nostalgia flattens history. As The New Republic points out, Gen Z’s longing often isn’t for a time they remember clearly, but for a version of the past they never truly experienced. That impulse can drift beyond culture and into politics, turning "things were better back then" into something more reactionary, even if it starts from a place of exhaustion rather than ideology.

Still, it’s hard to ignore why this impulse exists at all. Gen Z came of age through financial crises, mass shootings, climate anxiety, a pandemic, and now a political landscape that feels permanently stuck in reruns. Compared to that, 2016 feels like the last moment before the feed refreshed and never stopped loading. Maybe it really was the last good summer. Or maybe it was just the last time we didn’t yet know how bad things were going to get.

Either way, the nostalgia says more about now than it does about 2016. And until the present feels livable again, we’ll probably keep looking backward, scrolling through a year that felt human enough to miss. Maybe in 2036, Mashable's Gen Alpha reporter will write about how 2026 was the last good year.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is spending millions to turn the chronically online into deportation agents, according to internal communications reviewed exclusively by the Washington Post.

The agency's $100 million marketing strategy, detailed in a 30-page document distributed to ICE officials this summer, includes a massive push to flood the digital market with geo-targeted and content-based advertising. The plan even names specific platforms, like Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Substack, and Rumble, a popular "alt-tech" video platform frequented by conservatives.

Recruitment advertisements under this plan would specifically target users whose devices ping near military bases, NASCAR races, UFC fights, college campuses, or gun and trade shows, as well as listeners of "patriotic" podcasts, country music, fitness, and true crime. A significant portion of the strategy hinges on getting influencers, commentators, and live streamers on board to boost ICE's message, with $8 million allocated to a new influencer program, Washington Post reported. Online creators accepted into the program would receive around $1,500 for joining.

While analysis shows the agency has yet to reach its $100 million advertising goal, many have already noticed the aggressive push into online and entertainment spaces, including television and streaming ads, social media campaigns, and celebrity endorsements. In October, many Spotify users boycotted the app for hosting ICE recruitment slogans, as well as CEO Daniel Ek's financial ties to companies developing AI technology for the military.

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin told the Washington Post that the agency was “thrilled" about coverage of the "wildly successful ICE recruitment campaign, which is under budget and ahead of schedule.” She did not dispute the information presented in the document.

Officials and citizens have raised alarm bells over ICE's traditional advertising methods, too, including public campaigns and propaganda efforts that many say are stoking unnecessary fear within communities.

Under the Trump administration, federal immigration officials have pivoted to extreme, high-risk tactics to meet deportation aims set by the president, including periodically violent operations in areas far from the border. U.S. Customs and Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino has said the unprecedented actions of ICE agents are a new "turn and burn" strategy that sees agents deploying tactics normally reserved for major offenders on families and individuals who haven't been suspected of violent offenses.

ICE is reportedly set to sign on tens of thousands of new agents in the coming months as a result of its "surge hiring marketing strategy," incentivized by major signing bonuses and inflated salaries allocated from Trump's Big Beautiful Bill. The agency has also reduced requirements for new hires. DHS reported that it received over 200,000 job applications in the last five months alone, with McLaughlin stating the vast majority are former law enforcement.

Former officials say the scale of raids and countrywide recruitment is unlike anything the country has seen before, according to a report in the Idaho Statesman.

For a long period during the height of the NYT Games craze of 2020, new Wordle strategies appeared on the timeline like clockwork. But in the years since, players have honed their personal strategies in ways that have made keeping up with daily streaks a piece of cake.

That doesn't mean there's not more to mine from the game. This week, social media users came across an apparently foolproof way to whittle away at incorrect letters and make use of those anagram skills.

According to a viral X post by user and Wordle strategist @rudy_betrayed, you can start by popping in these five words: CHUNK, FJORD, VIBEX, WALTZ, and GYMPS. The post has already racked up 22,000 bookmarks.

[Note: That last word is defined by Oxford Languages on Google as "twisted silk, worsted, or cotton with cord or wire running through it, used chiefly as upholstery trimming." But it's also listed as a potential derivative of a derogatory phrase. While it's a high-value Words With Friends entry, it's not valid in the Merriam Webster Scrabble dictionary. It may work for the dictionary's dupe Quordle, though.]

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The strategy makes use of 25 unique letters in the game's first five rounds, only missing the ornery letter Q, giving users just one slot to guess the winning word. But according to the alphabet math and players who use the strategy, it's nearly impossible not to spot the word among the grey tiles.

There's still a bit of brainwork needed, of course, like parsing letter groups that have multiple anagrams. It's not going to always help if you don't know the word to begin with, because that's just how Wordle works. And, as many social media users argued in the post's quotes, maybe it's sucking the fun out of thing to try to "hack" the game in the name of a higher score.

But if you're a pretty good Wordler already — and especially if it's a week like "MYRRH" — this is definitely a trick worth trying.

Not the day you're after? Here's the solution to today's Wordle.

Among the most difficult parenting tasks, there are few as dreaded as asking a child to put down the device that's just absorbed their attention for hours.

As a parent, you feel guilty that it got this far. You're also gearing up for a potential fight, should that child throw a toddler, tween, or teen tantrum. As they say, nobody wants this.

While setting new boundaries on screen time might feel daunting, experts want you to know that a reset is possible. The new year, with its fresh beginnings and renewed optimism, is a great time to make such a move.

Think of it not as a battle, says Catherine Price, co-author of the new book The Amazing Generation: Your Guide to Fun and Freedom in a Screen-Filled World. Instead, remember that you're working toward a shared goal frequently thwarted by social media and excessive screen time.

"In reality, we really should be on the same side, because what do we want for ourselves and our kids?" says Price. "We want to have meaningful and fun lives, with strong relationships."

With that in mind, follow these four strategies to help your child reclaim their time from digital screens:

1. Don't lecture about screen time rules

Parents keen on curbing screen use often make the mistake of lecturing their child on the topic. Price says it's more effective to start a family conversation about how screen time makes each person feel, whether it's their own or yours.

This part is important, and an oft-missing ingredient in efforts to recalibrate device use, because parents must reckon with their own habits.

It's worse than you might expect. Take, for example, a recent nationally representative Girl Scouts survey of 1,000 5-to-13-year-olds which found that 52 percent struggled to get their parents' attention because they were on their own phones.

"What are you modeling currently for your kids?" says Price, who was not involved in the survey. "Because you can't expect your kids to follow your instructions if you're not following those habits yourself."

You might rely on your own memory, but that's unlikely to offer a full picture of what your kids experience. Instead, look at any screen time reports created by your personal devices.

Price recommends drilling down to time spent using specific apps. A road trip might give the impression that you spent eight hours glued to your phone when it was just using a maps app. But several hours of regular daily use on an app like TikTok or WhatsApp should be a wakeup call for parents about their own habits, and one they might not recognize without objective data.

Price also suggests treating the conversation about household screen time rules as a mini science experiment wherein both kids and parents get to track what they observe, then talk about it together. The point is to identify what aspects of parent or child screen time lead to unpleasant experiences like negative or hurt feelings and limited socializing.

Parents might also be surprised by their child's interest or curiosity in spending less time online. The Amazing Generation, co-written with Dr. Jonathan Haidt, is a middle school-aged companion book to his best-seller The Anxious Generation. Presented with graphic novel elements, it also includes regretful anecdotes from young adults who wished their childhood and adolescence hadn't been dominated by social media and screen time.

Relatedly, the Girl Scouts survey similarly found that 46 percent of girls felt pressure to be online, even if they weren't enjoying it.

2. Set and stick to rules for screen time

Dr. Jean Twenge, a psychologist and author of 10 Rules for Raising Kids in a High-Tech World: How Parents Can Stop Smartphones, Social Media, and Gaming from Taking Over Their Children's Lives, says parents should create new household screen time guidelines based on conversations with their kids, or return to enforcing existing rules. For help with this task, parents can consult the American Academy of Pediatrics' customizable resource for creating a family media plan.

Twenge, a mother of three teens who's conducted extensive academic research on screen time, recommends setting the same standards for every child in the household. This might include no smartphones and social media until age 16, time limits on specific devices, and prohibiting certain apps or websites. Parents should follow household expectations as well, like device-free mealtimes.

Even if the plan goes well at first, there will be moments you feel like relenting, because of inconvenience, crisis, or peer pressure. Twenge suggests having a plan for these times.

Airplane rides, for example, might be the exception to your thoughtful rules, when the 10-year-old gets unlimited time on their favorite gaming platform. It's important to be transparent about these exceptions to avoid confusion and backtracking.

Twenge also encourages parents to substitute TV time for device use at home if they really need to occupy a child. You'll know what they're watching, compared to how they might spend time on a tablet or phone, and the content is probably higher quality than watching short videos on social media.

Along with the rules you set, Twenge urges parents to use parental controls or even a third-party monitoring system. Even if your child has limited screen time, you still want to prevent them from discovering or engaging with harmful content.

Twenge says she's come to the "reluctant conclusion" that device and app-specific parental controls are so difficult to use that third-party software, like Bark or Aura, may be necessary to ensure they're staying safe and following the rules you've set.

3. Coach kids through the downsides of less screen time

Even if a child likes the idea of spending less time online, the very real tradeoffs to them can include boredom and social exclusion.

Sarah Keating, vice president of Girl Scout Experience for the Girl Scouts, says parents play an important role in coaching kids through these concerns. First, she says adults need to be comfortable with the idea of their children being bored.

To make this less painful for everyone, Keating recommends offering screen-free alternatives that help satisfy the tactile sensory experience of picking up a phone or tablet. For younger children, these could be blocks or markers. Older children might enjoy an activity book like Mad Libs or doing something with their hands, such as crocheting.

Twenge suggests asking a tween or teen to make a list of activities they can do instead of scrolling or posting. You might also discuss how screen time can worsen their boredom, a phenomenon that research suggests is real.

It's also helpful to remind teens of what they still have, Twenge says, particularly if you've given them a "dumb" phone or voice over internet protocol (VoIP) phone to communicate with friends.

Keating acknowledges that kids use technology and internet culture to create cliques that exclude others. She says it's critical to talk with your child about this dynamic and help them create a script they can use in such situation. Instead of feeling rejected, for example, the child might ask their friend with curiosity about a meme they've referenced.

4. Encourage real-world freedom over screen time

Price likes to flip the concern about missing out on its head by pointing out what offline opportunities kids will lose if they spend so much time online.

In this regard, she hopes that parents trying to set new screen time norms for their kids also offer real-world freedom that helps build confidence and independence.

"It's not just about restriction," Price says. "It's about actually making life more fun and enjoyable."

Tweens and teens might get opportunities to walk to the store or a friend's house by themselves. While younger children might need a different approach, parents can focus on ensuring they're playing with friends or at the park instead of sitting at home on a screen.

To generate more ideas, parents can ask their children what they're interested in trying or learning and then figure out ways for them to do that independently.

The way Price thinks about it, recalibrating screen time isn't just about getting kids offline, it's about bringing "kids back to life."

The state of New York has passed new legislation requiring social media platforms like X and TikTok to add warning labels to their services.

Much like the warnings found on cigarette packaging, the new law — signed by Governor Kathy Hochul — targets platforms that rely on features such as infinite scrolling, autoplay, and algorithmic feeds. These services will now be required to display labels cautioning users, particularly young people, about the potential mental health risks associated with prolonged use.

Under the law, warning labels must appear when a user first interacts with any feature deemed "predatory," and will continue to surface periodically afterward. The requirements apply whenever these platforms are accessed from within New York, regardless of the companies' locations.

The move comes amid a growing body of research linking heavy social media use to negative mental health outcomes among young people. A large, multi-year study published earlier this year found that increased social media use among tweens and teens was associated with higher levels of depressive symptoms over time, while the reverse was not true.

Researchers behind the study said the findings strengthen concerns that certain online behaviors, including excessive scrolling and algorithm-driven engagement, may actively contribute to declining mental well-being rather than simply reflecting it.

At the same time, platforms like TikTok have begun rolling out their own safety and oversight features in response to mounting pressure from lawmakers, parents, and regulators. Earlier this year, TikTok expanded its parental control tools, adding options for screen time blocking, scheduled app access, and increased visibility into teens’ followers and activity.

The company has framed those changes as part of a broader push toward mindfulness and healthier usage habits, particularly for users under 18, even as critics argue that design features like autoplay and infinite feeds continue to encourage prolonged engagement.

Spoiler warning: This story discusses major Jujutsu Kaisen manga events, including character deaths that have not yet appeared in the anime ahead of its third season premiere on Jan. 8, 2026.

Every year on Christmas Eve, I brace myself before opening my apps.

Not because of an influx of schmaltzy holiday content, but because I’m a Jujutsu Kaisen fan, and Dec. 24 is a day of collective mourning. My feed knows it. My algorithm knows it. And judging by the endless stream of edits, fan art, and softly devastating posts, so does everyone else.

For Jujutsu Kaisen fans, Christmas Eve is a holy day of remembrance.

If you’re even loosely connected to the fandom, you’ve probably noticed it by now: the sudden return of best friends–turned–diametrically opposed soulmates, Geto Suguru and Satoru Gojo, to the timeline. Side-by-side edits. Manga screenshots. Subtle references that say everything without saying too much.

The reason is simple and painful. In the Jujutsu Kaisen timeline, the real Geto Suguru dies on Dec. 24. One year later, on that same date, Satoru Gojo meets his fate in the manga. And thus, the unofficial SatoSugu Day was born.

Geto's death is already well-known to anime viewers; it has been animated, discussed, dissected, and mourned openly for years. Gojo's death, however, remains one of the manga’s most devastating and closely guarded spoilers, especially with the anime's fast-approaching third season premiere in January. That's why scrolling through my feed feels like walking into a quiet wake.

Here are just a handful of the posts I've favorited today:

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(And a special shout-out to this heartbreaking edit, which I cannot embed due to copyright restrictions, but I will link to because it's that good.)

Geto and Gojo's cursed relationship sits at the emotional core of Jujutsu Kaisen. They’re not just powerful jujutsu sorcerers or fan favorites; they’re a tragedy in parallel motion. Former best friends. Ideological opposites. Two people shaped by the same world who responded to it in completely different ways. Their bond and its unraveling are what give the story its weight long before Yuji Itadori enters the frame.

So when Christmas Eve rolls around, fans don't just mourn two characters; they mourn what could have been. The friendship that fractured. The future that never arrived. The way fate, in Jujutsu Kaisen, feels both cruel and intentional.

What fascinates me most is how specifically the fandom marks this day. It exists entirely online, sustained by fans who recall the date and return to it every year, much like muscle memory.

And maybe that’s why it hits so hard. Dec. 24 is supposed to be comforting. Instead, for fans like me, it’s a reminder of how deeply a story can burrow into your emotional life. How fictional characters can leave real marks. How shared grief, even over something imagined, can feel real when thousands of people are feeling it at once.

With the anime's anticipated Culling Game arc set to arrive in January, this Christmas Eve feels especially charged. There's an awareness that soon, the mourning won’t be confined to manga readers anymore.

It's hard to believe but some good things did happen online 2025.

Scrolling around the internet these last 12 months hasn't always been a pleasant experience — our timelines were full of AI slop, recession fears, and misinformation. But good things did manage to happen, too.

Mashable has kept tabs on uplifting digital stories with our Good Connection series. And if you need a timeline cleanse to end 2025, we've got eight online stories from this year that'll do just the trick.

1. The 'Ask an Axolotl' earworm

January feels like ages ago by now, but it was the month we were all humming along to a little ditty about an axolotl. TikTokker @doctor_waffle posted a video about the adorable amphibian. It's cute and so, so catchy.

Sure, the song was clearly intended for children but it seemed to soothe anyone with a pulse.

2. Everyone rallied for Buddies coffeeshop

When Rachel Rose, the owner of Buddies Coffee Roasters in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, sobbed on camera, there was no way she could've predicted the response. She was going to lose the place she worked so hard for, and her emotion was real and raw.

People rallied in response, absolutely flooding Buddies with business. Even celebs like Joe Jonas showed up. Lines wrapped around the block.

Buddies did close — the situation with their lease wasn't fixable — but it seems Rachel and the roasting business are both thriving.

3. The cutest Craigslist love story

Oscar season gifted us the story of how Colman Domingo met his husband. Somehow, some way, Craigslist's Missed Connection section sparked a whirlwind, decades-long love story. It's truly the sweetest thing.

4. A Yankee who simply loves burritos

New York Yankees catcher Austin Wells went viral this year for his passion project: reviewing breakfast burritos. During his travels throughout the season, he'd try breakfast burritos and rate them. That's it. Just a dude loving burritos.

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Wells does seem to be a fair reviewer, however. His top-rated burrito of the year came from the clubhouse of the Mets, the Yankees' crosstown rival.

5. The foster dog who stole our hearts

I'm a big fan of Isabel Klee, or @SimonSits on TikTok, who regularly takes in foster dogs. The internet as a whole fell in love with one of Klee's fosters, Tiki, who was rescued from pretty rough circumstances. The little pup healed with Klee from a dog that was clearly scared and scarred, to a precocious, adorable dog that got adopted.

It was such a lovely story.

6. The little niece who made the song of the summer

It's a pretty simple story: Creator @day1keenan has a niece who wanted to sing. And sing she did, making an absolute banger that many called the song of the summer.

This TikTok racked up more than 60 million views.

That little girl genuinely has talent and I could listen to that ditty all day long.

7. The NYC subway kitty

I don't know if you've ever seen a kitty ride the subway but it is freaking adorable. Look at this cosmopolitan little baby just hop right on.

As if the story couldn't get any sweeter, the commuter who scoops up the kitten in the video ended up adopting her. She's named Emmie, in honor of NYC's MTA.

8. Pop-up food pantries to the rescue

SNAP benefits were thrown into chaos amid the government shutdown this year, and neighbors came to the rescue to help one another. There were countless videos of pop-up food pantries, which appeared seemingly overnight to help neighbors.

AJ Owen (@ajpgh412) had perhaps the most viral pantry moment, when an anonymous donor dropped off a stack of cash to fund the pop-up Owen started with his children.

"The outpouring online is…overwhelming in the best way possible," Owen wrote in an email to Mashable at the time. "Seeing so many other people touched by what we are doing and deciding to do something as well brings tears to my eyes. Give people an opportunity to help and they will absolutely do it!"

So, yes, 2025 wasn't always great. But there were some truly lovely moments, too.

Louisiana's Secure Online Child Interaction and Age Limitation act, a social media law that requires social platforms to verify user ages and implement parental controls, has been struck down.

The before the buzzer decision was issued on Dec. 15, made just ahead of the act's enforcement period by Louisiana regulators. The federal judge ruled in favor of tech trade lobbying group NetChoice, which has been constitutionally challenging age verification laws across the country. In April, NetChoice successfully blocked Arkansas' Social Media Safety Act.

"The Act is at once under-inclusive and over-inclusive," wrote judge John W. deGravelles in the Louisiana decision.

NetChoice joins other free speech advocates who argue sweeping age verification laws may pose large scale privacy risks, restrict access to protected speech, and chill open expression online. Online safety advocates, meanwhile, have pushed for social media regulation in the wake of widespread child exploitation and mental health concerns.

Louisiana was the first to enact such a law in 2023, and other states quickly followed suit. Currently, 25 U.S. states have some sort of age verification law on the books, with many focused on restricting access to online pornography. Most recently, Missouri began enforcing an age-gaiting law that requires user verification on sites with "one-third or more pornographic content" — Congress has discussed more than a dozen online safety acts in this month alone.

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill has said she will appeal the ruling. Murrill has made social media regulation a priority of the state, including filing the first of a wave of new lawsuits against kids gaming platform Roblox. “The assault on children by online predators is an all-hands-on-deck problem. It’s unfortunate that the court chose to protect huge corporations that facilitate child exploitation over the legislative policy to require simple age verification mechanisms,” said Murrill.

Are you a creator who shares links on Facebook? Be sure not to go over your monthly quota.

Some creators on Facebook are receiving a notification that they will be limited to posting a certain number of links in organic posts each month, unless they subscribed to Meta Verified for $14.99 per month.

Here's the Meta link-sharing limit test notification currently going out to select creators. Credit: Matt Navarra / Threads

“This is a limited test to understand whether the ability to publish an increased volume of posts with links add additional value for Meta Verified subscribers,” Meta told social media consultant Matt Navarra, who initially posted a screenshot of the notification on Meta-owned Threads.

The screenshot posted by Navarra says that creators are limited to two link shares per month; however, Meta has since stated that the number of monthly links for non-verified creators varies as part of the test. According to the notification, Meta gives creators a limited number of link shares per month, and if they go unused, they do not rollover to the next month.

Regular Facebook profiles, which the vast majority of its users have, are currently not affected by the test. Meta is limiting this link limit experiment to users utilizing Facebook Pages and Facebook profiles in professional mode. Facebook Pages and profiles set to professional mode are typically used by businesses, creators, and other public figures.

For those who are affected, links remain unlimited for URLs to Meta properties such as Instagram, WhatsApp, or other internal Facebook links. In addition, the notification also says Meta exempts links posted in the comments of a post, which means those are currently unlimited, too.

As Meta said in its statement, the company is trying to add more features to the Meta Verified paid subscription product by paywalling links on Facebook. 

However, as Navarra points out, it's likely that Meta is also trying to test the Meta Verified badge as a "trust signal" so that users come to expect a certain level of trustworthiness from profiles and pages with verified. As Mashable has reported, the company has been experiencing an uptick in scam ads on Facebook in particular. But, as many have experienced on Elon Musk's X, many scammers and disinformation spreaders are more than willing to pay a monthly fee for a verified checkmark badge.

In the evening of Dec. 14, a large crowd of people gathered on Australia's Bondi Beach to celebrate the first night of Hanukkah, and were instead met with violence, as two gunmen opened fire on the group. As of today, 15 people have been killed.

One of the assailants was taken down by bystander Ahmed Al Ahmed, whose brave decision to grapple with the shooter and take over his weapon was captured on video and shared widely across social media platforms. Informed by an epidemic of gun violence that has turned many bystanders into heroes, it's clear on camera that the man in the white shirt is potentially saving dozens of lives. The long-barreled gun is in clear view as he wrests it from the hand of a man clad in black, who then topples over and ambles away.

But X's Grok, the AI chatbot designed by Elon Musk's AI venture xAI, didn't see it as such.

As users stumbled across the harrowing video of Ahmed the following morning and asked the chatbot to explain, Grok described the scene as "an old viral video of a man climbing a palm tree in a parking lot, possibly to trim it." X users have since added a fact-check to the bot's reply. In another response, Grok mislabeled the video as footage from the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, and credited it to the Tropical Cyclone Alfred in another, Gizmodo reported.

X hasn't yet explained why this glitch occurred, or why Grok has made similar fumbles beyond queries about Bondi Beach.

But watchdogs know why, and it's very simple. Chatbots are bad at breaking news. In the wake of the killing of far-right commentator Charlie Kirk, Grok exacerbated conspiracy theories about the shooter and Kirk's own bodyguards, telling some users that a graphic video clearly showing Kirk's death was just a meme. Other AI-powered search sources, including Google AI Overview, also gave false information in the immediate aftermath of Kirk's death.

"Instead of declining to answer, models now pull from whatever information is available online at the given moment, including low-engagement websites, social posts, and AI-generated content farms seeded by malign actors. As a result, chatbots repeat and validate false claims during high-risk, fast-moving events," NewsGuard researcher McKenzie Sadeghi told Mashable at the time.

Social media platforms have also scaled back human fact-checking across the board, and chatbots may instead prioritize frequency over accuracy in real-time news responses.

AI companies know this is a glaring gap for their bots, and it's why they've courted news publications into larger and larger licensing deals to better their products. Earlier this month, Meta signed multiple commercial AI agreements with news publishers, including CNN, Fox News, and international publication Le Monde, adding to its existing partnership with Reuters. Google is running a pilot program with participating news publishers to expand AI-powered features, including article summaries, to Google News.

Hallucinations and accuracy also remain a big problem for large-language models and AI chatbots in general, which often confidently provide false information to users.

Reddit is suing the Australian government over its newly enacted social media ban, which prevents children aged 16 and younger from accessing most social media platforms.

Reddit argued that the ban impinges on the right to free political discourse implied by the country's constitution, according to a Reuters report. In essence, blocking the youths from Reddit would block their freedom of speech, the company said. Reddit also argued that it was not, primarily speaking, a social media site, but rather a place for exchanging information and ideas.

"Reddit enables online interactions about the content that users post on the site. It facilitates knowledge sharing from one user to other users," the filing reads, via the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).

The filing added:

"It is not a significant purpose of the site to enable interactions engaged in because of a particular user's relationship with or interest in another user as a person; indeed, in most cases, the identity of a user on Reddit is not even known to other users."

The social media ban went into effect on Wednesday, pulling children's access to sites like TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, Reddit, and more. Most platforms complied with the ban by blocking access to any account with a user 16 and under — though, of course, that's a relatively easy barrier to dodge for tech-savvy young people. But it would, perhaps, keep kids from unfettered access to algorithmic suggestions.

"Delaying children's access to social media accounts gives them valuable time to learn and grow, free of the powerful, unseen forces of harmful and deceptive design features such as opaque algorithms and endless scroll," said Australia's eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant in a statement last month. 

Although it leaked online before the announcement, Time magazine made its 2025 Person of the Year official on Thursday morning: It's the "architects of AI."

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Time magazine's official cover(s) for the 2025 Person of the Year edition include Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, AMD CEO Lisa Su, Tesla and xAI CEO Elon Musk, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, and the "godmother of AI" Fei-Fei Li.

However, Time's accolade arrives as Generative AI faces increasing blowback over concerns about privacy and inaccuracies, its environmental impact, mass production of slop, and copyright issues. Still, more companies have started using AI for creative works, such as commercials. Coca-Cola and McDonald's are just two examples of big brands that published AI-generated holiday commercials – only to retract the ads after receiving criticism from consumers.

Those anti-AI feelings appear to be spilling over into Time's 2025 Person of the Year announcement as well.

On X, users commented about AI training off of intellectual property it may not have consent to use.

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Others knocked how Time was celebrating the CEOs of tech companies rather than the "engineers and researchers who actually build AI."

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Some X users focused on Time's choice of a cover for the Person of the Year issue, which recreates the infamous "Lunch atop a Skyscraper" photo from 1932, replacing the iron workers sitting on a steel beam with tech CEOs.

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On Reddit, some of the top comments on the highest upvoted posts were very critical of Time's choice.

"Oh god Please burst the AI bubble ASAP." 

"how very disappointing" 

"The editors were so proud of this choice... ..until they all lost their jobs to the 'Person of the Year'."

And, of course, there were a few wise guys who cracked jokes about how "AI" written out looks like we're talking about a guy named "Al."

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It's important to note that Time's 2025 Person of the Year article does touch upon many of the negative aspects about AI.

The magazine's Person of the Year designation is not meant to be a moral judgement on the person chosen, but instead a recognition of their impact on the world, whether it's good, bad, or a mix of both. Over Time's history, the publication has given Person of the Year to some truly terrible individuals along with some who have devoted themselves to helping others.

Still, many online seem to believe that AI and its big tech cheerleaders don't deserve the recognition.

Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.

Australia's social media ban for children under 16 will come into effect this Wednesday, Dec. 10. Platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube have already begun disabling users' accounts to comply with the new law.

Approved by Australia's Senate earlier this year, the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act requires social media platforms to take "reasonable steps" to prevent Australians under 16 from holding accounts. A platform will be subject to this requirement if its primary purpose is to enable online social interaction between multiple users, it allows them to interact with some or all other users, and it lets them post content.

"Delaying children’s access to social media accounts gives them valuable time to learn and grow, free of the powerful, unseen forces of harmful and deceptive design features such as opaque algorithms and endless scroll," said Australia's eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant in a statement last month. 

"But I’ve also said consistently that age restricting social media is one important tool in our holistic approach to online safety. Ultimately, all online platforms should be building less harmful, age-appropriate experiences through safety by design."  

Failure to comply with Australia's new law could see social media platforms slapped with fines of up to $AU49.5 million ($US33 million). Fortunately, the legislation is specifically targeted at tech companies, and neither children nor their caregivers will be penalised if they circumvent a platform's restrictions to access social media anyway. Parents are reportedly already helping children evade the ban by using their own credentials, while a poll found almost a third would be willing to assist their child in getting around the restrictions on YouTube.

Nevertheless, Australia's new law means social media platforms must work to prohibit account holders under 16. Here's how they're responding.

Facebook, Instagram, and Threads

Credit: Meta

Last Thursday, Meta began removing access to Facebook, Instagram, and Threads accounts belonging to Australians under 16, as well as blocking them from creating new ones. They will still be able to use Messenger, which doesn't fall under Australia's social media ban, but without a connected Facebook account. 

Meta stated that impacted users will be given the option to download their content before the ban comes into effect. They will also be prompted to update their contact information, enabling Meta to reach out and reinstate their accounts once they turn 16. If they are mistakenly caught up in the ban, users can verify their age through third-party provider Yoti, or by providing their government ID or a video selfie.

Though Meta is working to comply with the ban, aiming to remove all impacted users from its services by Dec. 10, the tech giant has made clear that it doesn't agree with it. Meta has instead argued for legislation requiring app stores obtain parents' approval before allowing children under 16 to download apps. This solution would have parents establish a child's age and relevant restrictions while setting up their phone, rather than require them to complete age verification multiple times for different apps.

"Teens are resourceful, and may attempt to circumvent age assurance measures to access restricted services," Meta wrote in a November blog post. "Realistically, we can only do so much to determine age without requiring everyone to provide a government ID — which isn’t safe, poses significant privacy risks, and could lead to identity theft."

TikTok

Credit: Mashable composite: TikTok

TikTok also addressed the ban last week, stating that it will deactivate the accounts of Australian users between the age of 13 and 15. (The video sharing app already does not allow users under 13.) Further, any content they have published will no longer be visible to other users.

Impacted users will be given the option to download their information, and can either confirm that they are 16 or older, let their account be deactivated, or delete it entirely. If they choose not to delete their account, they can sign up for a reminder that it is available to them again once they turn 16. 

TikTok states that it uses multiple methods to verify users' ages, including credit card authorisation, providing government ID documents, and employing facial age estimation services from Yoti.

"Every day, we suspend thousands of accounts globally because we don't think our age requirements have been met," wrote TikTok. "We also encourage parents to have conversations with their teens to make sure they have been truthful about their age. If an Australian parent believes their teen may have provided an incorrect date of birth, they can report this in-app and online. We understand that these changes may be upsetting, but they are necessary to ensure that TikTok complies with Australian law."

Snapchat

Snapchat has argued against its classification as an age-restricted social media service, claiming that 75 percent of time Australians spend on the app is messaging and calling. Nevertheless, the Australian government maintains that Snapchat falls under the ban's purview, forcing the video sharing app to comply.

From Dec. 10, Snapchat will lock accounts belonging to Australians under 16. Notably, this is distinct from deactivating them. Locked accounts will remain locked for three years, unless the user verifies that they have turned 16 and has it reinstated. Users can verify their age via third-party provider k-ID, either by providing their government ID or by submitting to facial age estimation. Alternatively, users can complete age verification by connecting their Australian bank account.

Once the three-year lock expires, impacted users' Snapchat accounts will be deactivated. Deactivation gives users 30 days to download their data, which is then permanently deleted after 60 days. Fortunately, Snapchat users can still download their data while their account is locked, giving them three years to do so. Snapchat has also reminded users to cancel any subscriptions they may have to Snapchat+ or Memories+ via the App Store or Play Store. 

Unfortunately, Australian teens' Snapchat Streaks won't be preserved while their accounts are locked.

"[D]isconnecting teens from their friends and family doesn’t make them safer — it may push them to less safe, less private messaging apps," said Snap. "We continue to advocate for more privacy-conscious solutions, such as mandating age verification at the device, operating system, or app store level."

YouTube

Credit: Google

YouTube was poised to get an exemption from the ban earlier this year, with owner Google arguing that it is "a video sharing platform, not a social media service, that offers benefit and value to younger Australians." This exemption was subsequently reversed in July, forcing YouTube to ban Australians under 16.

As a result, YouTube will automatically sign out all Australian users under 16 on Dec. 10, including supervised pre-teen and teen accounts. These users' YouTube channels will become inaccessible from this date, preventing them from uploading, commenting on, or monetising videos. Their channels will also no longer be visible to others. YouTube Kids will not be impacted by the ban.

Users can download their YouTube and Youtube Music data via Google Takeout, as well as permanently delete their channel if they so choose. If they don't delete it, Google will hold on to their data until they turn 16 and can re-enable their account, reinstating their uploads and comments.

Significantly, YouTube does allow users to view content without logging in. As such, the ban primarily impacts the ability for YouTube users to upload content, as well as access features such as likes, subscriptions, private playlists, and memberships.

"As the Social Media Minimum Age Act requires kids to use YouTube without an account, it removes the very parental controls and safety filters built to protect them — it will not make kids safer on our platform," said Google. "These are the unfortunate consequences of a rushed legislative process that failed to allow for adequate consultation and consideration of the real complexities of online safety regulation."

Twitch

Like YouTube, Twitch initially seemed as though it would get an exemption from Australia's social media ban. This changed late last month, when the Australian government added it to its banned social media list.

Twitch has not yet announced what steps it will be taking to specifically comply with Australia's new laws. However, the platform already does not allow users under the age of 13, and has minimum age requirements which vary by region. In addition to requesting users' birth dates when they create an account, Twitch enforces these age limits via on-device facial age estimation conducted by k-ID. 

As such, it seems likely that Twitch may request Australian users use such methods to verify their age when logging in, as well as when they sign up for a new account. Twitch streams are still available to watch without logging in, however viewers won't be able to access features such as chatting and subscribing.

Reddit

Though Reddit is reportedly gearing up to challenge Australia's social media ban in court, it will likely be a while before any potential action bears fruit. In the meantime, u/LastBlueJay from Reddit's Public Policy team has outlined how it is complying with Australia's ban in a post to subreddit r/RedditSafety. 

All Australians with Reddit accounts will be required to verify their age, both by supplying their birth date as well as via a third-party age verification service. Reddit states that this may involve supplying their government ID or taking a selfie. Accounts determined to belong to Australians under 16 will be suspended, though will have an opportunity to appeal and reattempt verification. (Reddit has always banned accounts for users under 13).

Interestingly, Reddit is also going one step further by implementing restrictions on users under 18 across the globe. These users will be served a version of Reddit with "more protective safety measures," including stricter chat settings, no access to mature content, and no ad personalisation.

While Reddit is complying with the ban, u/LastBlueJay stated that the platform "disagree[s] about the scope, effectiveness, and privacy implications of this law." Like both YouTube and Twitch, Reddit is still available for people to browse without being logged in, though users are not able to post, comment, or message others.

"We believe strongly in the open internet and the continued accessibility of quality knowledge, information, resources, and community building for everyone, including young people," they wrote in their post on Tuesday. "This is why Reddit has always been, and continues to be, available for anyone to read even if they don’t have an account. By limiting account eligibility and putting identity tests on internet usage, this law undermines everyone’s right to both free expression and privacy, as well as account-specific protections."

X

While the Australia-specific page of X's Help Centre doesn't explicitly mention the Dec. 10 ban, it does outline the microblogging platform's policy regarding young Australians.

Regardless of location, X requires users to be at least 13 years old to have an account. Restrictions are placed on accounts for users aged between 13 and 18 by default, including making their posts only visible to their followers, and requiring them to approve new followers. They can also only receive direct messages from accounts they follow.

To determine users' ages, X relies upon information such as their self-reported age, how long ago their account was created, and whether they have previously verified their identity via a third party. X uses both facial age estimation and government ID verification.

X doesn't appear to have issued any further guidance specifically addressing Australia's social media ban at time of writing. As such, it is currently unclear how it will respond to the ban, as its current measures do not appear to comply with its requirements.

"The X Rules enable minors to participate in the public conversation freely and safely, and minors should rely on the X Rules (and report to X) in order to protect themselves," reads X's Help Center page.

Kick

Australian livestreaming platform Kick has asked Australian users to verify their age via k-ID by the Dec. 10 deadline, stating that this is a mandatory requirement to continue using their service. Any accounts it determines are owned by those under 16 will be deactivated, though Kick states that users will have "clear review pathways" if they wish to appeal the decision.

"We believe in creating a safer online environment, and this change is driven by our duty of care to our users," said Kick, addressing the social media ban in a post on their website last month. "By implementing age assurance, we fulfill our legal obligations under the Online Safety Act 2021 to reduce the risk of harm to young Australians. This proactive step helps enhance the safety and well-being of our younger community members by limiting their exposure to specific online risks, such as cyberbullying, inappropriate content, and unwanted contact."

Which social media platforms are still available to Australians under 16?

Though many of the largest social media platforms will soon be off-limits to Australians under 16, not all of them are being banned. 

As previously mentioned, Meta's Messenger app will still be available, allowing kids to continue chatting to people they know. Meta's other instant messaging app WhatsApp is also exempt, as is gaming-focused voice chat app Discord.

Video game Roblox is explicitly permitted, as is the LEGO Play app and video game storefront Steam. Other platforms that won't be age-restricted are GitHub, Google Classroom, Pinterest, and YouTube Kids.

The European Commission just recently slapped Elon Musk's X with a historic $140 million fine. 

But, it turns out that Europe hit X with a double whammy here. According to X, the European Commission, the executive branch of the EU that enforces its laws, took advantage of a flaw in its advertising platform which helped further spread the reach of the EU's announcement that it was fining X.

As a result, X's head of product Nikita Bier is escalating the company's feud with the EU, saying that X has terminated the European Commissions' advertising account with X.

What happened?

On Friday, the European Commission's official account shared a post on X announcing the fine, which is the very first penalty issued as a result of the EU's Digital Services Act.

The fine was issued against X, formerly Twitter, due to a number of changes the platform implemented after Musk acquired the company. The European Commission announcement says it doled out the penalty as a result of X's "deceptive design of its ‘blue checkmark', the lack of transparency of its advertising repository, and the failure to provide access to public data for researchers."

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"Bullshit," Musk replied on X to the announcement.

However, days later Bier posted on X to share that Musk's company was closing the European Commission's ad account on the platform. Bier says that the European Commission exploited the platform's Ad Composer by using a feature that's only meant for ads.

The Ad Composer allows advertisers to upload a video to a post while also linking the video itself to a third-party website. When using this feature, a user is sent to a linked webpage when clicking on the video.

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"You logged into your dormant ad account to take advantage of an exploit in our Ad Composer — to post a link that deceives users into thinking it’s a video and to artificially increase its reach," Bier wrote. "Your ad account has been terminated."

Under Musk, X's algorithm has been updated to give posts that include video uploads an advantage by extending their reach on the platform.

Bier went on to claim that the post format is only meant for ads and that the flaw had never been abused before. Bier says the exploit has since been patched.

It's unclear exactly how this affects the European Commission, as Bier claimed the now-banned ad account had not run a paid advertisement since 2021, and the exploit no longer exists.

The new iPhone, the Nintendo Switch 2, anything KPop Demon Hunters-related: these are the trending holiday gift items this year. And if you're on Facebook, there's a nonzero chance they are actually gifts that cyber criminals are pretending to sell in order to scam Facebook users.

These AI-generated products look like quality items, which the scammers then pitch at affordable prices. When a user clicks on the ad, which the scammer paid Facebook to serve, they are sent to the thieves' e-commerce storefront.

The consumer makes their purchase without realizing the item is a fake. They'll either receive a cheap imitation product, or never receive any item at all. 

According to a BBC investigation, consumers were scammed out of their money after falling for fake AI-generated images posing as C'est La Vie and Mabel & Daisy, family-run UK-based businesses selling products such as clothing and jewelry.

The stores do not actually exist; the e-commerce site is connected to a warehouse in China that ships cheap knockoffs.

The BBC heard directly from more than 60 people who fell victim to these scams after its report came out. Meta told the BBC it had removed those fraudulent companies from the platform. 

But what's to stop it happening again?

Facebook scams are nothing new. For years, fraudsters have weaponized the Facebook ads platform on a large scale. Meta makes, according to one analysis, a whopping $7 billion a year from scam ads alone.

Generative AI has only made scamming easier for cyber criminals, who can now generate convincingly real images and videos in an attempt to legitimize their fake shops. 

What can we do about this? Be extra careful this holiday season and remember the old adage: If a deal seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Most Americans have seen the Cinerama Dome. Since opening in 1963, the Hollywood movie theater hosted dazzling film premieres and black-tie galas, its striking geodesic shape expertly framing celebrities and red carpets. The theater — designed by Pierre Cabrol of Welton Becket’s esteemed architectural firm — has also had cameos in legendary films, like Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Since the Dome and an adjoining multiplex shut down five years ago during the COVID shutdown, its absence has been a sore spot for Hollywood, both the industry and the LA neighborhood. The Dome, with its enormous screen that wrapped around audiences, was one of the nation’s most profitable movie theaters, regularly attracting crowds to Sunset Boulevard for dinner and drinks. It was Hollywood’s gathering place and, five years after shutting its doors, the streets and businesses around the once-storied theater are more blighted and forlorn.

For Ben Steinberg, the Dome always provided a reason to take the trek from the San Fernando Valley to Hollywood. Catching a movie at the Dome wasn’t just something to do though, it helped spark his love for film. When the theater closed, he launched an online petition that generated tens of thousands of signatures and began the X account @SaveArclight and the Insta @SaveArclightCinemas2.

The LA-based college student remained hopeful as news trickled out about an imminent reopening for the Dome, but proposed dates in news articles came and went. Then, turning to some DIY journalism, Steinberg began contacting the theater’s owner for updates, photographing the blighted Dome facade, and speaking to the scant workers at the theater site. It became clear to Steinberg that the Dome was languishing. He blasted out that news via his social media accounts, which generated more local outrage and media attention.

Then, last month, a sign of hope. The owners filed an alcohol permit for the Dome and the adjacent multiplex: The permit would “allow for the continued sale and dispensing of a full line of alcoholic beverages for on-site consumption in conjunction with the existing Cinerama Dome Theater, 14 auditoriums within the Arclight Cinemas Theater Complex, and restaurant/cafe with two outdoor dining terraces from 7:00 am - 4:00 am, daily.” While a reopening date has not been announced, the permit is the biggest indication yet that movement is happening. We talked to Steinberg about his online pressure campaign and the idea that one person can really bring about change.

What's the story of the Dome?

The Dome opened in 1963 and it's the last remaining Cinerama Dome [structure] that hasn't been demolished. It hosted the premiere of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and it was a top spot for premieres in Hollywood from 1963 up until 2020.

Who built it?

It was built by a famous architect, Walton Becket, it was part of his firm. [The firm] designed some other historic buildings in Los Angeles, too (e.g., the Capitol Records Tower and the Beverly Hilton hotel).

What's your history with the Dome?

My first time there was when they were doing a revival screening of 2001: A Space Odyssey, before Interstellar was released in 2014. I was just a big fan of the Arclight chain (which operated next to the Dome). I would go to the Dome a lot, at least once a week. There used to be an Amoeba Records next door, an Urban Outfitters complex with restaurants, CNN used to have its field office there. [In the Dome's lobby] they would have little costume exhibits from the studios when movies came out.

How did you get involved in its reopening?

When I found out it was closing, within the first 20 minutes, I created a petition to save the Cinerama Dome. At the time, I didn't know the whole context and then, slowly through the last four or five years, I learned how Decurion (the owner) isn't selling the property but isn't planning on reopening it anytime soon. They don't issue press releases or communicate to the press, they deactivated their website, they're very mysterious.

The closure of the Dome was a local Hollywood frustration, but your efforts galvanized a huge swath of L.A. and the entertainment industry as a whole.

It was amazing to get 30,000 signatures on the petition and then getting different celebrities to share the post. I received some media attention [for the petition] — 1) when [the Dome] closed down and then 2) a few months ago when I spoke to the property manager and he said they had no plans to reopen.

How did you get the celebrities involved?

It was through Instagram and Twitter and then I posted a letter I wrote to Decurion and I just contacted 100 PR people, just emailing them. The main ones were from Instagram and Twitter, like [filmmakers] Sean Baker and Edgar Wright; they supported us. Alma Har'el, she directed Honey Boy, responded and supported [the effort]. It was sent to Steven Spielberg, but I didn't get a response, which was strange, because he saved the theater in 1997 when they were going to demolish it.

Do you have a background in marketing?

No, I'm a filmmaker, a student filmmaker, still in college.

You just kind of figured out how to reach people.

I know Decurion wanted to keep [the closure] a secret and they didn't want to have anyone talking about it, so I did the opposite.

Were you surprised at its success?

I was surprised at how quickly [the effort] went viral and to see how many followers the Twitter and Instagram accounts have — and I know Decurion follows my accounts.

Posting under the moniker of Save the Dome probably helped too, right?

That helped and also the fact that no media outlets wanted to report on Decurion and how they owned other properties. I was the only person who posted about it. The Dome was supposed to [re]open in '23, then it got delayed to '24, then Deadline said it was going to open at the end of June of this year. Then I spoke to the property manager and he said, "We have no plans to reopen it."

Your community activism certainly filled a void left by the closure of many local media outlets. Did you give that thought during the campaign?

Yeah, for sure. I feel like I didn't create the accounts, people would just forget about the Dome and 10 years later when it's still abandoned or demolished, people will think, Why didn't we do anything?

The European Union passed a new law early Thursday morning that will hold social media platforms like Meta and TikTok liable for financial fraud — a major escalation in the bloc’s attempt to rein in Big Tech.

After hours of late-night negotiations, EU lawmakers approved the measure, adding another layer of regulatory pressure on companies that have spent years lobbying Washington to counter the EU’s aggressive antitrust and content-moderation agenda. The law builds on the Digital Services Act (DSA) and Digital Markets Act (DMA), which curbs the spread of illegal content and prevent tech giants like Google, Amazon, and Meta from leveraging their dominance to expand across the internet.

Violating either law can trigger massive fines, something the tech sector — and U.S. President Donald Trump — have repeatedly pushed back against. Trump has accused the EU of "discriminating" against American companies, framing the bloc’s enforcement as an attack on U.S. innovation.

Much of the final stretch of deliberations centered on who should shoulder the blame when these scams happen. Several MEPs argued that Big Tech and banks share equal responsibility, since platforms host the scams and banks process the money. However, European governments pushed back, arguing that banks should only be held accountable when their own safeguards fail.

The result is a compromise: banks will reimburse victims when a scammer impersonates the bank or when a financial transaction goes through without the customer’s consent, according to the EU release.

The new fraud-liability rules arrive as social media platforms have become the primary target for investment scams, impersonation schemes, and questionable ads of every kind. Under the law, platforms will now be required to compensate banks when a user is defrauded, and it’s clear the company failed to remove a reported scam.

Newsletter platform Substack will require users in the UK to verify their age to comply with the Online Safety Act.

The Online Safety Act, which went into effect late July this year, requires websites containing explicit content to install one of several possible ways to assure a visitor's age, such as one's banking information or a facial recognition scan. It's just one of many age-verification laws that have been enacted globally in the last few years. Adult site Pornhub complies with the UK's law — but some "SFW" sites have started age-verifying as well, such as YouTube.

Now, Substack has become the latest to require more data from its users. On October 20, Substack published a blog post about its position on the Online Safety Act, stating that it "cautions against regulatory measures like these."

"Though they are often well-intentioned, these laws are not necessarily effective at achieving their stated aims, and they come with real costs to free expression," the post states. "They introduce friction, forcing an identification step before people can read on the internet."

The post went on to state that despite this, "we respect the right of countries to set their own laws, and we comply with local regulations where required."

It outlined the steps it would take to comply, including that if content is labeled under a category covered by the law, anyone viewing it on a browser or the Substack app may see a notice requiring them to complete age verification before viewing it. Substack caveated that paid subscribers are verified due to their banking information, and other subscribers may be verified already through other platforms. (This blog also mentions Australia's upcoming age-verification law, but subsequent posts don't.)

The list of content restricted to adults, according to Substack's Help Center, includes:

• Sexually explicit or pornographic content

• Content that encourages self-harming behaviors (i.e. eating disorders and suicide)

• Bullying or harassment

• Hate targeting people based on protected characteristics (like race and sexual orientation)

• Violent or graphic material

The platform updated a Help Center page titled, "Why is Substack asking to verify my age?" on Tuesday. Substack explained that a publication's chat, DMs, comments, and Notes may be blurred or blocked if they fit within the Online Safety Act's definition of "potentially harmful content."

It also laid out instructions for how to complete a facial scan. It recommends grabbing a government ID "in case the selfie verification fails," as well.

Substack stated it will retain the age estimate following the verification process.

If content is blurred that you don't believe falls under the Online Safety Act, you can request a manual review.

In the last few years, many users left Substack due to the platform hosting alt-right and Neo-Nazi content. Those posts will now likely get blurred in the UK for non-verified users.

Your suspicions about the user you're arguing with on Elon Musk's X being a fake might just be true.

That's an experience that many users on X, formerly Twitter, are sharing since the platform's new "About this account" page went live with its "Account based in" feature. Basically, each X profile now discloses the country of origin a user is posting from. 

The feature, which X head of product Nikita Bier first teased last month, was originally rolled out on Friday night. Hours later, X removed the feature with Bier claiming there were some changes that needed to be made to address users that utilized VPNs to hide their location. However, by Saturday night, X had once again made the country of origin feature live for each account.

There are ways to obscure your location in X's settings. Users can choose to only show a general region like North America or Europe instead of the specific nation like the United States or Germany. While this might protect users who are afraid of being doxxed or need to be more private living under an oppressive regime of a more authoritarian country, these settings don't really affect how fake accounts are revealed.

For example, X users discovered that the account @American, complete with a U.S. flag and bald eagle in their avatar, was not in fact a user from the United States but someone posting from "South Asia."

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Another account called "Mariana Times" presented themselves as a U.S. citizen who spoke out about wanting to deport New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani because "we want a nation" and not "foreigner" who has not "assimilated into American culture." While their avatar had an Israeli flag with an AI-looking woman standing in front of it, X's new feature revealed that Mariana is actually posting from India.

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Many social media users have long wondered if foreign actors have been behind prominent anonymous political accounts that use the platform to sow discord or even just make easy money through monetization schemes. It's unclear just how large the scale is, but X's new location feature certainly confirmed the suspicion that this is happening.

In addition, it shows that Elon Musk's goal to "defeat the bots" on X has largely been a failure. In fact, studies have shown that the bot and fake account problem on X has been even worse since Musk took over and made changes to the platform that made it easier for these type of fake accounts to prevail.

However, with X's latest change, spearheaded by the newly-hired Bier, at least users will now get a good idea if they are arguing with one of these fake accounts. And more transparency is always a good thing.

So, that "Make America Great Again" themed account that you've been duking it out with online for years? You may just now find out that the user claiming to be from the U.S. is actually from Russia, Nigeria, India, or elsewhere.

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If you were perusing Elon Musk's X late Friday night, you might have seen a brand new, highly anticipated feature roll out.

X visitors were able to go to any users' profile page, click on their join date to view a new "About this account" page which revealed exactly which nation an account was based. This information differed from the usual "Location" detail on an X profile page, as it showed exactly where an account was posting from based on their IP address, not what the user input themselves.

The country of origin disclosure was broadly lauded among X's user base. Then, suddenly, without notice, the country of origin was removed from the "About this account" page just hours after it made its late-night debut.

Mashable reported last month that the feature was on the way. X's head of product, Nikita Bier, originally teased the feature, rolling it out on his own account as a demo of how it would work before it was visible on any other X users' accounts.

It's unclear exactly why X quickly removed the feature shortly after rolling it out to the public. However, Bier replied to some X users who were reporting that their "About this account" was showing inaccurate information, which may be the reason why the feature was taken down.

One X user named "Canadian Beaver" shared that their country of origin was appearing as the United States despite residing in Canada.

"Fixing this now," Bier replied. "Looks like Starlink threw us off."

Along with the current country of origin, the "About this page" also displayed where a user resided when first creating the account. One X user reported that their join date location was inaccurately displayed as Korea.

"We identified the problem: it looks like you used a VPN to register your account in '22," Bier said to that user. "We are adding a indicator on that row on Monday for Android and iOS—and it will be live on web tomorrow."

Based on Bier's responses, it seems X may have removed the feature to fix location inaccuracies caused by VPNs, and the intention is to re-roll out the feature in the coming days.

X users mostly welcomed the country of origin feature, as many feel it would discourage foreign actors from spreading misinformation and propaganda related to political discussions on the platform. Facebook has a similar feature for Facebook Pages, where users can view the country of origin for the administrators of the page, although Facebook does not reveal the profiles behind the pages.

We'll soon find out if Musk's social media platform reinstates the feature.

Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Elon Musk's X – all these sites allow users to privately chat with other users right inside the platform.

Almost every major social media platform has a direct message feature. Well, almost every major social media platform except for YouTube.

That looks like it may soon change though.

According to a post from a YouTube employee on a Google support thread, YouTube is currently testing a new way to "share videos" through direct messages on the platform through the mobile app.

YouTube says in the post that this has been a "top feature request."

"We're experimenting with a new feature that makes it easy for you to share videos you love (long-form, Shorts and live streams) and have conversations about them directly on the YouTube mobile app," reads the YouTube post. "By messaging on YouTube, you accept that messages may be reviewed to ensure they follow our Community Guidelines. Community Guidelines apply to all content on YouTube, including on-platform video shares and messages."

As mentioned in its statement, YouTube will uphold its moderation policies for content sent via direct message as it would with public content, and will review flagged material. 

How YouTube direct messaging will work

YouTube says that the direct messaging experiment is just rolling out to users over the age of 18 in Poland and Ireland right now. However, this is a typical testing phase for the company's experiments and it will likely roll out even further to more users in the future.

A YouTube help page first discovered by 9to5Google further explains how this new direct messaging feature will work. 

Users will be able to share videos with other users on the platform using the feature in the YouTube mobile app. Once shared, the contacted user will be able to accept the chat invite or decline it. Every user will be given the option to accept or decline a chat when a new channel contacts them. 

When accepted, users will receive the shared video and be able to privately chat and share more videos with each other. Users will also be able to block channels that they don't want to receive invite requests or chats from. Message notifications will appear alongside other notifications when a user taps the Notification bell icon.

Longtime YouTube users have actually experienced direct messaging on the platform before. The company rolled out a way to privately share and discuss videos with specific users back in 2017. But YouTube suddenly removed the private messaging feature, much to the chagrin of many of its users, in 2019.

Now, YouTube seems poised to finally bring back direct messaging in the app.

Social media users seem to be getting sick and tired of AI-generated content on their favorite platforms. And the backlash against AI-created content, or "AI slop" as it's often referred to, is growing.

The big social media platforms appear to have noticed this anti-AI sentiment. Last month, for example, Pinterest launched a new feature that completely filters out AI content if users choose to do so.

Now, TikTok just announced that it is soon launching its own tools to help its users spot AI-generated content and see less of it if they choose to do so.

According to TikTok, the company is currently testing out a new content control in the "Manage topics" feature that will allow users to specifically adjust how much AI-generated content they see on the platform. 

The "Manage topics" feature already gives users the ability to tell TikTok's algorithm what type of content they want to see in the For Your feeds as it pertains to a specific content category like "Current Affairs," "Health & Fitness," or "Fashion & Beauty." The AI-generated content topic control is different then all those as it appears to be the first that spans all of TikTok's topic categories and explicitly deals with how the content is created. 

TikTok makes it pretty clear in its announcement that the company itself isn't anti-AI, saying it "believes AI can transform how people share their creativity, discover new passions, and stay safe on our platform, when used transparently and responsibly" and that it "invests in AI-powered experiences that create value for our community." 

However, the company also stresses multiple times that it's important to be transparent to users. 

To aid in that transparency, TikTok is also testing an "invisible watermarking" solution to help bolster its current AI label policies. TikTok says this "invisible watermark" will help "add another layer of safeguards to our current AI-generated content transparency measures." 

In addition to that, TikTok is also launching a new $2 million AI literacy fund and joining the non-profit Partnership on AI, which studies and develops best practices for ethical AI.

TikTok's AI content controls announcement may just open the floodgates for other social media platforms to filter out AI-generated content for users who choose to do so. In fact, the question may not be will they do it but which platform is next to do it?

There's a new trend on TikTok and everyone hates it.

It's one of those trends you might have found out not because you saw people using it, but because you saw people hating on it — at least that's how it was served up to me, on a plate of disgust.

The trend goes like this: A group of people, typically kids, gives their phone to someone else and asks them to record them doing a dance. They record the dance on the front-facing camera so the dancers can see themselves and at the end of the dance, they move towards the camera and flip it to reveal the person recording them.

The trend is a few weeks old, according to Know Your Meme, which reported that it likely started towards the end of October with a video from TikTok creator @jaycrudddy. The video has 1.3 million views.

This might sound like a silly trend with unoffensive consequences, but many people online are labeling it as bullying because the person chosen to record is often someone the dancing kids are trying to make fun of, be it a less popular kid, a person struggling with homelessness, or an elderly person. The punchline of the video is almost always at the expense of the recorders.

In an Instagram post about the trend, user @coquettesvanilla, who has over 41,400 followers, said the trend has "turned into straight up bullying" and saying the trend might seem small but leads to people feeling "insecure" and "like they’re not good enough."

"We shouldn’t be building a whole trend around tearing someone down," @coquettesvanilla wrote. "Bullying isn’t always loud or obvious, sometimes it hides behind 'it’s just for fun.' But if someone gets hurt, then it wasn’t fun to begin with. We can choose to be better. We can choose not to add to the negativity or make people feel ashamed of themselves. Social media doesn’t have to be a place where people get laughed at, it can be a place where we actually respect each other."

Other users have echoed @coquettesvanilla's sentiment.

One user with 14,400 followers on TikTok, @hhyy1037, called the trend "disgusting."

"Nine times out of 10, that person looks like the sweetest, kindest, most innocent human being. You can tell they were just trying to be nice, probably quiet, probably introverted, maybe not even part of that friend group for real," @hhyy1037 said.

Even @Tinx, a creator with 1.5 million followers on TikTok, made a video about the trend calling it out for bullying.

"I'm not a mom but if I found out my kids did that, I would ground them forever. I'm serious I think that is one of the mean- it's not even mean, it's cruel," Tinx said. "It's straight up cruelty. It's so mean-spirited."

It's the end of a major Web 2.0 era.

Meta announced on Monday that it would be sunsetting two once-major features on Facebook: The external "Like" and Comment" social plugins.

In a post on its developer site, Meta shared that the FB Like and FB Comment buttons will officially be discontinued on February 10, 2026.

According to Meta, developers won't have to do anything. The plugins will simply render as an invisible 0x0 pixel at the end date. Meta says none of these changes should impact any website's functionality.

In the early days of social media, social plugins were everywhere. Facebook's social plugins first launched in 2016. Websites and blog posts across the web proudly displayed these social media buttons from the major social platforms like Facebook, allowing users to log into their social media account of choice and like, share, and comment using that social profile. These social media buttons would often update, displaying stats that showed just how much that piece of content was shared or liked on a platform.

Facebook, being the biggest and most popular social network of its time, usually had its social plugin buttons featured prominently on websites big and small. This was, of course, quite advantageous for Facebook. Not just because it reflected its prominence in the social media space, but also because the company was able to collect user data even from content on third-party platforms.

"This change reflects our commitment to maintaining a modern, efficient platform that serves developers' current needs while enabling us to invest in future innovations," Meta wrote in its post announcing the end of the external FB Like and Comment buttons feature. "The plugins that will be discontinued reflect an earlier era of web development, and their usage has naturally declined as the digital landscape has evolved."

Meta isn't wrong. It's clear that the use of these social plugins has greatly waned. However, the reason these social plugins no longer seem so relevant is due to the varying ways people use the internet in 2025.

Content is being discovered on apps more than ever before, and the likes and comments that do happen now occur on Facebook directly. Social media itself has basically rendered external social plugins obsolete.

Denmark is the latest country to take aim at Big Tech, announcing plans Friday to ban social media access for users under 15.

As reported by the Associated Press, the measure won’t take effect immediately, but the details of how the ban will be enforced remain unclear. Denmark reportedly plans to roll out an official age-verification app as part of the enforcement system, and would allow parents to grant access to children as young as 13 following an assessment process.

The move puts Denmark in line with a growing list of countries introducing similar measures as concerns over social media’s impact on youth mental health continue to mount. Australia has become the first nation to implement a social media ban for minors, which is set to take effect this December. That ban would have platforms like TikTok, Snapchat, and Reddit on the hook for fines of up to $50 million AUD ($33 million USD) if they fail to comply.

In the U.S., there’s no nationwide restriction, but several states have enacted or proposed legislation limiting social media use among minors. Those laws vary widely — Nebraska, for instance, requires parental approval for anyone under 18 to open an account — and many are now being challenged in court over First Amendment concerns.

If Denmark’s plan proceeds smoothly, it could redefine the balance of power between governments and Big Tech companies like Meta, opening a new front in the global battle over who bears responsibility for verifying users’ ages — platforms, parents, or app stores.

Grow a Garden. 99 Nights in the Forest. Steal a Brainrot.

If you're a parent, you've likely heard your kids talk about one of these Roblox games at some point. They're playing Roblox. Their friends are playing Roblox. Half of all kids under the age of 16 in the U.S. are playing Roblox.

Unfortunately, with so many kids on Roblox, predators are taking advantage of the online gaming platform. And, as a result, Roblox has been hit with a slew of lawsuits over its alleged failure to keep children safe on the platform.

So, is Roblox safe for your kids? If your kid is already on Roblox, what should you do?

As a father of three young kids, two of whom play Roblox regularly and one who will likely start playing as soon as she learns how to hold a tablet, I've created this guide to help other parents navigate Roblox and ensure their kids' safety while playing the game.

What is Roblox, and should my kids play it?

Roblox is an online game where your character can explore a virtual universe and interact with other Roblox characters. The Roblox world is cartoony, with the characters resembling those of LEGO people.

At this point, Roblox is more like a gaming platform than a standalone game. Roblox users create their own games in the virtual world, which other Roblox gamers can play. Roblox even has its own economy, with some Roblox gaming developers making hundreds of thousands of dollars or more if their game gets popular. There's an in-game virtual currency called Robux, which can be used to access premium features and items.

Due to the nature of Roblox, it received an official ESRB rating of T for Teen. However, that's just because some of the games warrant that level of rating. If your child tells you they're playing Roblox, that really doesn't give you much information. It's the equivalent of them telling you they're playing video games. You need to know specifically what games they are playing on Roblox to get an idea of what is or isn't appropriate.

Obviously, whether your kids play it or not is up to you. But, I have decided it's fine for my kids in the same way I let them watch their favorite kids shows on Netflix. There are many adult movies available, but with the right parental controls and monitoring, you can also find age-appropriate content for your children.

Getting started on Roblox

So, you've decided your child can play on Roblox. Now, this is where you'll discover that Roblox actually has several parental controls in place to keep kids safe on the platform. However, parents need to actually take the time to set these things up.

First things first: Creating your Roblox accounts. 

That's right, I said "accounts" as in more than one. Your child will have an account, and you will too. Create your accounts, and then from your child's account, navigate to Settings> Parental Controls> Add a parent. Input the email for your account, and then accept the link account request in your inbox. You'll need to verify your age and identification to show you are a parent. 

Link a Parent Account Credit: Roblox

Once your account is linked, parents will need to set up a Parental PIN number to access those parental controls and prevent their kids from changing them. After that, you'll then have full access to control your child's account settings and view any pending requests your child receives.

Parental Controls and Content

Roblox offers several options to ensure your child's safety on the platform. However, you have to proactively set these things up.

In your account's Parental Controls settings, under Content Maturity, parents can set content restrictions based on the maturity level of the content itself, with levels ranging from Minimal, which means occasional mild violence, all the way to Restricted, which allows unfettered access to the most violence, scary, and crude content on Roblox. You probably don't want that last one. There are two in-between labels for older kids, Mild and Moderate, and these settings can be changed by a parent at any time.

Content Maturity settings Credit: Roblox

Blocked Experiences allows parents to block specific game titles within Roblox, even if they are technically within the Content Maturity options you set in the previously mentioned menu. As games are added to Roblox, parents may find a specific game that adheres to Roblox's content labels but still contains an attribute that makes the content inappropriate for their child. Parents can use the search bar to find these experiences and block them.

Similarly, there is a Sensitive Issues toggle to block games from your child that may be themed around social, political, or religious issues. Parents can choose to block games labeled as Sensitive Issues here, even if these titles fall within the previously set Content Maturity settings.

Sensitive Issues settings Credit: Roblox

Child safety controls

Now come the privacy controls that directly address the child safety issues for which Roblox is under scrutiny.

In the Communications section of the parental controls, parents can set who their kids can communicate with in Roblox experiences. For young children, the option is simple: turn those chats off completely by selecting 'No One'.

Experience Chat settings Credit: Roblox

However, as your kids get a bit older and want to interact with their real-life friends from school, there are additional options you'll want to set. Roblox allows users to "friend" one another through Connections. Additionally, they can create a Party or a group of friends that can join experiences together.

Parents can view and manage all of their child's connections to ensure they are only connected with individuals they know and trust in real life. Furthermore, parents can adjust their child's profile visibility so that only Connections can view when their child is on Roblox and which game they are currently playing.

Visibility settings Credit: Roblox

Furthermore, parents can control the Party settings so that their child can only create a Party with users who are their Connections. Parents can also toggle Party options off entirely for small children who won't be interacting with anyone on Roblox. 

Party settings Credit: Roblox

Private Servers are another setting that will likely be vastly different for you based on your child's age. Private Servers essentially allow users to participate in Roblox experiences with a select group of people. For small children, you'll want to likely turn this off entirely. For older kids, setting Private Servers to Connections will allow them to play with their friends.

Private Servers settings Credit: Roblox

While Roblox can always do more to protect its youngest users, the platform does have pretty robust options for child safety. The problem is that parents need to be aware of them and learn how to use them. Hopefully, this guide helps. 

There's hardly ever such a thing as truly free money. We pay for everything, in some way: with labor, with time, with suffering.

So getting a payment from a tech or social media settlement isn't exactly free — it's likely the company messed up in some way and it legitimately owes you that cash — but it certainly can feel like getting free money. And if you're already using the tech or platform, then you might as well get paid for the issue.

Here are five major settlements you might want to look into — just to see if you're owed money.

YouTube

In 2019, Google was sued for allegendly collecting data on users under the age of 13. The suit was amended, and re-amended repeatedly, and in January 2025, a judge finally ruled. While the judge only agreed with some of the plaintiff's claims, they ultimately ruled that Google knowingly “engaged in highly offensive conduct." Now, Google has agreed to a $30 million settlement (without admitting any wrongdoing), and a settlement claims website is now live.

So, if you or your kids watched YouTube videos between July 1, 2013 to April 1, 2020 and were under the age of 13 at the time, you should file a claim.

AT&T

AT&T this summer settled data breach lawsuits between 2019 and 2024. If you are an AT&T customer, you might be entitled to some of the $177 million agreement. The company said it would be contacting customers between August and October. If you haven't been contacted, it might be worth reaching out to check. You can also check out a website devoted to the settlement, which has the proper forms, deadlines, and information you need to claim a settlement.

Facebook

Pretty much everyone used Facebook at some point, which means you could be due for a payment. Settlement payouts related to the Cambridge Analytica scandal actually began to roll out last month and could go on for several more weeks. There was a deadline in 2023 to submit a claim — to be honest, who could remember if they filed something two years ago — but those who will get a payout should get an email alerting them to the fact that a payment is forthcoming.

Amazon

The retail and tech giant agreed last month to pay $1.5 billion to an estimated 35 million customers over alleged deceptive practices regarding Prime membership. You could be eligible for a payment if you signed up to be a Prime member between 2019-2025 and did so using one of the so-called "challenged enrollment flows." Certain customers will automatically get paid while others may be sent a claims form by Amazon, depending on their eligibility.

For more information on the Amazon settlement payments, check out Mashable's coverage.

Anthropic

AI company Anthropic agreed last month to pay authors $1.5 billion over allegations that it used their work to train its model. So yes, you'd have to be one of the authors in the case to get paid by this settlement, but the Books3 dataset at issue in the case contains tens of thousands of works. The judge in the case, however, has expressed reservations about that settlement — so it remains to see what will actually result from it.

In the meantime, more class-action suits against AI companies are likely to come soon, including a recent case involving Apple and allegedly pirated books. You can check to see if your work was included in the notorious Books3 library at The Atlantic's searchable database.

Elon Musk may not be a New York City resident, but he has strong feelings about the city's mayoral race, and he's using his social media platform X to influence voters.

Up to 2 million New York City residents are expected to vote in the mayoral election, which takes place on Tuesday, Nov. 4. The city's mayoral race has garnered a lot of national attention because of the charismatic State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, a 34-year-old Democratic Socialist, who defeated former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary over the summer. Cuomo is now running as an independent against Mamdani in the general election, with Mamdani as the official Democratic nominee.

Tech companies like DoorDash and Airbnb have already weighed in on the race, donating millions of dollars to defeat Mamdani.

And on Monday, the day before the election, the world's richest man made it clear who he's backing: Cuomo. In addition, Musk is urging conservative voters not to split the vote by backing the Republican candidate, Curtis Sliwa, who has a much more difficult path to victory. 

In essence, Musk is backing Cuomo simply to defeat Mamdani, and he's using a paid promotion feature to push his endorsement into users' feeds.

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"Remember to vote tomorrow in New York!" Musk posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, which he acquired in 2022. "Bear in mind that a vote for Curtis is really a vote for Mumdumi or whatever his name is. VOTE CUOMO!"

For this post, Musk utilized a paid feature on X that allows Premium X users to "Boost" their posts for added reach. This is different from the X algorithm organically showing a user posts based on their interests and engagement. Boosted posts can also be used for advertisements, but according to X's guidelines, "If you decide to use Boosted to advertise, those boosted posts must also self-identify as an advertisement" and comply with all X ad policies.

X itself does not label a boosted post that shows up in a user's feed as a paid promotion. 

How do we know Musk is boosting his post?

Normally, paid political advertisements face increased scrutiny and disclosure requirements online. (Thank you, Cambridge Analytica and Mark Zuckerberg.)

However, while Musk is taking advantage of a paid feature, it's unclear if he is actually paying to boost his post on X. After all, he owns the platform. Even so, Musk appears to be using the paid boost feature to promote his Cuomo endorsement and attack on Mamdani.

How do we know? Mashable has previously reported on Musk's X and its lack of disclosure for some advertisements. In addition, boosted posts often have a noticeable tell: X strips those posts of a timestamp when showing the post in a user's feed.

Musk's boosted post appears on users' timelines without a timestamp, a typical sign of a boosted post. Credit: Screenshot from X

When Musk's post shows up in a user's feed, users can click on the ellipses button on the right-hand corner of the post, where they will see a list of options. One of those options is a page labeled "Why am I seeing this?"

After clicking that option, X finally discloses that the reason you're seeing that post is because "Elon Musk boosted their post."

After clicking through layers of options, X will finally disclose that Musk is boosting the post. Credit: Mashable screenshot

Musk's endorsement in the election shouldn't be a surprise.

The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX has embraced right-wing politics and openly campaigned for Donald Trump during the presidential election in 2024. Musk also worked with the Trump administration through DOGE.

Now, Musk appears to be trying to influence the New York City mayoral race by utilizing a paid promotion feature that pushes his endorsement on users without an obvious disclosure.

As of this writing, Mamdani maintains a strong lead in the polls.

"You've got mail!"

While America Online, better known as AOL, is nowhere near its heights during the late 90s and early Aughts, when the dial-up service had more than 20 million paying subscribers, millions of people still hear that infamous catchphrase to this day when logging into their email account on America Online, better known as AOL.

And those millions of users are worth a significant chunk of change to the Italian app maker Bending Spoons, which just announced it was acquiring AOL from Yahoo for a whopping $1.5 billion.

"AOL is an iconic, beloved business that’s in good health, has stood the test of time, and we believe has unexpressed potential," said Bending Spoons CEO and co-founder, Luca Ferrari, in a statement along with the company's acquisition announcement. "By our estimation, AOL is one of the top ten most-used email providers in the world, with a highly retained customer base counting around 8 million daily and 30 million monthly active users. We intend to invest significantly to help the product and the business flourish."

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Bending Spoons also announced it took on $2.8 billion in debt financing in order to fund the AOL acquisition, among other investments.

According to the Wall Street Journal, AOL still pulls in more than $500 million annually in revenue, resulting in roughly $400 million in earnings each year. 

Last month, AOL officially sunsetted the company's dial-up service offerings after 30 years. However, while only hundreds of thousands of users in the U.S. still utilized dial-up, more than one million customers still pay AOL for other services, such as cybersecurity and technical support. 

Bending Spoons has been on an acquisition spree in recent years, buying up well-established online brands that seem to have grown stagnant among newer competition. 

In 2022, Bending Spoons acquired the note-taking platform Evernote and pro video mobile app company FiLMiC. In 2024, the company bought the real-life community platform MeetUp, streaming service StreamYard, and the file-sharing platform WeTransfer. Earlier this year, Bending Spoons acquired streaming platform Brightcove. Just last month, the Italian app maker announced it was acquiring the online video platform Vimeo.

As Mashable's Chris Taylor wrote over the summer, AOL was once a pioneer in the online space. From Instant Messenger to AOL Chat, the company transformed what the web would be and laid the foundational ground for today's big tech companies.

Polymarket. Kalshi. Truth Social? 

It looks like Donald Trump's social network is getting into the prediction market space. On Monday, Truth Social's parent company, Trump Media and Technology Group Corp., announced that the social media platform would be the first such site to launch its own prediction market. 

The prediction market will be called "Truth Predict."

Truth Social announced an "exclusive arrangement" that sees the company partnering with Crypto.com to make the prediction market happen.

“We are thrilled to become the world’s first publicly traded social media platform to offer our users access to prediction markets,” said Trump Media Chairman and CEO Devin Nunes in a statement. "Truth Predict will allow our loyal users to engage in prediction markets with a trusted network while harnessing our social media platform to provide totally unique ways for users to discuss and compare their predictions."

Polymarket and Kalshi are currently the two most popular prediction markets. These platforms allow users to place bets on nearly anything, from the results of an election or a basketball game to betting on whether a celebrity will do a specific thing before a set date. Prediction markets circumvent gambling laws and regulations by offering "contracts" with users betting against each other instead of playing against the house. Polymarket and Kalshi do not bet on outcomes and instead make money through fees on each contract sold.

Prediction markets have become increasingly popular in recent years. In the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election, many followed what platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi were predicting based on bets being placed over traditional pollsters. Now, even news outlets are sourcing these prediction markets when looking at polling data.

However, prediction markets have gained a much stronger foothold in the U.S. since Trump won the election. For example, Polymarket was unable to even operate in the U.S. from 2022 as a result of a settlement with the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The regulatory agency alleged that Polymarket was running an unregistered derivatives trading market. The FBI even raided Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan's home in 2024 to investigate whether the company was still trying to operate in the country.

Trump's Department of Justice closed the investigation into Polymarket in July of this year, and the company has since been allowed to operate once again in the U.S.

“Prediction markets are poised to be a multi-deca-billion dollar industry,” said Crypto.com co-founder and CEO Kris Marszalek in a statement about the partnership with Truth Social.

And that really gets to the heart of why Trump Media is launching Truth Predict. As Wired points out, the Trump family already has a financial interest in the prediction market space. The President's oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., is currently a strategic adviser at Kalshi. Trump Jr. is also on Polymarket's advisory board as a result of an investment made by the VC firm where he's a partner.

It's already well established that President Trump and his family have no concerns about conflicts of interest and alleged corruption. They have already tested the waters with their various cryptocurrency projects, which have seen the Trump family earn around $1 billion in the past year alone.

If the President of the United States gets involved in essentially an unregulated gambling industry where people place bets on what will happen in politics, business, sports, and more — what can go wrong? Not much for the ultimate insider who can pull the strings in multiple scenarios like Trump.

As for everyone else, though? Just ask the hundreds of thousands of people who lost money investing in Trump's memecoin.

Xbox can't seem to stay out of the news lately, with the announcement that Halo: Combat Evolved is coming to PlayStation next year and, in response, a detente called in the console wars. Things took a darker turn on Sunday night when President Trump launched into an AI slop meme war with GameStop that has now spiraled into the Department of Homeland Security using Halo imagery to compare undocumented immigrants to parasitic aliens.

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Early Monday morning, the official DHS X account — already infamous for its cruel, brain-rotting posting history — shared an image of Xbox's iconic mascot, Master Chief, standing on a Warthog with the Halo ring world in the background. The caption read, "Finishing this fight," a nod to the final line of Halo 2 and the marketing tagline for Halo 3. The image itself included the phrase "Destroy the Flood," alongside a link to an ICE recruitment page.

The post is problematic on several levels — the most glaring being that DHS appears to be equating the Flood, the main antagonists of the Halo series, with immigrants. For context, the Flood are a parasitic alien species that infect and consume sentient life across the galaxy.

This isn't the first time ICE has co-opted video game imagery for its recruitment posts on social media. Just last month, the agency used the "Gotta catch 'em all" Pokémon theme for videos of arrests, complete with custom-made cards of individuals captured by ICE. That's on top of the many crass, bizarre, and meme-heavy "Dark MAGA" posts the agency has shared — including ones featuring Trump with laser eyes or reposts originating from neo-Nazi accounts.

It's not clear why Trump and DHS are fixated on Halo as of late. It is worth noting that Microsoft, which owns Xbox, is one of several tech giants that reportedly helped fund construction of Trump's $300 million ballroom — a project that has already required the demolition of the East Wing. Critics say the investment is part of a broader push by major tech firms to stay in favor with the administration as they compete for lucrative federal contracts.

ICE's goal seems to be grabbing the attention of younger audiences — ostensibly for recruiting — but also to continue dehumanizing undocumented immigrants and other groups targeted by the administration.

It's a bold strategy for an agency hoping to look heroic, but it seems ICE missed the part where the good guys fight to protect all of humanity.

Mashable has contacted Xbox for comment, but has yet to receive a response as of this writing.

This article reflects the opinion of the writer.

Good news! Elon Musk's X has heard the cries of third-party developers looking to access the platform with their apps and has introduced a new pay-per-use self-serve model instead of a one-time flat-fee subscription.

The bad news? Somehow, it seems more expensive than the previous one-time flat-fee subscription model.

On Monday, X's Developers account officially announced the beta launch of a pay-per-use API model.

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"We are expanding a closed beta to both new & power users who want to ship amazing apps on X," reads the series of posts from @XDevelopers. "Our top focus is to enable builders by opening up our developer platform."

Since Elon Musk took over X, the company formerly known as Twitter, the platform has essentially lost its third-party app ecosystem. Twitter was once known as having the most robust third-party ecosystem of any major social media platform. But Musk's decision to turn the platform's free API into a mandatory subscription service — one with an original starting price point of $42,000 per month — dismantled that ecosystem. 

Long after many developers closed up their apps, X did introduce lower-priced tiers at $200 and $5,000 per month. However, many third-party app creators found that the lowest tier was more for hobbyists than an app with any semblance of a growing user base. And that $5,000 per month price was still out of reach for many devs.

So, what's the problem with a pay-per-use API?

The new pay-per-use model appears to be Musk and company's attempt to lure developers back. However, when developers saw the price for the pay-per-use model, it seemed that X's new API would be even more expensive than before.

Let's do some math.

Previously, at the Basic API tier, a third-party app could read 15,000 posts and publish 50,000 posts per month for $200. Under the pay-per-use model, a single post read costs $0.005 and a single published post costs $0.01. This means in order to read and publish the same number of posts as the previously $200 per month Basic API tier, a developer would now pay $575 per month.

X pay-per-use API pricing to match the limits previously provided under the Basic plan Credit: X

X API users fully utilizing the Pro plan will also find that it gets more expensive under the new model. Under that tier, an app could read 1,000,000 posts and publish 300,000 posts per month for $5,000. Under the new pay-per-use plan? That same usage increases to $8,000 per month.

As Mashable reported in June, X has already lost major customers over API pricing changes.

However, according to one X employee, the new pay-per-use model does not affect the Enterprise plans. One X Enterprise API customer also shared on the platform that the pay-per-use self-serve model is capped at the limits described above in the Pro plan, and apps that need more than that are required to sign up at $42,000 per month for the base Enterprise API plan.

It's certainly likely, depending on usage, that some developers will find the new pay-per-use model more affordable for their app's specific use case. It also looks like the new model can fill in a gap that's found between X's old $200 Basic and $5,000 Pro tier. Others, however, could find themselves paying more.

Before Musk took over X, Twitter could be accessed by numerous app clients, like TweetBot and Twitterific, providing tailored experiences for users. The platform was a must-have for any social media posting app, such as Later, putting Twitter right in the mix with even bigger social media platforms like Instagram and YouTube. Twitter also used to be integrated into every single major video game console.

Since Musk's takeover, the vast majority of those integrations, including Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft, have ended, likely due to the API pricing.

For developers nervous about a pay-per-use system, we should note that this is only a beta, and thus subject to further changes, hopefully for the better.

It’s a new week, which means another TikTok trend has broken containment. This time, it’s all about the not-so-secret Group 7 — a supposedly exclusive club that’s taken over the app and appeared in countless viral videos over the past few days.

So… what exactly is Group 7?

Group 7 explained

Put simply, "Group 7" refers to a TikTok trend started by singer Sophia James while promoting her new single, "So Unfair." Hoping to get as many ears on her song as possible, James uploaded seven nearly identical videos with a simple premise: whichever one appeared on your For You Page determined which "group" you belonged to.

It began with James sharing her track alongside a parking ticket she’d just received. Over the rest of the day, she posted six more clips, with the seventh and final video — Group 7 — arriving last.

"i hereby declare group 7 is the most elite group," one user commented, racking up nearly 250,000 likes.

That final post quickly blew up, becoming an inside joke among those lucky enough to land in Group 7. Of course, with James’s original video now topping 17 million views and 2.3 million likes, the "exclusive" club isn’t quite as small anymore.

"I was just trying to promote my song. That's all it was," James told Mashable over email. "But the reason I make and perform music in the first place is to foster community and connect with people, so the way this thing is bringing people together is literally a dream come true."

The trend has since exploded, spawning more than 55,000 videos tagged Group 7 — each with its own spin on the phenomenon. There are dance clips set to so-called "Group 7 anthems," explainer videos where creators declare their own Group 7 allegiance before breaking down the trend, and plenty of rambling monologues from users outlining what they believe are the defining traits of a true Group 7 member.

Of course, with more than 17 million people having seen Sophia James’s original video, it’s safe to say everyone’s in Group 7 by now — or at least pretending to be.

Meet The Mashable 101: The top creators keeping the internet interesting in 2025

Like many viral moments before it, the trend fits neatly into a broader TikTok playbook: creators manufacturing “in-groups” to drive engagement and game the algorithm. Think OnlyFans creators posting two versions of the same dance — one wholesome, one risqué — and asking followers which one showed up first on their For You Page. Or the endless power-scaling edits from anime and superhero fans, sorting users into random teams based on their birth month and sparking endless comment-section debates about who would win.

Regardless, James seems thrilled with how her videos — and her single — have taken off on TikTok. As a playful reward for fans, she’s organizing a real-life Group 7 meetup, with the first one set for Friday, October 24, in London, England.

"This is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen, and I think you should all meet in real life," reads a note on James’s website.

Elon Musk's X dropped its legacy verification program for users back when the platform was still known as Twitter. Since then, X has been a haven for misinformation and racism.

However, according to X's new head of product, Nikita Bier, the site is planning an overhaul to profiles in an attempt to restore user trust. In a post on X, Bier explained that the platform is currently testing out a new profile display that lists what country the user is based in, when they joined the site, how the user accessed X, and how many username changes the account has undergone.

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X users can currently list their location in their profile. However, it appears the new profile information page is not user-generated. The platform will display where the account is based out of via the location the user actually posts from.

"When you read content on X, you should be able to verify its authenticity," Bier posted on X. "This is critical to getting a pulse on important issues happening in the world."

Bier says there will be "toggles" which will allow users to make specific information private in order to protect certain users' privacy. However, Bier says any information that's configured by a user will be highlighted so other users know too. Bier also shared that they are experimenting with exactly what information to include in this section as well, so new account data may be added or removed as X tests out the feature.

The blue verification badge was once an indicator that a user was a trustworthy source on X. However, after Musk acquired the company, he removed the old verification system which required that the company itself verify noteworthy users like politicians, journalists, and celebrities. Now, any user can pay $8 per month to sign up for X Premium and receive a blue verification badge. As a result, spammers and provocateurs have weaponized their verified status in order to spread scams and misinformation on the platform.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, provides similar types of information for certain pages and profiles on their platform. For example, a user can go to the about section of any Facebook Page and see the country of origin for the users behind the page, as well as any name changes the page has gone through.

According to Bier, X will begin rolling the new policy out on a "handful" of X employees' profiles in order to get feedback.

Elon Musk's social media platform X has settled a $128 million lawsuit with four former Twitter executives over their promised severance package.

On Wednesday, Musk's X settled with the company's former Chief Executive Officer Parag Agrawal, Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal, Chief Legal Officer Vijaya Gadde, and General Counsel Sean Edgett. All four worked at the company when it was still known as Twitter and joined prior to Musk's takeover.

The terms of the settlement have not been disclosed.

The four former executives were all immediately fired by Musk after he acquired the company in October 2022. They filed the lawsuit in March 2024. The former Twitter executives claimed in the lawsuit that they were owed a combined $128 million contractually obligated severance package, with Agrawal, Segal, Gadde, and Edgett entitled to $57.4 million, $44.5 million, $20 million, and $6.8 million respectively. The severance included the executives' salary and hundreds of thousands of dollars in stock options, according to the suit.

Musk refused to payout the executives after firing them, accusing them of misconduct. The four claimed the misconduct charges were false and Musk had fired them in retaliation for Twitter's lawsuit forcing Musk to buy the company after he tried to back out from his initial April 2022 offer.

"Because Musk decided he didn’t want to pay Plaintiffs’ severance benefits, he simply fired them without reason, then made up fake cause and appointed employees of his various companies to uphold his decision," the complaint read. "He claimed in his termination letters that each Plaintiff committed 'gross negligence' and 'willful misconduct' without citing a single fact in support of this claim."

The lawsuit also included details from Musk's authorized biography where he was quoted as saying he would "hunt every single one of" the former Twitter executives "till the day they die."

Earlier this year, Musk's X also settled a $500 million class action lawsuit from rank-and-file former Twitter employees who were also denied severance pay by the billionaire.

President Donald Trump’s obsession with social media is so notorious that it has its own Wikipedia page. But since his return to the White House, that fixation has seeped into the highest levels of government, with cabinet officials adopting his combative style and reshaping how public servants behave online.

Consider Vice President JD Vance, who shrugged off war crime accusations after Trump authorized an extrajudicial strike on a Venezuelan fishing boat by posting on X that, "I don’t give a shit what you call it." Or the official DHS X account, which now floods timelines with seemingly AI-generated 4chan memes and WWII-style recruitment posters for ICE — including one featuring the Statue of Liberty with glowing laser eyes. FCC Chair Brendan Carr recently blasted Democrats on X for "weaponizing government to silence dissent" after a California senator suggested breaking up Sinclair Broadcasting — days after Carr appeared on a podcast threatening Disney, ABC, and local affiliates with regulatory action over Jimmy Kimmel’s comment about Charlie Kirk.

Meanwhile, FBI Director Kash Patel called MSNBC "an ass clown factory" on X after the network noted that the DOJ prohibits perp walks — a detail only mentioned because a bureau agent had been allegedly suspended for refusing to stage one with former FBI director James Comey. Patel also recently faced criticism for his behavior on X following the murder of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk; hours after the killing, Patel stated a suspect was in custody, only to post a follow-up 90 minutes later announcing the suspect was released. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem took to X recently to accuse Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson of sheltering and protecting "criminal illegal alien gangbangers." That's a disturbingly racist choice of words to put out into the world, especially from the nation’s top domestic security official.

This isn’t fringe behavior anymore. In Trump’s second term, hostile and dehumanizing social media posts are a regular occurrence. Whether the incendiary posting is official policy or simply "flooding the zone," a deliberate tactic of overwhelming the public with constant outrage and noise so that no single scandal can stick, is anyone's guess.

"To paraphrase Truman, the buck stops with the president," Ryan Geddie, a political analyst and YouTuber from Texas, said in an email to Mashable. "[Trump's] behavior on social media over the last decade has given everyone in the administration — down to whoever’s running the DHS X account — license to go more radical online."

In addition to following Trump's lead, Geddie also believes the hostile posting is not just for Trump's eyes but for conservative media audiences as well.

"[Trump's cabinet] rightly or wrongly equate these audiences with conservative voters in general. Their social media personas are driven almost entirely by what they imagine these groups will enjoy," Geddie said.

The rise of influencer creep in politics

Part of the Trump administration's online behavior may also be an extension of "influencer creep," said Sophie Bishop, an associate professor at The University of Leeds and feminist media researcher. The term, coined by Bishop, describes how the relentless self-branding and content-churning logic of influencer culture has bled into other professions — journalism, academia, and now, apparently, the federal government. It’s not hard to see why: Several of Trump’s most powerful cabinet officials built their careers not in law or public service, but in broadcasting, podcasting, and cable news.

Both Patel and Dan Bongino, the Deputy Director of the FBI, came from podcasting — Patel as a part-time podcast guest host for former Trump Chief of Staff Steve Bannon and Bongino as one of the most prominent pro-Trump influencers online. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth spent seven years on Fox & Friends Weekend. Jeanine Pirro, once a nightly Fox News firebrand, now serves as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. Kimberly Guilfoyle, former co-host of The Five, is the ambassador to Greece. Sean Duffy, a former Real World cast member and Fox Business co-host, runs the Department of Transportation. And Tulsi Gabbard, who signed on as a Fox News contributor in 2022, is now the Director of National Intelligence. Together, these individuals have millions of social media followers, and as any good influencer knows, they must be constantly fed.

"The kind of online persona building used by the Trump cabinet is just one piece of the puzzle," Bishop said in an email to Mashable. "Influencer creep accelerates the more divisive or sensationalist elements of political speech because extreme moments and soundbites are algorithmically rewarded with attention."

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"[Trump officials] have time to do this because Trump and his administration see being a headline-generating media personality as an important part of the job description," Geddie says. "Certainly, they have better things to do."

As for the official White House and DHS accounts — both run by anonymous staffers — Geddie says the explanation for their posts may lie in GOP staffer culture itself.

"If we’re talking about social media specifically, I think an under-examined angle is the connection between the online right and the GOP staffer class," Geddie says. "There’s been reporting about how figures like Bronze Age Pervert, [Curtis] Yarvin, and the flood of pseudonymous X accounts are shaping young GOP staffers — and that lines up with what I’ve seen talking to young Republicans."

Who exactly is behind those official social media accounts — known for churning out memes and AI-generated images of crying detainees — remains an open question. When Mother Jones reporter Anna Merlan tried to find out, the White House ignored her request. DHS, meanwhile, replied with an email declaring that "the American people can no longer rely on journalists like Anna Merlin [sic]" before laying into former President Joe Biden and claiming "American daughters were raped and murdered by illegal aliens" under his watch.

That email's verbiage is strikingly similar to DHS's pinned post on its X account: "America has been invaded by criminals and predators. We need YOU to get them out."

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This article reflects the opinion of the writer.

Some would say postmodernism is ruining the things we love. It’s certainly crept into the offices of ad executives, who now use our goodwill to trick us into watching ad campaigns for mediocre cognac.

After LeBron James teased a "second decision" on Monday — a nod to his 2010 announcement in which he announced he'd be leaving the Cavaliers to take his "talents to South Beach" and join the Miami Heat. However, the big reveal on Oct. 7 turned out to be nothing more than an ad for Hennessy.

In the end, it was corny, somehow even cornier than anything James has done before. Even the original The Decision was a cheesy spectacle. In the years after, it was remembered as Cleveland’s second-greatest betrayal after Art Modell moved the Browns to Baltimore.

Is nothing sacred anymore?

That's rhetorical. The answer's no. Every cultural artifact from the past 15 years is now fair game to sell something.

Remember earlier this year when Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan reunited to tease "something iconic," dressed like their When Harry Met Sally characters? That "something iconic" was a Hellmann's mayonnaise ad. Or when Dolly Parton rewrote "9 to 5" for Squarespace. Or when Sydney Sweeney and American Eagle managed to turn an already creepy Brooke Shields Calvin Klein homage into an even weirder piece of propaganda.

Like James, racing legend Lewis Hamilton, one of the greatest drivers in F1 history, was thought to be teasing a retirement with a slow-burning match video on Instagram. It was an ad for a “smoky” non-alcoholic tequila. Womp, womp.

Scroll through the comments on James' fake-out video, and you’ll find plenty of relief. At 40 (soon to be 41), James has become an institution, set to play a record-breaking 23rd season. He's the league's all-time leading scorer, and there are players entering the NBA who were born, grew up, went to school, and got drafted all while LeBron James was winning titles with the Cavs, Heat, and Lakers.

But age catches up to everyone. Maybe that’s what inspired this sad little ad stunt — holding our nostalgia hostage, hoping to stir up enough outrage to hit whatever engagement target the ad team dreamed up.

Somehow, as the previous generation of sports icons edges toward the finish line, it’s almost surprising WWE’s John Cena hasn’t pulled his own retirement fake-out — though his real farewell tour is already slogging through its share of low points and controversy.

Even worse, these all seem to exist purely as social media stunts. This is not exactly shocking, especially in an era when brands have started killing off their own mascots. In a Marketplace.org piece, Linda Ferrell of Auburn University’s Harbert College of Business explained that companies do this to move away from mascots that make it harder to connect with diverse audiences.

Earlier this year, Duolingo "killed" its creepy little bird. Planters did the same with Mr. Peanut back in 2020, only to resurrect him as Baby Nut after the Kool-Aid Man cried on his grave. The takeaway from these bizarre, morbid campaigns is simple: they grab attention. Mr. Peanut had been around for over a century — of course, people were going to react when the brand staged his death. Even Duolingo got pop stars like Dua Lipa "mourning" its mascot online.

In the same way, The Decision drew over ten million viewers when it aired, according to Nielsen. Fifteen years later, LeBron has been the subject of nonstop retirement rumors, setting the stage for a marketing ploy practically guaranteed to go viral. The teaser for his "second decision" racked up 1.4 million likes and more than 52,000 comments on Instagram. The actual reveal —posted today — sits at 458,000 likes and 23,000 comments as of this writing.

Viral stunts don’t last, but 1.8 million combined likes isn’t a bad day’s work for a cognac brand with fewer than a million followers. One can only imagine what ayahuasca supplement 41-year-old NFL QB Aaron Rodgers will shill in the near future.

This article reflects the opinions of the writer.

Never mind the debate over whether OpenAI's GPT-5 release is disappointing, or whether it can revitalize the failing world of AI Agents. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has already moved on — to releasing Sora 2, the next generation of its text-to-video engine. And to Sora by OpenAI, a new iPhone app that shot to #1 in the App Store Wednesday. Not too shabby, especially considering access to the Sora app is still invite only.

"Explore, play, and share your imagination in a community built for experimentation," the App Store description for Sora by OpenAI says. Essentially, OpenAI is about to enter the social media business the same way Facebook did — with a velvet rope around the service, and a cutting-edge feed within. OpenAI also highlighted how easy it is to insert yourself, your friends, and, well, deepfakes of just about anyone you want (including Altman, it turns out) in Sora's shortform videos.

But OpenAI is a little late to the social AI video feed app game. Since Character.AI launched Feed, which it called "the world's first AI-native social feed" in August, AI makers have begun what you might call the new pivot to video. Meta's Vibes arrived on the Meta AI app in September: Like Feed, like Sora, it's an endless scroll of shortform videos, under 10 seconds, from a creator community. (Midjourney has a similar AI video web feed, though no Midjourney smartphone app has dropped yet.)

In all cases you're invited to remix these videos and add your own. You're not invited to ask how sustainable these endless-scroll services are, given the still untold amounts of energy that every AI video creation eats.

Character.AI CEO Karandeep Anand put a spin on Feed worthy of Altman's brightest predictions: "The boundary between creator and consumer is disappearing," he wrote. Come for a traditional social media "lean-back experience," stay to create a "new epic adventure," Anand added. "Doomscrolling is dead. We're ushering in the future of AI-powered entertainment."

That's one way of putting it. Another is to say these companies are competing to build the most popular "infinite slop machine," to use one description of Meta Vibes. It isn't enough that social media services like Facebook are filled with AI-generated art of dubious quality; now we're about to be inundated with so much AI video slop they'll need apps of their own to contain the flow.

Which is the one AI video feed to rule them all?

Oceans of AI slop, ironically, could help our real-world oceans to rise. Video feeds like Feed, Sora, Vibes, and Midjourney require more than their fair share of data center usage — and for many data centers around the world, that means burning carbon in one form or another. That's why once-green tech giants like Google and Microsoft are quietly walking back their commitments to renewable energy.

Are we doomed to a different kind of doomscrolling, then? One where multiple endless-scroll feeds are lighting up our brains and stroking our egos by sticking virtual versions of us in them?

There is hope, however, that we're simply going through the part of the tech product cycle known as the Cambrian Explosion.

The original Cambrian Explosion, half a billion years ago, was a relatively tiny million-year chunk of evolutionary time. During that period, most of the major forms of life on Earth that we know today emerged — in large part because they had eyes to see. It was followed by an extinction event — a crash in the levels of atmospheric oxygen that ended many species.

Likewise, we've seen this movie before in the tech world, where one product sucks all the oxygen out of the room.

There was a Cambrian Explosion of personal computer operating systems in the early 1980s. Microsoft Windows won in the early 1990s. Apple's MacOS barely survived, even though it was widely judged to be better-designed software. Users simply wanted what everyone else was using. (Even now, MacOS barely has a 15 percent market share; Apple got where it is now by dominating the smartphone market instead.)

The proliferation of search engines in the 1990s — remember Alta Vista and Ask Jeeves? — very quickly gave way to Google standing alone in the 2000s. Why? Because users simply wanted the search engine with the best secret sauce, which turned out to be PageRank.

We've also seen this movie in the social media world itself. Friendster and MySpace were part of the Cambrian Explosion of the 2000s; when the smoke cleared in 2010, Facebook was on top. The network effect kicked in. You were on Facebook because everyone else was on Facebook.

It's way too soon to judge which AI video feed will win the coming war, and not just because barely anyone can use the Sora app yet. OpenAI, Character.AI, Meta, or Midjourney are all taking slightly different approaches to video presentation and remixing, with different LLMs underpinning them.

The one with the better technology may not be the same one that wins all the users. You can have the best AI video in the world on Sora, for example, but if the world is flocking to Vibes, no one's going to see it.

But tech history — not to mention the financial cost of data center usage, which is why OpenAI has burned through more than $250 million in operating costs this year already — tells us this Cambrian Explosion won't last long. Collectively, eventually, users will choose one Infinite Slop Machine to rule them all.

And for the sake of the planet, and our survival on it, we'd better choose sooner rather than later.

Threads is nearing X in mobile user numbers, according to data from Similarweb, a leading web analytics firm. The Twitter alternative from Meta is reportedly growing steadily and appears to be drawing users away from Elon Musk’s platform.

A chart shared by Similarweb shows Threads steadily increasing its daily active users on both iOS and Android. The data suggests Threads has reached parity with X — around 130 million daily active users — and is on track to surpass it globally within days.

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It's worth noting, however, that X still far surpassed Threads in web traffic, according to Similarweb.

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All that data tracks, especially considering a significant portion of Threads traffic likely comes from users clicking through via the Instagram app. Being embedded within Meta's broader ecosystem has clearly been a powerful — if unsurprising — growth driver. In August, Threads announced that it reached 400 million monthly active users.

X, on the other hand, has long been part of users' daily web habits, albeit under its former name. It's no surprise, then, that more of its traffic comes from desktop use.

Still, the fact that Threads has reportedly pulled even with X marks a major milestone. This shift had been anticipated since earlier this summer — and now, according to Similarweb, it appears to have arrived.

Love a TikTok so much that you want to keep it on your phone and treasure it forever? You can do that with the save video function built right into the app.

"Save video" allows you to save your favorite TikToks to your phone's photo library. Downloading TikTok videos allows you to have access to a TikTok even if the user deletes it, or if TikTok takes it down or removes the sound. Though this seems less likely now with an inked deal, it also preserves your favorite TikTok videos in case the platform is ever banned, which has been a real possibility for years. Downloading a TikTok video can also streamline sharing it with your more offline friends who may not have The Clock App.

Unfortunately, you can't save all TikToks — the user who posts a TikTok has to allow downloads for their video. If the "Save video" option doesn't come up, that means the TikTok user doesn't have downloads turned on for their account.

In that case, you could always screen record the TikTok instead. (We've got you covered on how to do that, too.)

To save a TikTok, follow the steps below.

How to download a TikTok video

Total Time

• 2 min

What You Need

• Smartphone
• TikTok app

Step 1: Open the TikTok app

Go to the app and open it as usual.

Step 2: Navigate to the video you want to save.

Hopefully you have it saved.

Step 3: Tap the white "Share" arrow on the right side of the screen.

It will bring up a number of options.

Tap the arrow to view sharing options for the TikTok. Credit: screenshot: TikTok

Step 4: Tap the arrow button above "Save Video" or "Download"

"Save Video" uses an easily recognizable download symbol. The option may also be listed as "Download," making your job even easier.

Downloads are on, so you can save the video by tapping "Save video." Credit: screenshot: TikTok

This article was originally published in 2021 and was most recently updated in September 2025.

Instagram has always been pretty precocious. Now, just ahead of its 15th birthday, we have a new measure of its global fame — and it is on a level far beyond the dreams of regular teenagers.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Wednesday that the once-humble photo-sharing app, which he had the foresight to buy for a mere $1 billion in 2012, now has more than 3 billion active users. That's an extraordinary achievement, and not just because Instagram had barely cracked 30 million monthly active users at sale time.

Three billion is nearly 37 percent of the population of Earth. If it were a country, Instagram would be larger than India (which has the largest Insta audience), China, the U.S. and the E.U. combined. The Roman Empire, the British Empire, the American whatever-this-is — they can only dream of this level of conquest.

No empire, real or virtual (and these days who can tell the difference), has ever been forged this quickly. Even Instagram's older sibling, Facebook, only just hit 3 billion users in January, at the ripe age of 21. Instagram, launched on Oct. 6, 2010, is the true prodigy of the social media family. (WhatsApp is Meta's middle child; the company says it has 3 billion users too, but your mileage may vary on whether it counts as social media.)

Based on these growth numbers, there's every reason to believe Instagram will soon overtake big brother, and become synonymous with social media in the 2020s (and maybe even 2030s) the way Facebook was in the 2010s. (TikTok is on Insta's tail, but currently eating its dust with an estimated 1.6 billion active users.)

Just as Alexander the Great was said to have wept when there was no more of the then-known world to be conquered, Zuckerberg may well lament that there are less than 5 billion smartphone users who could possibly download his app. (It's still banned in China, which Alexander couldn't reach either.)

Who counts as an Instagram 'user'?

But how does Zuckerberg's Meta count Instagram's "active users," anyway? And does it matter as much as the hype suggests?

It's an important question because Zuckerberg has been zigging and zagging on his metrics of late. In July, the company simply said that 3.48 billion people used the Meta "family of apps" — and that they did so every day. The last time Zuckerberg broke out Instagram's user number, on a quarterly call for investors and analysts in 2022, he pinned it at 2 billion monthly active users, which is the more frequently-used number. (MAUs are what we've used for TikTok and WhatsApp above.)

And Monthly Active Users (MAUs) is what Zuck meant this week, according to his Threads post. One that threw in a Breaking Bad GIF — "billions, with a b" — for extra swagger.

So why switch from monthly to daily and back again? Is counting users as simple as receiving pings from servers when they log in, or is fuzzy math involved? Are we talking across all devices and web browsers, or smartphones only? Mashable reached out to Meta and asked them to walk us through the MAU-counting process, but the company is staying tight-lipped for now.

Still, there is some evidence to suggest that a Monthly Active User ain't what they used to be — and that counting the amount of time spent on the app may be a more relevant metric.

Take me, for an extreme example. Technically, I'm a Monthly Active User of Instagram. I'm part of the three billion-strong empire! But what that means is practice is that once or twice a month, I'll look someone up via their handle. I posted a grand total of two photos in 2024, and 15 in 2023, continuing a decline since 2020. According to Screen Time on my iPhone, my Instagram usage has dropped to an average 18 seconds a day.

Why? My feed has long felt too clogged with ads and algorithmic recommendations for me to truly enjoy it (and I'm far from alone on that front, especially given the controversial feed changes of 2024). The brand new redesign, which hides the post button and prioritizes DMs and Reels, makes Insta feel less friendly (at least to this user) than ever. It's a far cry from the app I loved in the 2010s (when at least one Mashable staffer declared an Instagram addiction, and I wasn't far off myself).

Why time on Instagram may be a better metric

Meta doesn't provide any kind of time-spent-on-app data for Instagram. Estimates from multiple online data services suggest it's around 32 minutes daily per Insta user, worldwide.

That might sound like a lot, but the number hasn't shifted since 2022. Previous to that, time on Instagram was increasing year on year. Now it may have flatlined.

TikTok is ahead of Insta here. The ByteDance app may have a billion-with-a-b fewer users overall, but those users spend an estimated average of 56 minutes every day on the app.

And that particular engagement figure is only going to become more relevant as the smartphone app market becomes saturated — as every single one of us downloads both apps on our phones, basically. The MAUs will encompass more and more of us, because who doesn't look at the occasional Reel or TikTok when their friends send one?

Minutes of usage per day may not be the only metric that matters, but it is a growing part of a complicated social media picture.

For now, perhaps the clearest snapshot of the social media landscape emerges if you multiply number of billion MAUs by daily average usage minutes. Do that math for TikTok, and you get 89. Do it for Instagram, you get 96.

The 'gram still wins, but TikTok is too close for comfort — close enough to take the swag out of Zuckerberg's boast.

This column reflects the opinions of the writer.

The Pokémon Company International is not pleased that President Donald Trump's Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is using its intellectual property to promote the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) raids.

“We are aware of a recent video posted by the Department of Homeland Security that includes imagery and language associated with our brand," said a statement from the Pokémon Company International provided to Mashable. "Our company was not involved in the creation or distribution of this content, and permission was not granted for the use of our intellectual property.”

On Tuesday, the DHS posted a 1-minute video across their social media accounts on platforms like X and Facebook set to the theme song for the Pokémon TV show. 

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The DHS video includes clips from various ICE raids, where individuals alleged to be undocumented immigrants are being searched and arrested by ICE officers. Interspersed between the footage are clips of Pokémon's protagonist, Ash Ketchum. The video is another example of the Trump Administration's unapologetic, meme-centric, and often dehumanizing approach to social media.

After fans of the franchise spoke out against the dehumanizing video, the Pokémon Company initially stayed silent. The company's former legal boss even told IGN that the company would probably avoid commenting and let the situation blow over. He also noted that several of the company's executives are green card holders, and likely don't want to antagonize the Trump administration.

After the @DHSgov X account posted the video, many social media users quickly tagged the official X accounts for Pokémon and Nintendo and urged the companies to take action. Nintendo, for example, is known to be stringent when it comes to protecting its IP, as many video game content creators on platforms like YouTube have experienced firsthand.

As the Daily Beast points out, one clip used in the DHS video is from a raid overseen personally by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. This particular raid reportedly resulted in two U.S. citizens being wrongly detained. 

It's unclear if the Pokémon Company International or Nintendo intend to take further action against the unauthorized use of their intellectual property. As of Wednesday, Sept. 24, the video is still available on official DHS accounts on social media.

Mashable contacted the Department of Homeland Security for comment, and we'll update this story if we receive a response.

We all know Instagram is prioritizing short-form video content via Reels, so it should come as no surprise that a redesign is on the horizon.

In a post on Instagram Reels (of course), Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced the app has reached three billion users, which prompted them to look at what fueled that growth. "And if you look at the last few years, almost all of that growth has been driven by DMs, Reels, and recommendations," Mosseri said in the post. Because of that, Mosseri said, they're redesigning the app.

Right now, if you swipe right on Instagram, you'll be brought to your DMs; if you swipe left, you'll be prompted to post a story; and the buttons on the bottom navigation menu are for the home page, the search/explore page, the button for creating your own post, the Reels page, and, of course, your own profile. Soon, that'll change.

View this post on Instagram

In the coming months, Instagram is going to change that selection you see at the bottom of your app to home page, Reels, DMs, search/explore, and your own profile. Say goodbye to the dedicated posting button. You'll still be able to post on the app, of course, but you'll just have to click at the top left instead.

Instagram has also begun testing a new "way for you to tune your algorithm by adding and removing topics based on your interests, starting with reels," Mosseri's post reads. Users will be able to navigate to a page in your settings that informs them what the algorithm thinks they're interested in, and then tailor it to their actual interests.

"Really excited for all that’s to come. Thank you for being on the journey with us and making Instagram so special. 🙏🏼," Mosseri wrote.

Are you tired of the never-ending pop-ups requiring your consent to cookies every time you visit a website? Well, internet users may soon get a reprieve from cookie consent prompts.

The European Commission is currently looking into relaxing a 2009 EU law that has inadvertently led to the endless cookie consent pop-ups around the web.

The law, called the e-Privacy Directive, requires websites to request consent from users before loading cookies on their computer or mobile device. 

Cookies are a small text file that websites use to store a user's information and preferences. Cookies were originally introduced to simplify things for the user. For example, cookies are the reason a user can stay logged into a social media account without having to sign in every time they open up the website. Cookies are also why a user is able to return to an e-commerce shop and their shopping cart items remain in their cart from their last session.

The e-Privacy Directive was passed with the intent to protect users' privacy, as cookies can also be used for invasive marketing purposes or shared with third-parties without a users' consent. While the law provides an exception for cookies that are "strictly necessary" to provide a service, many platforms still serve the cookies' consent pop-ups to ensure they are not violating the law.

According to POLITICO, the European Commission is currently considering how to deal with cookie pop-up overload.

The EU could add additional exceptions to the existing law, or allow users to set their consent preferences in advance in their web browser settings.

Industry lobbyists have pushed for cookie consent-related laws to be included in the EU’s broader General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). As POLITICO points out, the GDPR uses a "risk-based approach" where companies have more control over privacy safety measures. 

Privacy advocates, however, are warning against giving the industry too much power over cookie consent, as any changes could be used to give away more user data for advertising and marketing purposes.

It does appear that countries within the EU want some sort of change that deals with how many times internet users have to see cookie consent pop-ups. Denmark, for example, suggested that collecting data “for technically necessary functions” or “simple statistics" should not require a users' consent.

It's important to note that the EU law requiring cookie consent resulted in websites implementing the same pop-ups for users around the world, so what the EU decides here will affect countries outside of Europe as well.

Iconic host Conan O'Brien and former Disney CEO Michael Eisner are the latest high-profile individuals to harshly criticize the decision to suspend Jimmy Kimmel Live!.

The benching of Kimmel's show by ABC and parent company Disney came after his Monday monologue, which referenced the murder of far-right influencer Charlie Kirk. "The MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it," Kimmel said during his Monday night episode.

Following the comments, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chair Brendan Carr threatened publicly to suspend Kimmel's show. Even though Carr did not follow through with any definitive action, Disney CEO Bob Iger pulled the program off the air, leaving its future in doubt. Free speech advocates were appalled, with some seeing Disney's actions as enabling autocracy. Even stars tied to Disney, like She-Hulk actress Tatiana Maslany, encouraged viewers to cancel their Disney+, ESPN, and Hulu memberships.

Kimmel's fellow late-night hosts, from John Stewart to Seth Meyers, came to his defense, blasting Disney's decision.

O'Brien, who hosted numerous eponymous talk shows since the early 1990s, also had words for Disney.

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Adding to Disney's complications was a public critique from Eisner, its iconic former CEO, who ran the Walt Disney Co. from 1984 to 2005.

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Eisner's insinuation of Disney's motives was bolstered by reports of a proposed merger that involves the Mouse House. Nexstar, a media company that owns 32 ABC affiliate stations is hoping to buy a rival company called Tegna — which owns 13 ABC affiliate stations — but would need FCC approval for the purchase, according to the New York Times.

"What could possibly go wrong?"

That's the question posed by LimeWire, the file-sharing service turned NFT marketplace turned file-sharing service once again, after announcing that it has acquired the infamous Fyre Festival.

According to a press release from LimeWire this week, the company has purchased the Fyre Festival brand after becoming the winning bidder in a "competitive bidding process" that included actor Ryan Reynolds' creative agency Maximum Effort.

“Fyre became a symbol of hype gone wrong, but it also made history,” said CEO of LimeWire Julian Zehetmayr in the press release. “We’re not bringing the festival back — we’re bringing the brand and the meme back to life. This time with real experiences, and without the cheese sandwiches.”

Fyre Festival was a 2017 music festival created by Billy McFarland, the founder and CEO of Fyre Media, and rapper Ja Rule. The event was supposed to be a high-end experience, with tickets priced from $500 to as much as $12,000.

However, the Fyre Festival quickly went viral as attendees shared their horrific experiences. The event was poorly organized, many music acts advertised to perform did not show up, and the promised "gourmet food" turned out to be cheese sandwiches.

Fyre Festival was a failure but somehow, thanks to the internet, succeeded as a meme. And LimeWire appears to be leaning in on that.

“We’re not here to repeat the mistakes — we’re here to own the meme and do it right" said LimeWire COO Marcus Feistl in the release. "Fyre became a symbol of everything that can go wrong. Now it’s our chance to show what happens when you pair cultural relevance with real execution."

LimeWire says it plans on creating real-life experiences for the "reimagined vision for Fyre" that are "bold, self-aware, and impossible to ignore" under the Fyre Festival name. The company has even set up a website, https://fyrefestival.link,  where those who are interested can join a waitlist for more information.

It seems fitting that LimeWire acquired Fyre Festival as the brand went through a similar "reimagining." Founded in 2000, LimeWire was best known as a peer-to-peer file sharing service like Napster before shutting down in 2010 following court battles with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

The LimeWire brand was then revived in 2022 as an NFT marketplace by a pair of Austrian entrepreneurs without any ties to the original service. As of publication, LimeWire's website shows that the company is looking to pivot back to a file-sharing service. The site advertises a cryptocurrency token connected to the service as well.

“Congrats to LimeWire for their winning bid for Fyre Fest. I look forward to attending their first event but will be bringing my own palette of water,” Ryan Reynolds said in a statement included in the LimeWire press release.

In the wake of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk’s killing, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman James Comer has called on the CEOs of Discord, Reddit, Twitch, and Valve to testify at an Oct. 8 hearing on online radicalization.

The hearing follows claims that the accused shooter — a 22-year-old white man from Utah — may have been influenced by extremist communities online. “Congress has a duty to oversee the online platforms that radicals have used to advance political violence,” Comer said in a press release. “To prevent future radicalization and violence, the CEOs…must appear before the Oversight Committee and explain what actions they will take to ensure their platforms are not exploited for nefarious purposes.”

Federal investigators are still working to determine the shooter’s true motivations, though Robinson's mother told police he "started to lean more to the left," according to USA Today. Bullet casings recovered at the scene carried meme-laden inscriptions referencing Helldivers 2, anti-fascist themes, and furry culture jokes from 4chan. While early theories pointed to online radicalization, leaked Discord logs paint a far murkier picture of a young man whose friends describe as apolitical, more interested in video games and guns than ideology. A Reddit spokesperson told Mashable their internal review has so far turned up no evidence that the suspect was active on the site.

Earlier this week, Utah Governor Spencer Cox reported that the shooter remains uncooperative, but lawmakers are pressing ahead with scrutiny of the platforms. These hearings have become a familiar ritual in the United States, where mass shootings are frequent and tech companies are regularly accused of enabling extremist networks. Discord and Twitch were both investigated by state attorneys general after the 2022 Buffalo shooting at a supermarket.

Discord, for its part, has already signaled it will cooperate. "We have received the Committee’s invitation and welcome the opportunity to testify," a spokesperson told Mashable. "We continuously engage with policymakers on these critical issues and look forward to continuing this important dialogue next month."

The U.S.'s TikTok ban has been pushed back yet again by President Donald Trump.

Trump has declared that December 16, 2025 is the new deadline for TikTok and its China-based parent company Bytedance to come to an agreement to sell off the app if it wants to continue to operate in the U.S.

Earlier this week, Trump and members of his administration shared that there was a "framework" for a deal with China to sell off TikTok. However, at the time, details surrounding the deal were scarce. 

According to a new Wall Street Journal report, though, it appears that the deal would see 80 percent of TikTok's ownership go to a consortium that includes Trump allies such as Larry Ellison's Oracle, Andreessen Horowitz, and Silver Lake. The other 20 percent of the company would still be owned by Chinese stakeholders. It appears that China would continue to hold on to the technology behind TikTok, such as its much sought after algorithm, and would license it to the new U.S. company.

The TikTok ban received bipartisan support from Congress due to alleged national security issues. Trump, who supported the ban during his first term in office, however, had a change of heart after claiming TikTok helped his 2024 presidential campaign to victory.

The December 16 deadline is just roughly one month short of the one-year anniversary of TikTok briefly going dark as a result of a U.S. ban going into effect.  In January of this year, TikTok blocked U.S. users from accessing the app before Trump, who was in the midst of his inauguration weekend, extended their deadline.

Trump has extended TikTok's deadline multiple times and his administration appeared to be striking a harsher tone with the company over the summer in order to get a deal finished.

Remember the TikTok ban? The popular short-form video platform went down in the U.S. earlier this year due to a U.S. law that sought to break TikTok away from its China-based owners.

However, during President Donald Trump's Inauguration weekend, TikTok went back online for U.S. users after Trump agreed to give TikTok and its parent company Bytedance more time to work out a deal to sell the company.

TikTok wasn't in the clear, however, and the app still faced a potential ban in the U.S.

On Monday, however, it appears the U.S. and China have finally come to a tentative agreement on how to deal with TikTok. President Trump's Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent revealed that a "framework" for a TikTok deal was agreed to by both the U.S. and China during broader trade talks in Spain. The Associated Press reports that Bessent shared the news during a press conference in Madrid.

Details of this framework deal are still unclear. However, China's representatives also confirmed that the two countries agreed on a “basic framework consensus” on TikTok-related issues, according to the Associated Press.

Before Bessent shared the news, Trump hinted at the TikTok deal in a post on his social media platform TruthSocial.

"The big Trade Meeting in Europe between The United States of America, and China,  has gone VERY WELL!" Trump posted. "A deal was also reached on a 'certain' company that young people in our Country very much wanted to save. They will be very happy! I will be speaking to President Xi on Friday. The relationship remains a very strong one!!!"

The law to ban TikTok due to national security concerns was originally conceived during Trump's first administration, and the effort to ban the app continued under the Biden administration. Trump has previously stated that his campaign's use of TikTok helped him win a second term, according to USA Today.

However, just this past July, Trump administration officials shifted towards a harsher tone in discussions surrounding a TikTok deal. U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick stated over the summer that the U.S. had to have control of the platform and its algorithm, or TikTok would go dark in the U.S, per CNBC.

A looming TikTok ban has been a major concern for creators who have built a following on the app and depend on it for revenue.

Bait-and-switch humor has been around forever: set up an expectation, then flip it on its head. It’s one of comedy's oldest tricks, and right now it’s reviving an old trend on X.

Users are cleverly playing with profile banners. The setup usually starts with a post about struggling to crop or format an image. But when you click into their profile to check, the banner reveals something completely different — often a joke that either undercuts the original image or turns it into a punchline.

This isn't a brand-new joke, either. According to Know Your Meme, it dates back to at least 2019, when it began with a woman posting side-by-side photos of herself and her boyfriend and asking how to fit both into her header. The gag fizzled for a while but resurfaced in 2023 when users began posting images of trash cans, only for the cropped banner to reveal the person they were calling “trash.”

For example, one Lions fan posted about trying to crop a picture of rookie wide receiver Issac TeSlaa. Click through, and the banner isn’t TeSlaa at all — it’s a goat, signaling he's the "GOAT" (greatest of all time). That’s the formula: a visual bait-and-switch that lets people label a person, team, or movie — whether as iconic or terrible — without saying it outright.

Credit: Mashable Screenshot/@sbolek1

Credit: Mashable Screenshot/@sbolek1

The trend has especially taken off on Sports Twitter, where fans are using it to hype up players or roast rival teams.

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But it’s not limited to sports — Stan Twitter has picked it up too, though often in a looser way. In those circles, the "bad crop" is less about a clever reveal and more about intentionally sloppy formatting, played up just for fun. Like most viral Twitter jokes, it cycles in and out of popularity — and right now, it’s having another big moment.

Deep in the crevices of sports TikTok, hiding in a spider hole, is a new trend that you've perhaps come across. Thinking back on heartbreaking games of the past, have you ever thought, "Wow, that guy absolutely terrorized my team"?

With both the NFL and English Premier League back in action, fans are dredging up painful memories of players who have ruined their weekends time and again. This genre of meme has an unofficial name — "football terrorist" — and it’s being made literal in the kind of darkly absurd memes only TikTok could deliver.

These SportsTok edits splice together lowlight reels of those players with clips of former Iraqi president and dictator Saddam Hussein.

Yes, this is very real. The edits don’t just splice in Saddam clips — they’re also set to a nasheed called "Al Qawlu Qawlu Sawarim" by Abu Ali, released back in 2000. Nasheeds are traditional Islamic a cappella-style chants, and this one, based on translations, was meant as a battle hymn. Sports TikTok has reimagined it as the soundtrack to your team’s worst nightmares.

The "football terrorist" label generally falls into two buckets. First are the athletes or teams who inflict pain through sheer incompetence — think Eli Apple getting burned in coverage, Andre Onana gifting goals at Manchester United, or the eternal misery of Cleveland Browns fans. Then there are the players so dominant against certain opponents that they might as well own them: Aaron Rodgers torching the Bears, Tom Brady steamrolling the AFC East for two decades, or the entirety of Alabama college football from 2008-2023.

And this isn’t just football. The NBA got its own taste during the 2024 playoffs when Tyrese Haliburton and the Indiana Pacers went on a Cinderella run powered by comeback wins and last-second daggers. NBA Twitter christened him "The Haliban," complete with inappropriate memes with a turban photoshopped onto his head. Even coaches aren’t immune — Baltimore Ravens’ John Harbaugh was meme’d into Osama Bin Laden after coughing up a 34–19 lead against the Bills on Sunday Night Football.

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Given that we’re nearly 24 years removed from the start of the U.S.’s so-called "War on Terror," it’s not exactly shocking that its cast of characters — Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, even George W. Bush — have drifted into the surreal meme-space of sports TikTok. What was once deadly serious geopolitical imagery has, in certain corners of fandom, been reworked into gallows humor.

It also speaks to how the culture of the early 2000s, when Islamophobia was normalized (and often played for laughs in mainstream media), has curdled into something stranger amid our Y2K cultural revival. For younger fans who didn’t live through the 9/11 era, the imagery feels like a detached artifact rather than real history. Thus, remixing it into a meme about a placekicker ruining your Sunday or a striker blowing an easy save. It's absurd, offensive, and — depending on who you ask — really, really funny.

Case in point, one comment under a Tom Brady X Saddam edit reads, "As a kid growing up in NY during the 2000s, these two were considered equally evil men back then."

It took mere hours for the internet to spin out on conspiracies about the murder of Charlie Kirk — who died yesterday after being shot at a public event in Utah — according to reports.

The far-right commentator, who often engaged in vitriolic debates about immigration, gun control, and abortion on college campuses, was killed while on a university tour with his conservative media group, Turning Point USA. The organization has spent the last decade building conservative youth coalitions at top universities and has become closely affiliated with the nationalist MAGA movement and President Trump. As early reports of the incident rolled in from both reputed news agencies and pop culture update accounts, it was unclear if Kirk was alive or if his shooter had been apprehended.

But internet sleuths on both sides of the political aisle were already mounting for battle on social media, trying to identify the names of individuals in the crowd and attempting keyboard forensic science as they zoomed in closer and closer on the graphic video of Kirk being shot. Some alleged that Kirk's bodyguards were trading hand signals right before the shot rang out. Others claimed the killing was actually a cover-up to distract from Trump's unearthed communications with deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

Exacerbating the matter were AI-powered chatbots, which have taken over social media platforms both as integrated robotic helpers and as AI spam accounts that automatically reply to exasperated users.

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In one example, according to media and misinformation watchdog NewsGuard, an X account named @AskPerplexity, seemingly affiliated with the AI company, told a user that its initial claim that Charlie Kirk had died was actually misinformation and that Kirk was alive. The reversal came after the user prompted the bot to explain how common sense gun reform could have saved Kirk's life. The response has been removed since NewsGuard's report was published.

"The Perplexity Bot account should not be confused with the Perplexity account," a Perplexity spokesperson clarified in a statement to Mashable. "Accurate AI is the core technology we are building and central to the experience in all of our products.  Because we take the topic so seriously, Perplexity never claims to be 100% accurate. But we do claim to be the only AI company working on it relentlessly as our core focus."

Elon Musk's AI bot, Grok, erroneously confirmed to a user that the video was an edited "meme" video, after claiming that Kirk had "faced tougher crowds" in the past and would "survive this one easily." The chatbot then doubled down, writing: "Charlie Kirk is debating, and effects make it look like he's 'shot' mid-sentence for comedic effect. No actual harm; he's fine and active as ever." Security experts said at the time that the videos were authentic.

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In other cases NewsGuard documented, users shared chatbot responses to confirm their own conspiracies, including those claiming his assassination was planned by foreign actors and that his death was a hit by Democrats. One user shared an AI-generated Google response that claimed Kirk was on a hit list of perceived Ukrainian enemies. Grok told yet another X user that CNN, NYT, and Fox News had all confirmed a registered Democrat was seen at the crime and was a confirmed suspect — none of that was true.

"The vast majority of the queries seeking information on this topic return high quality and accurate responses. This specific AI Overview violated our policies and we are taking action to address the issue,” a Google spokesperson told Mashable.

Mashable also reached out to Grok parent company xAI for comment.

Chatbots can't be trained as journalists

While AI assistants may be helpful for simple daily tasks — sending emails, making reservations, creating to-do lists — their weakness at reporting news is a liability for everyone, according to watchdogs and media leaders alike.

"We live in troubled times, and how long will it be before an AI-distorted headline causes significant real world harm?" asked Deborah Turness, the CEO of BBC News and Current Affairs, in a blog from earlier this year.

One problem is that chatbots just repeat what they're told, according to the Newsguard report:

"The growing reliance on AI as a fact-checker during breaking news comes as major tech companies have scaled back investments in human fact-checkers, opting instead for community or AI-driven content moderation efforts.This shift leaves out the human element of calling local officials, checking firsthand documents and authenticating visuals, all verification tasks that AI cannot perform on its own."

Additionally, while chatbots offer personal, isolated interactions, they are notoriously sycophantic, doing everything they can to please and confirm the beliefs of the user.

"Our research has found that when reliable reporting lags, chatbots tend to provide confident but inaccurate answers," explained McKenzie Sadeghi, NewsGuard researcher and author of the aforementioned analysis. "During previous breaking news events, such as the assassination attempt against Donald Trump last year, chatbots would inform users that they did not have access to real-time, up-to-date information." But since then, she explained, AI companies have leveled up their bots, including affording them access to real-time news as it happens.

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"Instead of declining to answer, models now pull from whatever information is available online at the given moment, including low-engagement websites, social posts, and AI-generated content farms seeded by malign actors. As a result, chatbots repeat and validate false claims during high-risk, fast-moving events," she said. "Algorithms don’t call for comment."

Sadeghi explained that chatbots prioritize the loudest voices in the room, instead of the correct ones. Pieces of information that are more frequently repeated are granted consensus and authority by the bot's algorithm, "allowing falsehoods to drown out the limited available authoritative reporting."

The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU, a nonpartisan law and policy institute, also tracks AI's role in news gathering. The organization has raised similar alarms about the impact of generative AI on news literacy, including its role in empowering what is known as the "Liar's Dividend" — or the benefits gained by individuals who stoke confusion by claiming real information is false. Such "liars" contend that truth is impossible to determine because, as many now argue, any image or video can be created by generative AI.

Even with the inherent risks, more individuals have turned to generative AI for news as companies continue ingraining the tech into social media feeds and search engines. According to a Pew Research survey, individuals who encountered AI-generated search results were less likely to click on additional sources than those who used traditional search engines. Meanwhile, major tech companies have scaled back their human fact-checking teams in favor of community-monitored notes, despite widespread concerns about growing misinformation and AI's impact on news and politics. In July, X announced it was piloting a program that would allow chatbots to generate their own community notes.

X (formerly Twitter) seems to be dominated by videos when you open the app or access the site — and if the news of the day happens to be something violent or disturbing, it can be easy to stumble across content that you don't want to see automatically playing.

The safest way to avoid disturbing social media content is to avoid the apps altogether, but if you do want to access X on a day when unpleasant news is trending, there's a setting you can tweak that will at least stop videos from autoplaying in your feed.

How to stop videos autoplaying on X

Total Time

• 1 minute

What You Need

• X on desktop or smartphone

Step 1: Navigate to "Settings and privacy"

This is under "More" if you're using desktop.

Credit: X

Step 2: Navigate to "Accessibility, display and languages"

Step 3: Click/tap on "Data Usage"

Credit: X

Step 4: Click/tap "Autoplay", then select "Never"

This will stop all videos from autoplaying when you're using X.

Credit: X

It's worth noting that while you can stop autoplaying videos, this won't remove videos from X altogether — and there's still a chance you may see disturbing images while browsing on the app.

If you've seen violent or disturbing content online, and need to talk to somebody, here are some resources:

Crisis Text Line / 988lifeline.org / Samaritans / Find a Helpline

To report harmful content go to the Safer Internet Centre.

Some people just can’t help but suck the fun out of things.

Case in point: the word “clanker,” a quasi-new slur circulating on social media aimed at AI chatbots. A few weeks ago, I reported on the trend as it gained traction on X and TikTok, mostly in satirical posts imagining a future where robots had fully integrated into society. It was dark humor rooted in resentment toward Big Tech and the growing role of AI in daily life.

But the originally ironic nature of the term didn’t last long.

Like many memes that start out as parody, “clanker” quickly morphed into something uglier. What started as a tongue-in-cheek Star Wars nod has since curdled into a pejorative that riffs on real racial slurs.

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It’s disappointing. In just a matter of weeks, the joke slid from harmless gags about not wanting a robot to serve us popcorn at the Tesla diner to full-on skits mimicking Jim Crow–era scenes of racial discrimination.

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When it comes to online slang, this phenomenon isn't new. On social media — and in politics — language has long been co-opted into coded shorthand, especially for targeting Black communities. Think of how terms like “Critical Race Theory” or “DEI” get wielded as stand-ins, or how online slang once leaned on “ni🅱️🅱️a” and now, “yn.” The Uganda Knuckles "do you know da wey" meme famously got really racist, really fast.

It seems like the cycle is repeating itself once again.

Protests erupted in Nepal on Monday after a controversial social media ban blocked people in the country from accessing most forms of social media. The youth-led "Gen Z" protests over the social media ban and government corruption triggered a violent reaction, and the BBC reported that 19 protesters have been killed. The New York Times also cited local media reports that said 400 people have been injured in the ongoing protests.

Amid the protests, a popular VPN provider reported an 8,000 percent spike in signups, ostensibly so Nepali users could get back online and use social media. 

The trouble began when Nepal passed a ban that removed access to 26 social media platforms, including legacy platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Reddit, along with newer platforms like Threads, Discord, and Mastodon. Authorities in Nepal told the New York Times these platforms have not registered with the Nepali government. 

TikTok was able to circumvent the ban by registering back in 2024, and Telegram is reportedly in the process of registering right now. In addition to official registration, each social media company has to have a local point of contact to help battle misinformation and abuse. Nepal’s Ministry of Communication and Information Technology posted a notice that companies can get off the ban list by registering. 

While the ban has been enacted in full, many people are angry because the bill hasn’t passed the country’s parliament, sparking charges of government censorship. The social media ban reportedly caused lingering anger over government corruption and economic inequality to boil over, leading to the explosive Gen Z protests that occurred Monday, as the Times reported. Meanwhile, many Nepali people are finding other ways to get online.

As the ban went into effect on Sept. 4, Proton VPN recorded an 8,000 percent increase in new users for its VPN services, which can be used to circumvent georestrictions on specific websites or apps. Proton VPN posted a graph showing new users in Nepal joining en masse starting on Sept. 3, with the numbers skyrocketing after Sept. 4 when the ban went into full effect. Proton VPN is one of the most popular VPN services, with a reputation for having some of the best privacy features of any VPN.

A graph posted to the Proton VPN website. Credit: Proton VPN

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The company has reported similar spikes in signups following high-profile bans in other countries. For instance, after PornHub was recently blocked in France, Proton VPN signups surged 1,000 percent.

Per a Reuters report, police responded to the civil unrest with tear gas, water cannons, and rubber bullets. The day turned violent after protesters forced their way into the parliament complex in Kathmandu.

The "poke" technically never went away, but Facebook is trying to make it a thing again.

In a nod to Y2K nostalgia, Facebook announced a few updates to the poke button, according to TechCrunch, which spotted the announcement. A fixture in the early Facebook days, no one was ever quite clear on what a poke meant. It could be used for flirting, passive aggression, a friendly hello, or an awkward combination of the three.

Now, the poke button is mounting a comeback, again.

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Facebook has tried to revive the poke in various forms a few different occasions, but this time with more effort.

The poke button now features prominently on a user's profile page, so you can poke someone directly from there. It appears on the mobile app, but we didn't see the button on the desktop site. There's also a dedicated page to keep track of your pokes on facebook.com/pokes, where users can see who's poked them and find friends to poke. Facebook also has a helpful FAQ for the poke ignorant.

The poke hub also tracks pokes between friends, which is reminiscent of the "streaks" feature on TikTok and Snapchat, which gamifies interactions on the apps by encouraging users to keep their daily streaks going.

Snapchat got in trouble for streaks and other features that regulators said were designed to make the platform addictive, a concern for teens and their mental health.

Once upon a time, Facebook was a cultural juggernaut among the youths. But over time, as other social media apps like Snapchat, Meta's own Instagram, and eventually TikTok rose to prominence, Facebook fell out of favor with younger generations.

In recent years, Facebook has gained a reputation for being overrun by political rants from baby boomers, earning the decidedly uncool nickname of "Boomerbook." Nowadays, you can add the proliferation of AI slop to the pile of user deterrents.

Last year, Facebook executives began strategizing on how to appeal to younger generations. Although, at the time, exactly how Facebook planned to stay relevant "remained nebulous," according to Mashable former reporter Elizabeth de Luna, who covered the press event.

Surprisingly, young users enjoy the poke. Facebook reported a 13x spike in pokes last year, and it's certainly capitalizing on the Y2K nostalgia trend, as low-rise jeans, micro mini skirts, graphic tees, and other Y2K-era staples are back, much to this millennial reporter's horror.

One of the web's biggest social media management apps has just removed Elon Musk's X, formerly known as Twitter, from its platform.

Later, which boasts millions of users, including hundreds of big brands ranging from GoPro to the Dallas Mavericks, officially dropped support for X on its Later Social platform on Thursday.

The social media company stopped its customers from connecting new X accounts late last month as it prepared for the change. Yesterday, August 28, Later sunset its X support entirely. Later Social customers were previously able to schedule X posts, monitor conversations on X, and view their X analytics.

"Yes, we’ve deprecated support for X on Later Social," the company said in a statement provided to Mashable. "We are focused on driving results for our customers through influencer marketing, and doubling down on the social platforms that best support that mission.”

X is the only platform that Later has removed. Later Social customers can continue to manage their accounts on supported social platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Threads, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Snapchat.

X's API changes continue to drive companies away

The timing of Later's removal of X comes shortly after Musk's company began reaching out to third-party developers and other companies using its API (application programming interface) to announce yet another change to its pricing scheme.

Before Musk's acquisition, then-Twitter offered a robust API offering free of charge to its healthy third-party developer ecosystem. Shortly after Musk's takeover, the company changed gears and knee-capped its free offering. Many developers utilizing X's API were forced to drop their integration with the platform or sign up for an Enterprise API subscription, with prices ranging from a whopping $42,000 to $210,000 per month. X later introduced additional fees, such as charging developers $1 for every account connected to the API through their third-party app. 

Now, X is switching up its subscription model and informed existing API customers that Musk and company intend to take a cut of their revenue instead.

Mashable originally reported on the changes back in June, shortly after the popular no-code automation platform Make announced that it was dropping X integration due to "X's revised API policies and pricing." 

Later now joins a growing list of companies that have removed X after Musk's API pricing changes, which include Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo.

Notorious and controversial imageboards 4chan and Kiwi Farms are taking the UK government to task in U.S. federal court, filing suit against the country’s Office of Communications (Ofcom) over the controversial Online Safety Act (OSA).

The lawsuit, filed on Wednesday, August 27, follows earlier threats made by the site’s legal counsel, Preston Byrne. Byrne warned that the platforms would challenge Ofcom’s attempts to levy fines and penalties under the OSA. Their goal is clear: to have U.S. courts recognize the UK’s sweeping internet law as unenforceable on American companies that operate entirely outside the UK.

Since taking effect on July 25, the OSA has introduced broad age verification requirements that force UK citizens to provide proof of age to access even mainstream platforms like YouTube and Spotify. The law, billed as protecting children from "harmful" content like pornography, has instead drawn fire from critics who argue it undermines privacy, restricts access, and effectively walls off parts of the internet.

Noncompliant sites like 4chan and Kiwi Farms have faced threats of fines and outright blocking in the UK. Both platforms argue that Ofcom has no jurisdiction over them since their servers and operations are based in the United States. The lawsuit marks the most significant legal challenge yet to the OSA, which has already proven to be one of the most controversial internet laws in recent memory.

In a statement to Mashable, a spokesperson with Ofcom stated the following:

“We are aware of this lawsuit. Under the Online Safety Act, any service that has links with the UK now has duties to protect UK users, no matter where in the world it is based. The Act does not, however, require them to protect users based anywhere else in the world.”

According to the lawsuit, 4chan alleges that Ofcom has threatened to slap the site with an £18 million ($24 million) fine and warned that site operators could even face prison time if they refused to comply with the Online Safety Act.

"American citizens do not surrender our constitutional rights just because Ofcom sends us an e-mail," Byrne said in a statement on X. "If foreign countries feel like bullying Americans, that is their prerogative. The First Amendment bar is prepared to hale any foreign censor into federal court at any time to defend any American."

UPDATE: Aug. 27, 2025, 3:15 p.m. EDT This article was updated to add a statement posted on X from 4chan and Kiwi Farms' legal counsel.

People in Mississippi no longer have access to Bluesky — one of the primary alternatives to Elon Musk's X — because of burdensome age verification laws.

A new law in Mississippi requires age verification to access social media sites. This landmark piece of legislation goes even further than other laws that require age verification for sites featuring explicit content. Bluesky announced on Friday that it would stop operating in the state because of the law, noting concerns over the cost burden and privacy of its users.

It wrote in a blog post:

"Mississippi's approach would fundamentally change how users access Bluesky. The Supreme Court’s recent decision leaves us facing a hard reality: comply with Mississippi’s age assurance law—and make every Mississippi Bluesky user hand over sensitive personal information and undergo age checks to access the site—or risk massive fines. The law would also require us to identify and track which users are children, unlike our approach in other regions. We think this law creates challenges that go beyond its child safety goals, and creates significant barriers that limit free speech and disproportionately harm smaller platforms and emerging technologies.

Unlike tech giants with vast resources, we’re a small team focused on building decentralized social technology that puts users in control. Age verification systems require substantial infrastructure and developer time investments, complex privacy protections, and ongoing compliance monitoring — costs that can easily overwhelm smaller providers. This dynamic entrenches existing big tech platforms while stifling the innovation and competition that benefits users."

Bluesky pointed out that Mississippi's law was particularly burdensome and was worrying in terms of its privacy implications. The company noted, for instance, that it follows the U.K.'s Online Safety Act, which does not require tracking which users are children and only requires age checks for certain material.

Mashable's Anna Iovine covered the effects of age verification on the internet in depth. But what certain lawmakers have claimed is aimed at protecting children has already had widespread consequences. These laws, in general, make the internet a less open place and a space that requires sacrificing privacy for access.

This week, a gay influencer couple announced their breakup online, complete with a "split custody" plan for their social media. The internet, in its usual fashion, went into prying auntie mode.

For years, New Orleans-based Matt Armato and Beau Ciolino shared lifestyle blogs and videos under the brand Probably This. They met in 2013 and established the brand in 2014, according to the Probably This website. The formerly married couple posted recipes, home design, and couples' content on their Instagram and TikTok accounts.

Then, in mid-August, Armato and Ciolino shared a video across platforms announcing their split — complete with a fist bump.

"Well, we broke up," Armato announced in the now-deleted video, The Tab reported. (The TikTok video link is now broken, and it wasn't saved on the Wayback Machine. Clips are on X.) Later, he said, "This is like the dumbest video I think I can imagine. This belongs in my journal, not out there, but I want you to know I'm single."

Ciolino, however, appeared to be in higher spirits. He smiled in the video and said it was a privilege to be partners for 12 years and to share their lives online for a decade. "I think that there is so much love between us, and really loving someone knows when to change the format of the relationship, and we've decided to just be best friends," he continued, according to The Tab.

At some point, Ciolino fist-bumped his now-ex. On X, viewers weren't shy to theorize about what happened to cause the breakup, or to psychoanalyze their facial expressions and movements:

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The men also announced that Armato would now control the TikTok account, and Ciolino would control the Instagram account. "They really did social media split custody," X user @computer_gay posted.

The two have since deleted the video from both platforms, presumably because of the reaction it caused. Due to Ciolino's appeared cheerfulness in the video, people guessed that he cheated, and Armato posted on Instagram stories and added a highlight to his profile to share the real story:

Matt Armato's Instagram story about the breakup Credit: Screenshot: Instagram

In the statement, Armato acknowledged that the video "sparked a lot of reactions," and said he didn't want internet commenters to pile on against his ex.

"He is not a villain, he is a human, and a really beautiful one at that," he wrote.

"One large point of criticism has been the gap between our apparent demeanors. Neither of us was confident addressing this publicly but given that we've built our career together as a couple it felt necessary," he explained. "So what you might see as someone being carelessly giddy I see as nervous posturing and, sure, a bit of relief. I can't fault him for that. I too am relieved to be moving on."

Armato assured that he and Ciolino are still very close.

The discourse surrounding the video soon morphed into one about couples who base their social media presence around their relationship, and how it makes their entire lives "content."

And this isn't the first time that TikTok-famous couples have broken up. When Mashable spoke to such ex-couples in 2024, they shared the downsides of being a public couple — including internet hate and scrutiny into their off-camera lives. The same happened last year when another Instagram-famous queer influencer couple announced their breakup with matching posts.

Armato and Ciolino haven't responded to Mashable's request for comment.

AI-generated video has gotten way too good. Scary good, actually. Because of that, our feeds are flooded with suspiciously perfect clips — like impossibly cute animals bouncing on trampolines — racking up millions of views across TikTok, Shorts, and Reels.

With AI content blending seamlessly into our scroll, it's not always easy to know what’s real. So, how can you tell if a viral video is AI-generated?

Truth be told, there’s no perfect checklist for spotting an AI-generated video. “Even if I don’t find the artifact, I cannot say for sure that it’s real, and that’s what we want,” Negar Kamali, an AI research scientist at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, told Mashable Tech Reporter Cecily Mauran last year.

The old giveaways — warped faces, mangled fingers, impossibly smooth textures — are getting harder to catch as the tech improves. Temporal inconsistencies are being cleaned up. But just like with those surreal animal clips captured on fake doorbell cams, the truth still lives in the little details. That’s where the synthetic mask always slips.

The rise of ultra-realistic AI video tools

Part of the challenge is the technology itself. Tools like OpenAI’s Sora and Google Veo 3 can now generate cinematic clips with complex camera movements, realistic lighting, and believable textures. These platforms aren’t just toys — they’re edging into professional-grade filmmaking territory, making the gap between human-shot footage and AI-generated content thinner than ever. This means spotting the "tells" in viral AI videos takes sharper eyes and a bit more skepticism.

Take the video above, for example, an entire workshop’s worth of bunnies bouncing in perfect rhythm. It's absolutely adorable (and easy to make), but it’s also deeply suspicious when you look a little closer.

With that in mind, here are the best ways to identify AI-generated viral videos.

1. Look at the context first

Many AI videos are staged in oddly specific scenarios — often at night, using onyx-filter night vision. That’s not just for "aesthetic."

Dark filters conveniently hide the small glitches and frame-to-frame inconsistencies common in AI footage.

2. Check for missing device hallmarks

If the video claims to come from a doorbell cam or security feed, look for timestamps, brand logos, and interface overlays. A total absence of these is suspicious. At the same time, the presence of these hallmarks doesn't necessarily mean the video is real.

3. Watch the physics

Real-world motion obeys real-world rules. Animals, for example, don’t execute perfectly timed, repetitive jumps for 10 seconds straight. Look, for example, at the tip of this whale, which literally sucks a worker into the deck of this ship.

4. Mind the runtime

Shorter clips give AI less opportunity to reveal its flaws. That’s why so many viral synthetic videos cut off right before something looks “off.”

“If the video is 10 seconds long, be suspicious. There’s a reason why it’s short,” Hany Farid, a UC Berkeley professor of computer science and digital forensics expert, said to Mashable.

Likewise, if a longer video is made up of very short clips stitched together, be suspicious. Most AI video generators can only produce short clips. Google Veo 3, the most advanced generative AI video model, produces 8-second clips. Sora, by ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, produces videos between one and 20 seconds long.

5. Listen for sound (or the lack of it)

Synthetic clips often have strangely clean audio, mismatched ambient noise, or none at all. “Fabrication coming from them, distorting certain facts…that’s really hard to disprove,” Aruna Sankaranarayanan, a research assistant at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, said to Mashable. Silent or overly clean soundscapes can be a big clue.

6. Spot AI-text artifacts

AI still struggles with legible writing. Check clothing, signage, or packaging in the frame — warped letters, random symbols, or gibberish text are persistent giveaways. “If the image feels like clickbait, it is clickbait,” Farid said to Mashable.

For example, this viral video of an emotional support kangaroo. Look closely at its vest as the video zooms in.

7. Watch for impossible movements

Humans and animals have subtle weight shifts, irregular gait patterns, and micro-movements. AI creations often lack these subtleties. And if you look closely, you can often spot bizarre inconsistencies, such as multiple figures melting into one, or vice versa.

“The building added a story, or the car changed colors, things that are physically not possible,” Farid said to Mashable, describing temporal inconsistencies.

8. Look for (or notice the absence of) watermarks

Some AI video generators — including Sora and Veo 3 — automatically embed watermarks or metadata to identify synthetic content. These marks can appear in corners, as faint overlays, or as hidden digital signatures in the file. While digital watermarks like SynthID from Google DeepMind are promising, watermarks can also be removed or cropped out of viral videos.

9. Check the account's history

Many AI videos are churned out en masse by AI slop farmers. If you see a video that seems off, check the account behind the video. Often, you'll find they've posted dozens — or even hundreds — of nearly identical AI videos in a short period of time. That's a big red flag that the video you just watched was generated by AI.

The Supreme Court has been asked to take up a case that could overturn the 2015 ruling legalizing same-sex marriage, and Tefi Pessoa, a lifestyle creator with 1.9 million TikTok followers, can't understand why more LGBTQ+ creators aren't talking about it.

"How is anyone LGBTQIA+ in America right now and not talking about gay marriage?" she posted to her Instagram Stories on Tuesday.

In another corner of the internet, Israel's actions in Gaza — which Amnesty International and the UN have described as genocide — prompted music creator Zay Dante (1.8 million TikTok followers, plus sizable audiences on YouTube and Instagram) to post a video five weeks ago questioning the silence of his peers.

"I was under the impression that we are gathering community to help better people's lives," Dante said, "but I’m realizing that a lot of you [sic] get into this job so you can be posted up on a brand trip and get paid $10,000 to say 'I love Sprite.'"

Earlier this summer, Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids swept through Los Angeles. Lifestyle, beauty, and comedy creator Jenny Solares — who has 3 million followers on TikTok — broke from her usual content to share a raw message about how "families are being torn apart."

"It was word vomit," she told Mashable at VidCon 2025 in June. "It was this thing I had to say: Look what's happening." 

"It was word vomit," Solares told Mashable at VidCon 2025. Credit: Instagram screenshot / Tefi Pessoa / Zay Dante / Jenny Solares

These creators don't typically make political content, but they're speaking out anyway. Many others remain quiet. Is it shame over their political leanings, as Pessoa suggests in her Stories? A lack of confidence in understanding a complex news story, as Solares noted? Or fear of losing income, as Dante argued?

For creators, silence can be strategic. Speaking out on politics can alienate followers, trigger harassment, and scare off brand deals that pay the bills. But silence carries its own cost: missing the engagement that comes with topical discourse, feeling complicit in injustice, or losing the trust of an audience. This is one of the central tensions influencers and content creators face — the constant calculation between moral obligation and professional survival. Every post is work, and each decision to speak is shaped by the same forces that govern any workplace: risk, reward, and job security.

Audiences are right to want influencers who reflect their values. But until creators are treated as workers with rights, every political post is a gamble with their income and safety — not just a moral choice, but a labor rights issue.

Why the stakes are so high now

If there was ever a time to signal to your followers where your politics — and by extension, your morals — lie, it’s now. President Donald Trump expanded deportation efforts, ordering ICE officers to "do all in their power to achieve the very important goal of delivering the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History." Protests erupted across Los Angeles, New York City, and other cities across the country. Creators’ silence or outspokenness about human rights violations in Gaza has been a constant undertone online, and during elections, influencers are implored to speak out in favor of their candidates of choice. 

This public expectation isn’t new, says Emily Hund, the author of The Influencer Industry: The Quest for Authenticity on Social Media and a research affiliate at the Center on Digital Culture and Society at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication. She told Mashable that it began in the late 2010s as audiences became more aware of how the influencer economy worked, then spiked in 2020 as political unrest collided with the pandemic’s surge in online engagement. The result: speaking on current events began to feel urgent, and conspicuous silence more suspicious. Staying quiet started to look like taking a side.

The mounting pressures influencers face to speak up about political crises aren’t just about morality or authenticity. It’s a question of labor. These are workers navigating a new and volatile industry without collective bargaining power, industry standards, or platform accountability; for many, their livelihoods depend on algorithms, brand deals, and audience approval. The question of whether influencers should speak up — about politics, really, about anything — is inseparable from the question of whether they’re allowed to safely do so at work. 

The expectation of political engagement despite labor

There’s a joke to be made about how influencers are basically the personality hires of the internet, and while sharing that personality has some risks, it’s also the job.

The influencers are pulled between their many bosses — tech platforms, algorithms, brand partners, and audiences. Tech platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok limit the spread of political content, making it a difficult tool for creator growth. Some users have complained that the algorithm punishes them for talking about politics, going so far as to claim shadowbanning. And brands don't want to partner with anyone who might be considered partisan. All the while, audiences want creators to be funny, relatable, transparent about their political leanings, and to use their platforms in ways that reaffirm the viewers’ beliefs. There is no HR department.

Take Madison Humphrey, for example. She has never spoken about politics overtly — in fact, none of the content that has garnered her 3.8 million followers on TikTok has much to do with her own personality at all. 

But the suggested search term in a recent video about her engagement was "Madison Humphrey MAGA." 

Click on the search, and you'll see dozens of videos worrying that she doesn't align with her fans' political views — in one case, to the tune of 24,000 views. There's an expectation for creators, even those like Humphrey and Brittany Broski who aren't explicitly political, to inform their viewers where they stand politically. That's part of the job now.

Hund pointed out that taking a stand on anything "means risking a lot," both by alienating brands or followers. 

"Alienating either can result in a financial hit. In the case of alienating followers, there are also personal consequences in the form of dealing with hate messages or worse," Hund said.

Audiences demand authenticity, but the brands that pay creators want that authenticity with boundaries: Be yourself, but only if that self is as palatable as possible. Dante told Mashable that he missed out on brand deals because he's been so outspoken on Palestine. But this, too, is difficult to track outright. No one said they wouldn't partner with him once he started speaking out — the well simply dried up. He said that losing money is "what I ended up having to do. Was it hard for maybe a little bit? Yeah. But was it harder than working a 9-to-5 job? Absolutely not."

Power without protections

It's hard to measure exactly how much power influencers have, but even a mild understanding of the grassroots campaigns that political parties stage every year to fundraise, get out the vote, and ultimately shift elections is a good indicator. During the 2024 election, for example, influencers became integral to the success of political campaigns. 

Think about Taylor Swift: After she posted on Instagram encouraging her fans to register to vote in 2023, there was a 22.5 percent increase in registrations compared to the previous year, and a 1,226 percent jump in participation in the hour following the post, according to NPR. Of course, the influencers we follow online don't have the same impact as Swift, but that doesn't mean their impact is negligible.  

"Influencers are increasingly integral to election campaign strategies," The Conversation wrote in April. "Political campaigns work with influencers to reach audiences traditional media often misses, or to target specific groups with tailored messaging."

Beyond swaying votes, influencers also spread news. The Pew Research Center reports that nearly 40 percent of young Americans say they regularly get their news from TikTok and are as likely to trust information from social media as from national news outlets. Unlike journalists, influencers and content creators are allowed and encouraged by their viewers to share opinions, too, which can lead to raising money for those in need.

While many influencers monetize their content to pay their own bills, some creators also use their influence to fund causes. Three creators — Ayamé, Yuval, and Oliver — created a faux love triangle to raise huge funds for families in Palestine. Ayamé told Mashable in April that raising over a million dollars for Palestinian families made it clear to her the reality of how much power and influence she holds, and how much good she could do with her platform.

"I feel a personal responsibility to be vocal and be on the right side of history and do good because I'm lucky enough to have this platform," Ayamé said. "I'd feel almost irresponsible not using it for good on some level. I'm not a political creator. I don't do a lot of political content, but when there are things that are screaming at you to speak on, I think a lot of other people in the industry also do the same."

But even that reach doesn't come with the benefits or job security that usually accompany high-impact work. Political speech from influencers isn't just "using their platform"— it's labor performed without the wage protections, benefits, or rights that other workers leverage when their jobs intersect with politics.

A labor rights issue

The disconnect between public expectation and system protection is stark. Influencers are, in effect, gig workers in an unregulated industry. Freelancers have some protections in some states, but the Department of Labor doesn’t even consider influencing a job in the same way it does other gig workers and independent contractors. According to the Washington Post, there’s no specific date for when the Department of Labor began considering influencing a job, but in 2024, the DOL did write that “potentially some content creators” are indexed under gig workers. 

Influencers have some protections. Tech companies and platforms have implemented protections for creators’ mental health, like the ability to block accounts, automatically filter hate comments, or disable them altogether. SAG-AFTRA, the labor union that represents actors and other workers in the media, has an influencer agreement, but it’s still in the early stages. 

Without established industry standards, creators are forced to navigate public scrutiny and brand politics alone.

Dante hopes for a world in which creators can band together — like a union — to demand respect and protections from the tech companies that make money from their content. This would allow creators to feel more comfortable speaking their minds without fearing backlash from the platforms themselves.

And, as Hund says, "systems, not individuals, need to hold influencers accountable."

"Social media platforms, brands, marketing agencies, and influencers need to come together as an industry and set some shared standards of the trade, as other media industries do," Hund said. "There needs to be a better shared understanding of what it means to be an influencer, both in practical terms and in terms of their social role."

Whether or not it is important to you that a creator speaks out about politics, human rights violations, or genocide is a remarkably similar argument to separating the art from the artist. Do that, or don’t do that. But perhaps there’s a way to give creators space to speak up if they want to.

"At the end of the day, if we bog ourselves down with fear about the algorithm and with fear about what it's gonna do to our money, then I question where our humanity is gone," Dante said.

Less than a week after announcing a new Perplexity-powered AI search engine with reportedly tight reins on its sources, Truth Social's AI tool is already contradicting its most famous co-founder.

Truth Search AI, a new platform-based answer bot built on Perplexity Sonar API, was launched by Trump Media and Technology Group to "increase the amount of information" available to users and offer "direct, contextually accurate answers with transparent citations." Despite the commitment to a broader information environment, Perplexity representatives explained the search tool's sources could be customized by its overseers (known as source selection). In early tests by Axios, Truth Search AI's answers appeared to be limited to sourcing from traditionally conservative outlets, including FoxNews.com and FoxBusiness.com, compared to Perplexity's standard engine.

But, even with this curation, Truth Search AI isn't easily falling in line with the Trump Administration's standard talking points. In an analysis by the Washington Post, the AI tool repeatedly countered claims made by the President rather than reaffirming statements he has previously posted on Truth Social as factually correct, including the impact of international tariffs on American consumers and the need for federal intervention in what Trump has claimed is a crime-riddled national capital.

“Their own AI is now being too ‘woke’ for them,” David Karpf, a George Washington University professor, told the publication. The tool still cited primarily conservative entertainment and news sources in its citations, but its conclusions might not be as cut and dry as expected. Trump Media declined to provide comment to the Washington Post, calling their findings "transparently asinine" reporting by "irrelevant partisan hacks."

Part of what he claims to be a government-wide "truth-seeking" mission, Trump has recently attacked what he calls "Woke AI," or Large Language Models that are, in his eyes, "ideologically biased" and driven by diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Last month, Trump issued an Executive Order intended to promote "unbiased AI" in federal contracting and national security. Meanwhile, the administration has brokered several deals with top AI companies to provide services to the federal government, including $200 million Pentagon contracts with OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and Elon Musk-owned xAI.

Pro wrestling — especially WWE — has always thrived on shocking swerves to keep fans tuning in week after week. It's part Dragon Ball Z, part soap opera, and all spectacle. But based on the backlash erupting across social media, it seems there’s one swerve that isn’t sitting right with fans: the surprise return of Brock Lesnar.

Known to casual fans as the Beast Incarnate, Lesnar has spent the past year as persona non grata in the internet wrestling community. In Jan. 2024, just weeks before the Royal Rumble, former WWE employee Janel Grant filed a lawsuit alleging that then-CEO Vince McMahon coerced her into a sexual relationship and trafficked her to another executive and an "unnamed WWE wrestler." That wrestler was later identified as Lesnar. The lawsuit alleges McMahon offered sexual favors from Grant to Lesnar as a bargaining chip in ongoing contract negotiations.

In response, WWE quickly removed Lesnar from the Royal Rumble and scrapped plans for his WrestleMania XL match. He was also removed from the WWE 2K24 special edition cover and edited out of TV intro packages — effectively erased from the spotlight. It should be noted that at the time of this writing, although Lesnar was named 44 times in the suit, he is not a defendant in the case, nor has he been charged with any crime.

But now, it seems WWE is ready to move past the controversy — even if fans aren’t. At WWE's SummerSlam night two event, in what was billed as John Cena’s final SummerSlam match before retirement, Lesnar made a surprise return to confront him. While the pop from the crowd in attendance was thunderous, both fans and wrestlers online voiced frustration.

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Brock Lesnar’s return to WWE programming follows a string of controversial decisions by the company over the past week. The biggest of which was WWE abruptly announcing that press conferences with independent media would no longer take place. The timing raised eyebrows, as the announcement came shortly after top WWE executive Paul “Triple H” Levesque appeared at the White House alongside President Trump for the signing of a new executive order to expand the Presidential Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition.

Per Wrestling Observer Radio, journalist Dave Meltzer notes that WWE canceled the press conferences to avoid having to answer questions about Lesnar.

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It’s hard enough getting into the content creator space without the platform you’re on putting up restrictions. However, Instagram is now the latest social media app to institute such a restriction — forcing people to have at least 1,000 followers before they go live on the site. Previously, Instagram let anyone go live, regardless of account status. 

The news first started circulating after smaller creators posted the notice on other social media channels. 

The notice reads, "Your account is no longer eligible for Live. We changed the requirements to use this feature. Only public accounts with 1,000 followers or more will be able to create live videos."

Credit: Chance Townsend / Instagram screenshot

TechCrunch followed up with Instagram and confirmed that the social network giant made this change intentionally. As expected, small creators aren’t fans of the change, and it’s been mostly maligned across all of social media. Creators with private accounts won’t be able to go live at all, even if the account has over 1,000 followers. Instagram says the change was made to “improve the overall Live consumption experience.”

There are pros and cons to the decision, as TechCrunch notes. On the one hand, small creators will have an even harder time breaking out into the segment than they already do, as accumulating followers without buying them can be a long and painstaking process. By contrast, Instagram likely removed a lot of low-quality streams this way that only have a couple of viewers each, which makes it easier to find better live content while also saving Meta money. 

This change brings Instagram more in line with TikTok’s live streaming rules. However, the number of followers you need on TikTok can vary, with plenty of people getting access long before they reach 1,000 subscribers. As of this writing, Facebook’s Help Center says that going live on Facebook only requires a 60-day-old account and at least 100 followers. YouTube still allows users to go live after just 50 followers, while Twitch remains the easiest to get started with a 0 follower limit. 

If you were online in the early 2000s, KiiiKiii’s aesthetic might feel eerily familiar.

The rookie K-pop girl group is channeling a distinctly Y2K internet vibe for their new single, "Dancing Alone." The first thing you see on their website is a pop-up window featuring a pixelated dolphin defining the word "anemoia," a neologism meaning "nostalgia for a time one has never known." For KiiiKiii's members — all born after 2005 — that time is the early internet: clunky homepages, flashing cursors, Craigslist garage sales, and the tender chaos of adolescent emotion once captured in blurry webcam selfies and broken HTML.

And that’s exactly the world they’re building.

To promote "Dancing Alone," KiiiKiii’s site features Friendster-style profile pages for each member and faux Craigslist listings advertising a "garage sale." Some of the items on sale? A scuffed-up, bedazzled ice-blue Game Boy Advance SP circa 2003. Old camcorders in a variety of colors. And "gently used" DVDs.

KiiiKiii turns a 2003 Game Boy into a photo frame. Credit: STARSHIP Entertainment

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The images themselves are soft flash and pixel blur, all muted tones and melancholy textures, like they were snapped on a thrifted Canon PowerShot ELPH and uploaded from a family desktop. It’s a full-on sensory portal to a time before streaming, when heartbreak lived in AIM away messages and girls uploaded mirror selfies to MySpace with glitter text and lowercase captions.

For a generation that didn’t experience Y2K firsthand, KiiiKiii’s concept doesn’t just replicate the era — it mythologizes it. This is K-pop worldbuilding at its most layered: turning early-web ephemera and analog tech into a dreamy, digital coming-of-age narrative, wrapped in a fuzzy glow of borrowed memory.

Each member’s profile feels like a love letter typed in Comic Sans. Credit: STARSHIP Entertainment

It's like logging into a past you never lived. Credit: STARSHIP Entertainment

KiiiKiii’s vision taps into a much larger trend: Gen Z and Gen Alpha’s ongoing embrace of old tech and Y2K aesthetics. Raised on sleek, algorithm-driven platforms, today’s digital natives are increasingly drawn to the messiness and tactility of the early internet, a time when personalization meant editing your MySpace layout in HTML, not choosing between Instagram Story fonts. The appeal is emotional. There’s something grounding, even rebellious, in returning to the janky textures of pre-streaming digital life — flip phones, digital cameras, wired headphones, chunky plastic hardware. In a social media landscape that prizes polish and performance, retro interfaces offer something more intimate, more handmade.

Lo-fi girlhood in a digital world. Credit: STARSHIP Entertainment

Gen Z is uniquely nostalgic: A 2023 research study by GWI found that 50 percent of this generation feels wistful for media they never experienced, and 15 percent actively choose to dwell in the past over the future

Whether it’s printing out photos (a practice 43 percent of Gen Z do regularly) or crafting faux Friendster pages, these retro impulses are rooted in a search for literal and emotional texture in an age of polish and automation.

K-pop’s interpretation of this cultural moment is especially potent among teen groups. Acts like NewJeans, tripleS, and now KiiiKiii aren’t just recycling early-2000s trends; they’re reclaiming and reimagining them for a new generation. Through lo-fi visuals, analog tech, and retro internet references, these groups are using Y2K aesthetics to explore identity and girlhood through a distinctly digital lens.

In a culture defined by hyperconnectivity and curated personas, the fuzzy flash of a 2000s point-and-shoot feels, paradoxically, more real than reality.

A number of Reddit users say that Google’s smart home ecosystem is falling apart — another casualty of what’s been dubbed "enshittification." A July 21 Reddit thread has drawn hundreds of comments from users venting about how unreliable Google Home smart speakers and hubs have become in recent years.

"We had a good run with Google Home, but it’s been on its way out for almost two years," one user wrote. "I only try to do the very basics with mine now, and I’m happy to have lighting, outlets, and inaccurate weather."

Other Redditors echoed these frustrations: voice commands being misheard, delayed responses, multi-room speaker setups breaking, and basic functionality deteriorating. Features that once "just worked" now frequently don’t.

So what’s going wrong?

Aging hardware could be to blame for some user complaints. In April, Google officially dropped update support for its first- and second-generation Nest thermostats to focus on newer models. Around the same time, it also cut off support for third-party smart displays. Another theory points to Google’s increasing reliance on AI in the smart home experience — particularly how large language models like Gemini are less adept at understanding context.

In response to Mashable's questions, a Google representative pointed us to an X post by Anish Kattukaran, Chief Product Officer of Google Home and Nest, who responded directly to the complaints:

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Kattukaran added, "We hear you loud and clear and are committed to getting this right -- and making sure we have a long term solution that provides better reliability and capability. We have been actively working on major improvements for sometime and will have more to share in the fall."

For users watching their devices quietly degrade over time, their concern is clear: what was once a reliable smart home platform now feels like a slow, silent phase-out.

"The best example of this, for me, is asking ‘what’s this song?’ while I have music playing," one user explained. "Originally, the assistant understood I was listening to music and would tell me what was playing. After some backend change years ago, it just started telling me that ‘This Song’ is a track by George Harrison."

That shift reflects a known weakness in modern large language models like Gemini: limited context windows, which restrict their ability to handle ongoing, situational interactions.

"I guarantee they’ll shove Gemini into all the existing Google Home things," another user complained. "And then instead of 25% of the time getting an error, you’ll get ‘I’m sorry but I’m just a large language model and cannot support that feature yet’ 60% of the time."

The 2025-26 school year is going to look different for the 2 million students and 200,000 teachers that make up New York's K-12 classrooms. None of them, by law, will have their phones on them.

In May, Governor Kathy Hochul passed the Distraction Free Schools Initiative as part of the state's 2026 budget, a law mandating an end to "unsanctioned use of smartphones and other internet-enabled personal devices" in schools. It asks districts to formulate personalized plans for keeping students off devices from the moment they enter campuses to the last school bell, an increasingly popular rule known as a bell-to-bell exclusion policy, one that requires just that parents have the means to communicate with their children. Those plans, aided by a $13.5 million allotment set aside for screen-free infrastructure, are due on the governor's desk by August 1.

There will be, understandably, a major adjustment period for students, teachers, and even parents who have battled the growing impact of phones on young people. Screen-free advocates are doing all that they can to ensure New York's mandate — the largest of its kind across the country — will be successful. And they aren't just a group of Luddite Boomers crying out against technology. These are young digital natives, political activists, and, under a new initiative, the teens themselves.

New York's new Teen Tech Council

Rather than building the state's phone ban from the top-down, New York's phone-free movement is taking a page out of the book of digital wellness advocates, bringing the primary stakeholders — teens and teachers — directly into the offices of policy makers. Announced today, New York will be pioneering a first-of-its-kind Teen Tech Council, an advocacy program dedicated to training and empowering teens to ensure phone bans stick. In return, teens get the ear of the governor herself.

"I listened to how adults were speaking about the new bell-to-bell distraction-free policy, and I felt like so much of the discussion was asking how we can bring this to life, but with no young people on the team," explained Larissa May, founder of digital wellness organization #HalfTheStory and creator and shepherd of the new Teen Tech Council. Galvanized by the apparent no-questions-asked buy-in from bipartisan leaders pushing social media and Big Tech regulation, May pitched the idea of turning her organization's annual training program, Digital Civics Academy, into a statewide initiative.

"If you want New York to be the leader, we need to bring teens to the table, and we need to create a new culture, going from screen fear to screen-free fun," said May. "There's no better playground for this than New York City, but policy alone is not enough. Implementation requires empowerment of young people and actually putting their solutions at the center."

The Teen Tech Council is like an anti-Silicon Valley ideas generator. Over the next year, the council will bring in 750 members (one student per New York school district) who will be an intermediate between the state's goals and the lived reality of students. They'll receive training, including how to apply for grants to strengthen phone-free policies, and get access to #HalfTheStory's Social Media U, a digital emotional resilience program that is already in several New York state schools. May and her collaborators will bridge the gaps between those activations, looking ahead for collaborative opportunities with tech players, brands (May mentioned several major phone companies, including Verizon), and other state governments. And real time feedback from students will be sent up through the grapevine to power holders.

It may be beneficial to conceptualize the council like ambassadors, said former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, a mentor and partner for the council who has been vocally against the unfettered reach of Big Tech. "Young people are digital natives. They have a much better idea than my generation, or even their parent's generation, about what the stakes are — what is both positive and negative about their interaction with technology," Clinton told Mashable. Teens on the frontline of the internet crisis are now getting the mic, even if it feels a little too late. "I think it is a timing issue," said Clinton. "We had to have enough experience in order to understand what we were up against and what the consequences of screen addiction were for young people."

Clinton and Governor Hochul were present in the Manhattan headquarters of the Clinton Foundation ahead of the council's launch, the inaugural board meeting of a new wave of screen-free leaders — who May calls "little me's" — who sat elbow-to-elbow around a long conference desk scattered with polaroid photos and notebooks. No phones in sight. More than 20 high school students were there representing districts around the state, all with different demographics and demands, some members of #HalfTheStory's Digital Civics Academy and others part of organizational partners like Girls Inc. They provided comments and case studies from their schools, and brought up ideas for how people with power and money could get teens on board, from screen free social events to the revival of Y2K culture icons like digital cameras, computer labs, and student life centers.

Credit: Clinton Foundation / L. Richman

The meeting was filled with an upbeat, nervous energy, a sense of respect for the new ground the leaders and council members felt they were striking. Clinton and Hochul swapped stories of a formerly analogue world as teens expressed new, modern demands. But even among this group of anti-screen advocates, the necessity and desire for tech was palpable.

"It is going to cause kids to be uncomfortable, because we are a generation who grew up on it. We are accustomed to technology," said 16-year-old council member Olivia. "The policy is already implemented, but we can find ways to make it a more adaptable and comfortable transition for kids. We all have common goals." And that's what the council intends to do, along with ushering in a new cultural movement that, like a Trojan Horse, may instill better screen habits through youth-led action.

Credit: Clinton Foundation / L. Richman

The nationwide push for phone bans

"We want to create a blueprint, a package, so that any state that wants to pass a package of policies around big tech can have a roadmap for how to engage young people," explained May. Phone and/ or social media bans have swept across the country. Including New York, 14 states — Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, and West Virginia — have bans in place. Nearly every other state has previously proposed a ban on phones or piloted bell-to-bell exclusion policies. Amid this trend, May thinks leaders may be missing a crucial point: They won't work if they don't sound fun. "The next generation knows more about technology than any person who is sitting in office," she said. "We need to be able to bridge that gap to design a better future together." Phone bans, a phrase that all of the council members eschew in favor of "screen free," have to be introduced as an opportunity to gain something new, not lose something good.

Hochul is one among many policy makers who have got their sites trained on Big Tech, including passing regulation that attempts to reign in social media algorithms, advertising, and online app marketplaces that target young people. Social media giants and Big Tech's investors have, paradoxically, championed social media regulation and pushed back against stronger legislation. Meanwhile, experts and advocates, including the Surgeon General and American Psychological Association, have sounded the alarm on teens' access to social media and new technology like chatbots. Such burgeoning tech, including generative AI and agentic AI tools, pose even more questions for the next generation of learners.

"My very simple view of my job is to put families first and do whatever I can to support them," Hochul told Mashable. "As a mother, I see what is happening to our teenagers, to our young children, because of the influences of social media. Companies have monetized children's mental health. I believe what we did last year, standing up to social media companies and demanding that they unleash our children, that they liberate them from their clutches during the day, will make real progress."

When asked if vocal teens like those in the adjoining room could strengthen the nationwide push for regulation, Clinton answered emphatically: "One hundred percent. When we were talking with the governor and other experts who have studied the impact of technology on kids, we quickly came to the conclusion that we were not going to come up with all the answers by any means. We needed to start engaging with young people and give them a platform, which is what our Teen Tech Council will do."

Starting today, teens can apply (or be nominated for) New York's Teen Tech Council.

In yet another unsurprising twist, social media users have found a new way to voice their disdain for AI and the tech industry’s obsession with automation — by reviving an old insult: clanker.

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Originally used in the Star Wars prequels as a derogatory term for battle droids, clanker has found new life as a tongue-in-cheek insult aimed at real-world robots and the creeping presence of artificial intelligence. The term, popularized by clone troopers, has become shorthand for mocking tech elites' ambitions of an AI-powered future.

Thanks to the lasting influence of those films on meme culture, the term has been pulled from a galaxy far, far away and dropped squarely into real-world discourse.

Clanker's popularity is also a response to AI-in-everything enthusiasm from evangelists like Elon Musk and Sam Altman. Take Musk's relentless pitching of his humanoid robot, Optimus. Just recently, Musk and Tesla opened a retro-style diner in California — complete with popcorn served by the Optimus robot. Musk has previously claimed that this robot will one day "roam around homes, tackling chores from laundry to lawn care."

That's also not to mention the several attempts by tech startups and giants like Amazon to create humanoid robots to replace service workers.

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As clanker spreads on social media, it’s become a vehicle for a darker kind of humor. People are mock-roleplaying robot racism, spinning up exaggerated posts about anti-clanker sentiment, and how they'd act in a robot-dominated world.

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Of course, there are people who are anti using the "c-word," like one tweet that describes the potential shame they'd feel 50 years from now if they had to tell a robot that "it was a different time."

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It’s satire, mostly. But it also reflects a very real cultural mood: people are facing the constant threat of being replaced by machines, and a future that seems increasingly synthetic, and they’re responding with memes, mockery, and a borrowed bit of sci-fi slang.

On July 15, during a Coldplay concert at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, Astronomer CEO Andy Byron appeared on the kiss cam, embracing Kristin Cabot, the company’s head of HR. It would have been a cute candid moment if not for the fact that the pair immediately tried their absolute best to hide from the camera.

Within hours, the footage was online. Within a day, internet sleuths had identified both parties. By July 19, Byron was out of a job. What happened in between was a modern-day morality play starring a lot of doxxing, corporate statements, and the unrelenting content machine of online drama.

Yes, cheating is bad. However, the internet gets very, very weird about cheaters, and in this particular case, the social internet is gleefully making memes out of misery. Still, it’s hard to look away. And as someone who couldn't look away, here’s a full breakdown of how it started, how it spiraled, and where it stands now.

It started with a TikTok: July 15-17

On July 15, Byron and Cabot attended a Coldplay concert at Gillette Stadium, where they appeared on the kiss cam and quickly tried to scurry away after their alleged affair was revealed to the crowd. Coldplay frontman Chris Martin laughed and remarked, "Either they’re having an affair or they’re just very shy." The camera then cut to a red-faced woman standing beside them, visibly squirming with discomfort.

Internet sleuths quickly put the pieces together. By July 17, the video had blown up on TikTok, with 10.4 million likes and over a million shares. A new pop culture moment was born, which meant a lot of memes and floating talking heads breaking down the situation. The worst of which involved AI deepfakes of the CEO lashing out at the crowd for catching him cheating.

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Exactly how the internet identified Byron and Cabot isn’t clear, but according to 404 Media, it likely involved a mix of publicly available facial recognition tools and social media research. In the days after the 15-second clip went viral, the names of Byron, Cabot, and their spouses (or ex-husband in Cabot's case) spread across TikTok, Reddit, X, and — perhaps most awkwardly — LinkedIn.

For context: Byron was the CEO (now former) of Astronomer, a New York–based data analytics company that specializes in AI. Cabot was the company’s "Chief People Officer," which is just a corporate euphemism for Head of HR. While Astronomer wasn't widely known, until now, the company has previously been granted unofficial unicorn status, meaning it's a tech startup valued at $1 billion or more.

A phony apology: July 17

Over the weekend, social media voyeurs traded screenshots of an alleged apology statement issued by Byron on July 17. However, according to a report in The New York Post, this apology is fake, and Astronomer would later issue a statement denying its legitimacy.

The widely shared "apology" struck a regretful tone and ended in a cheesy Coldplay lyric (“As a friend once sang: ‘Lights will guide you home, and ignite your bones, and I will try to fix you.’”). In short, it was the kind of story that was too good not to share, even if it turned out to be completely false.

The Coldplay kiss cam moment achieves peak virality: July 18-present

In the days that followed, the discourse turned increasingly toxic. Social media's pursuit of justice often brings out its worst instincts. That’s not to defend or condemn Byron or Cabot, but platforms like X quickly devolved into a mess of misinformation, including fake statements attributed to Byron and even a rumor that he planned to sue Coldplay.

Some accounts even tried to drag the third person seen in the video — the visibly uncomfortable woman standing next to Byron and Cabot — into the mess. In doing so, they ended up falsely identifying and shaming an entirely unrelated woman, adding another layer of reckless collateral damage.

Other corporate entities even joined in on the fun, including NEON, the Philadelphia Phillies, and, somehow, the most tone-deaf of them all: the NYC Department of Sanitation. "Cameras are everywhere," the account said.

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As their messy private lives became painfully public, bettors at Polymarket found a new obsession. On July 18, trades began popping up with titles like "Andy Byron out as Astronomer CEO by next Friday?" and the "Astronomer Divorce Parlay" — a multi-leg trade requiring all outcomes to hit for a payout. In this case, it hinged on both Byron and Cabot getting divorced. The odds peaked at 21 percent after Byron’s wife removed his last name from her LinkedIn profile, before settling around 14 percent at the time of this writing.

This brings us to July 19, and hopefully, the end of this mess. Around midday, Astronomer’s official LinkedIn account posted a statement apologizing to clients for the media chaos Byron triggered and confirming his resignation as CEO.

"Before this week, we were known as a pioneer in the DataOps space, helping data teams power everything from modern analytics to production AI," the statement read. "While awareness of our company may have changed overnight, our product and our work for our customers have not."

It’s easy to write this off as just another viral cheating story, but it also says a lot about how quickly the internet can turn real people into punchlines, tabloid bait, or worse — prop bets. The machine doesn’t really care who’s right or wrong. It just wants something new to chew on. Here's hoping next month's pop culture moment is a little less dystopian.

President Donald Trump has been ratioed on his own social media platform Truth Social after urging supporters to move on from convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Truth Social users are usually overwhelmingly supportive of Trump, making such backlash against the U.S. president unprecedented on the platform.

Trump and his officials had repeatedly promised to release information regarding Epstein's associates during his presidential campaign, with his Attorney General Pam Bondi even telling Fox News in February that the sex offender's client list was "sitting on [her] desk right now." However, the U.S. Department of Justice and FBI stated last week that no "incriminating 'client list'" of Epstein's associates exists, nor any "credible evidence" that he "blackmailed prominent individuals." 

This claim was met with widespread scepticism and backlash from Trump's supporters, many of whom have long awaited the release of the "Epstein files." Considering the Trump administration's earlier statements, the claim that Epstein's client list never existed has proven difficult for many conservatives to believe. 

Trump thus took to Truth Social on Saturday to defend Bondi, as well as urge his supporters to move on from Epstein.

"We have a PERFECT Administration, THE TALK OF THE WORLD, and 'selfish people' are trying to hurt it, all over a guy who never dies, Jeffrey Epstein," Trump wrote (emphasis original). "For years, it’s Epstein, over and over again… Let's… not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about."

This has not gone down well. In response, Truth Social users have ratioed the U.S. president, with many expressing disappointment and anger. Getting ratioed is when a post gets significantly more replies than shares or likes, which typically indicates that it is unpopular and has been widely criticised. 

As of writing, Trump's post has 44,500 replies, as opposed to 12,800 shares and just over 39,000 likes.

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"This is going to cost you so many supporters," Truth Social user @trustds1 replied to Trump's post. "I being one of them."

"You are losing too many in your base," wrote @ElMilford. "Pam Bondi has not been telling US the truth. Her story changed each time… We refuse to give this a pass."

"Not buying it Mr. President!" @GrumpyDeplorable posted. "I'll continue to stand by you but my trust level will definitely not be maxed out anymore!"

Trump launched Truth Social in early 2022 after his Twitter account was permanently suspended. (It was subsequently reinstated in 2024 after Trump's now-former ally Elon Musk acquired the platform and renamed it X.) Truth Social has since become a stronghold for Trump's followers, making widespread disagreement with him highly unusual on the platform.

Musk also weighed in on Trump's post on X, calling for the president to "just release the files as promised." In June, Musk accused the president of being "in the Epstein files" himself, though he later deleted his posts and expressed regret for having published them. 

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X CEO and Elon Musk collaborator Linda Yaccarino is officially leaving her top seat at the social media company.

Yaccarino declared that she would be stepping down as CEO in an X post, writing:

...When @elonmusk and I first spoke of his vision for X, I knew it would be the opportunity of a lifetime to carry out the extraordinary mission of this company. I’m immensely grateful to him for entrusting me with the responsibility of protecting free speech, turning the company around, and transforming X into the Everything App.

I’m incredibly proud of the X team - the historic business turn around we have accomplished together has been nothing short of remarkable.  We started with the critical early work necessary to prioritize the safety of our users—especially children, and to restore advertiser confidence. This team has worked relentlessly from groundbreaking innovations like Community Notes, and, soon, X Money to bringing the most iconic voices and content to the platform. Now, the best is yet to come as X enters a new chapter with @xai.

X is truly a digital town square for all voices and the world’s most powerful culture signal. We couldn’t have achieved that without the support of our users, business partners, and the most innovative team in the world....

While Yaccarino didn't say her reasons for leaving, sources familiar with the matter told NBC that the move had been in the works for weeks. Over the course of her tenure, Musk has become embroiled in political and platform controversy, including a recent "antisemitic tirade" by xAI's integrated chatbot Grok. On July 5, following a public fallout with President Donald Trump after acting as the de-facto government leader of the "Department of Government Efficiency," Musk announced he was forming a new political party as a pro-tech alternative to the current political establishment.

Yaccarino joined the company in 2023 after leading advertising at NBCUniversal, with Musk describing her new role as overseeing business operations while he focused his energy on "product design and new technology." Yaccarino has since become the company's go-to talking head for its ongoing battles with third-party advertising and content moderation, including the platform's continued investment in community-generated fact-checking.

Since its release on Netflix this past June, KPop Demon Hunters has found a passionate audience and a thriving online fandom. The animated action-comedy about a demon-slaying K-pop girl group has inspired fan-made merch, fan art, and group chat-level obsession. While the film leans into the spectacle with stadium-sized bangers and a rival boy group made up of literal soul-sucking demons, it also hits on something real: the deep bond between women, the pressure of being perceived, and the joy of being part of something bigger than yourself. (Not to mention the collective heartbreak over Rumi and Jinu’s tragic, almost-love story.)

It's a vibe the film's stars — Arden Cho (Rumi), May Hong (Mira), and Ji-young Yoo (Zoey) — fully understand. During our interview before the film's release, the three shared their favorite scenes, their girl group dream playlists, and how HUNTR/X mirrors their own friendship dynamic. They talk about their favorite idols (Yoo is a Jihyo girl, of course), how chaotic their group chat is, and the very relatable way their parents stalk their social media.

May Hong, Arden Cho, and Ji-young Yoo scream it out in the booth. Credit: Netflix

Just like HUNTR/X, they’re perfectly balanced: the steady center, the stylish enigma, and the lovable maknae. And yes, they’ve seen the edits. (And so have their parents.)

Below, the cast of KPop Demon Hunters talks about KPop bias picks, surviving social media, and the power of girl groups on screen and off.

Mashable: Before you signed on to the film, were you already fans of K-pop, or was this kind of like your crash course?

Arden Cho: I've always loved K-pop. I'm totally gonna age myself, but all the way from [first generation groups] Fin.K.L, S.E.S., H.O.T., Sechs Kies... Like, oh my gosh.

May Hong: It was more that time for me too.

Cho: Right? This was, like, the beginning, but it was not that cool to like it back then. I was a little bit shy about it. You know, my very first concert ever in life was H.O.T.

That's amazing.

Ji-young Yoo: That's iconic, actually. Did you see them in LA or in Korea?

Cho: No, in Korea.

Yoo: That's so cool.

Cho: I was so excited. But then, back in America, I went to see NSYNC and was like, "Oh yeah, NSYNC is the only boy band I like." Because it wasn't cool to like K-pop back then. And I felt insecure about it. But now I'm like, "Oh my gosh, it's so exciting. K-pop is the best." Obviously, now, the list [of groups I like] is so long and extensive.

Yoo: I'm a big ARMY. I've been an ARMY since 2015, and from following BTS, I began to listen to a lot of other K-pop groups, like past and current groups. So I really enjoy K-pop. It's a really impressive performance, and everything about it takes so much effort from an artistic perspective, and I really respect that so much. So I'm kind of, like, living out my dreams right now.

Ji-young, you are sitting in front of a purple background, so it's perfect.

Yoo: A lot of things are working for me here. There's a lot of purple for this movie, and it's making me very happy.

Similar to you, Arden, I fell in love with first-gen K-pop. I was downloading BoA's entire discography in, like, 2006.

Cho: That's the thing, too. I was covering K-pop songs since the early 2000s. I remember I covered BTS before BTS became BTS. And then I was like, "I told you they were good!" And then, you know, they got huge.

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How do you think the film might resonate with K-pop fans? Because I've already been seeing all the fan art on social media.

Hong: I saw a lot of talk on Reddit. There are Spotify playlists already dedicated to KPop Demon Hunters, where people are just gathering their inspiration songs for what they think the energy is like. It seems like a lot of K-pop fans are excited about this.

Cho: I think it helps that the music is incredible. Like, all the songs are hits, they're bops, they're so good. And I feel like all the artists and producers who worked on this film with us just crushed it.

Yoo: They're all such, like, bona fide K-pop producers.

Cho: THEBLACKLABEL really brought it. Some of the songs, I'm like, "Ooh, I can feel a little bit of BLACKPINK."

Yoo: You can feel a Teddy [Park] touch, definitely.

Cho: It's so special.

Yoo: I think the fan response is hopefully a sign that we did it right and that we got it right.

Hong: Also, Audrey Nuna [who provides Mira's singing voice] is so cool. I'm so beyond flattered that that's Mira.

Cho: There are so many cool people who have helped us also look cool.

Yoo: They make us look so much cooler. It's really awesome.

Cho: We really can't take credit for any of that, but, you know, I'm just so honored, and I really hope the K-pop fans see that everybody who worked on this was so respectful, not only to K-pop but also the Korean culture and just everything that comes with it. They've captured it in such a magical way.

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There are so many nuances that only K-pop fans will understand, like the lightsticks and the variety show scene. I was totally sold when I found out that the villains were a boy band stealing the souls of fans.

Cho: How dare they be so handsome and so evil.

Yoo: A lot of people are posting photos of their favorite idols next to the characters to try and see where we drew inspiration from. I couldn't answer any of those questions for anybody, but it's really fun to see, like, similar hairstyles on similar idols, and it's really cool to watch fans try to figure it out.

Ji-young, I saw you actually living out your K-pop dreams. You did a dance challenge to "Takedown." That's true K-pop idol stuff.

Yoo: I did, yeah, it was really fun! I feel so honored to even be halfway in the same conversation as TWICE. That's just really cool. I think Jihyo is one of the coolest performers ever. All of TWICE is amazing, but I love watching Jihyo. I'm just here for a good time.

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Culturally, we're in the middle of a girl group renaissance, and HUNTR/X is definitely part of that. What is it about the dynamic of a girl group, real or functional, that makes it so compelling for people?

Cho: I just love that they're all so different, you know? I feel like they have very strong personalities and very distinct styles, whether it be fashion or vibe, and even their artistic style, right? And I love that it's a mix, and they're so different, but together, they make this amazing girl group like HUNTR/X.

Hong: There's nothing more powerful than sisterhood.

Yoo: [Laughs.] No, really.

Hong: Go us.

Yoo: It's something even cooler than the sum of their parts, which I think is always really moving. And I think K-pop is all about community, and girl groups and boy bands give a sense of belonging, both within the group and to the fans that are following them. I think we are getting a lot further away from each other, in some ways, because of the internet, and hopefully, art and other things like it can bring people back together.

If you were to build the ultimate girl group playlist, what songs would you put on it?

Yoo: Outside of K-pop, there has to be Destiny's Child. There has to be Spice Girls. And I would also want some Little Mix on there.

Hong: I obviously want NewJeans there.

Cho: And then I obviously want BLACKPINK. And aespa, too.

Yoo: And then definitely the HUNTR/X songs. And TWICE.

Cho: And LE SSERAFIM. We should throw song GG, some Girls Generation on there.

Yoo: We have to. And Fin.K.L., we need an OG on there.

Cho: There have been so many generations. Oh my goodness.

Yoo: And 2NE1 has to go on there. How long do you want this answer to be? Because we can continue.

Just three besties fighting evil and eating ramen. Credit: Netflix

You three seem to have a very good dynamic, kind of like your characters. How did you build that chemistry? Was it instant? Do you have an active group chat?

Cho: We made a group chat because we're all in different places. May's in New York. Ji-young is in LA, but you were traveling a bit. I was traveling. And so I think the group chat helped.

Yoo: Yeah, the group chat helped, for sure. I knew both of you before we started this project. There's a little, like, Asian American girls' brunch that happens in LA every now and then that we met through.

Cho: Some of us older Asian actresses and our cute young maknaes [youngest member of a group].

Yoo: As soon as I heard who the cast was, I knew the vibe was gonna work. And it did. It really didn't take a lot of effort.

You seem like your characters, too, just from what I'm observing.

Cho: I think you're right. Casting crushed it. Yeah, yay, Michelle.

I want to hear a little bit more about the group chat.

Yoo: It's called HUNTR/X.

Cho: May put our cover photo as the animation. It's so cute.

Yoo: We are the Demon Hunters.

Cho: We are. We're HUNTR/X. Hello, book us!

Who is the most active? And who's supplying the memes?

Yoo: I feel like you [points to May] have some really funny photos that you'll send.

Cho: There are things we can't really share, but there are some funny texts.

Hong: I think it's equal, though. We're all talking. We all really respond.

Cho: It's fun because it's all silly things or girl things, like, "Wait, what are you gonna wear? Or what color? What color should we wear?"

Hong: I don't really do that with people, but because we have to prepare for all this, we've just been sending 'fit pics back and forth.

Cho: We're also going to see magic tomorrow. We have a girls' day planned. We're gonna go see a magician at the Magic Castle [in LA].

Hong: I'm so excited. I'm not going to be like Mira there at all. I'm just so excited to be mesmerized. And I'm not going to be like, oh, do better. I'm just going to be exploding with joy.

Cho: We bond over that because I love magic, and May is always super cool, but once magic came in the picture...

Hong: Not in front of magic, not in the presence of magic.

Serious voice acting? Yes. But also: lots of selfies between takes. Credit: Netflix

Were there any lines or scenes that were especially fun or challenging to record?

Yoo: Zoey's just a fun character in general. Like, every recording session was really funny. They let me ad-lib a lot. So some of that was really fun, and I think a couple of those ended up in the movie. There's a scene where I'm, like, trying to be cool, but I'm also kind of flirting, and it's just cute and funny, and I really like doing that. For me, I know it's a win if I can hear laughter in the booth. There was plenty of that in this movie, because this movie is so funny.

Cho: I think some of my favorite scenes are just when the girls are being goofy and when they're collecting the pouches, and they're like, "Oh, they're not even cute." Like, that's literally one of my favorite scenes. On stage, they're so cool and epic and untouchable. But I feel like when you see the girl under the K-pop idol, it's so fun. With Rumi, the deeper stuff was pretty challenging. But it was also so fun. All the screaming — so much screaming, cathartic screaming.

Hong: I loved the screaming. I sound like I've been screaming into the void. In the studio, it's cool because there's no sound bouncing back, so you can really be as loud as you want and release everything.

The film shows how quickly the social media spotlight can shift — HUNTR/X dominates the conversation until the Saja Boys show up. How do you personally navigate your own relationship with social media, especially when it comes to attention or online perception?

Yoo: It's very different for me because I'm an actor. If social media weren't, on some level, part of my job, I think it would be a very different kind of interaction. I don't think about it too much, to be honest, which I'm pretty grateful for. I just go on to, like, do the posts that I must post for work, I check up on my friends, see what they're up to, and then I go about the rest of my day, and I hope it stays like that. I don't love being on the phone all the time.

Cho: I think I’m similar. If I wasn’t in this industry, I’m not even sure I’d have social media. But these days, I feel like I have a much healthier relationship with it. I’m not on as much as I used to be, and when I do post, I like sharing things that feel special. I always tell my fans that Instagram is kind of like a highlight reel — cool moments, fun looks, stuff that feels a little elevated. TikTok is where I’m more relaxed and goofy. It feels like there’s less pressure to be perfect there, and you can just do whatever. But I won’t lie — sometimes I still feel the pressure to look a certain way or keep up with trends. I’m always a little late on everything. Like, I just got into Labubu, and apparently that was a whole thing like a year and a half ago! So I’m definitely not always caught up, but maybe that’s part of the fun. All that's coming up on my feed are Labubus. I only have two, but I want more.

Yoo: I find Labubus scary.

Cho: They're so cute.

Yoo: No, I find them scary.

Cho: But they're cute. I have Sesame Bean and Lychee Berry.

Hong: Most days, I want to throw my phone into the ocean. But then I’ll have a silly, goofy mood where I’m actually happy to be online, posting something dumb, keeping up with friends, scrolling through memes. Lately, I’ve been trying to set better boundaries. I started charging my phone outside of my bedroom and got an actual alarm clock, so I’m not immediately doomscrolling first thing in the morning.

Cho: That's actually super healthy. It's so good to disconnect. I do that every once in a while. I'll literally have no phone for a few days.

Yoo: That sounds fun.

Cho: It is super fun, but it's also a little scary the first couple of times. You have to let a couple of loved ones know so they don't think something horrible happened. I remember my mom would be like, "You didn't post anything for a week. Are you OK?"

Hong: Oh my God, my dad has sent that too. And I'm like, I don't even post like that.

Cho: I'm like, "Oh no, I turned my phone off. I'm sorry."

Yoo: Are your parents on Instagram?

Cho: My mom is so cute. She checks everything and she likes everything, and she'll comment, like, "Good job!"

Yoo: Yeah, that's my dad, too.

Cho: Or she'll DM me, like, "This is so cute. I'm excited."

Yoo: My dad has full-on Google search notifications for me.

Hong: Oh my God.

Yoo: I get all my information about myself from him. My dad has been sending fancams of KPop Demon Hunters.

Cho: Her dad has found some awesome things to send us. He found a rap about us. Her dad is really plugged in, so he's pretty much our social media link.

KPop Demon Hunters is now streaming on Netflix.

Tumblr is ditching — or, at least, suspending — its plan to migrate over to WordPress. Relatedly, that also means pausing plans of integrating Tumblr into the fediverse.

That news dropped Monday on the Decoder podcast from The Verge. Automattic, which owns Tumblr, announced last year it planned to move Tumblr's backend of its website to WordPress. But Automattic founder and CEO Matt Mullenweg told Decoder that idea was on hold because the company decided it wanted "to focus as much on the things that are going to be noticeable to users and that users are asking for.” That tracks: Changing the backend of a website is a major undertaking but one that isn't obviously noticeable to most users.

The seemingly temporary shift away from WordPress could have downstream effects. For instance, Tumblr might now be slower to join the fediverse, which is a network of publishing platforms that are interconnected in order to make a decentralized social media landscape. In other words, your following, follows, and posts migrate across all the platforms.

Tumblr's migration to WordPress would've made integrating the fediverse easy. That's because WordPress has an ActivityPub plug-in that allows users to connect to other platforms on the fediverse. Now that's no more.

"That would’ve been a free way to get it," Mullenweg told Decoder. "And so that was one of the arguments for migrating everything to WordPress."

"Happy Pride!" Recently, that simple message was "de rigueur" for large corporations — including tech companies — to extol on their merchandise, press releases, and social media feeds. Much has changed with the second presidential election of Donald Trump, who made banishing DEI one of his signature endeavors. Even before his reelection, tech giants like Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, and X's Elon Musk sidled up to the politician and warmed to his positions (including less regulation on their businesses). One result of these new bedfellows appears to be a growing disinterest from Big Tech in celebrating their LGBTQ employees, creators, and consumers.

The slackening of support from these companies coincides with the Trump administration's attacks on the LGBTQ community, which include banishing trans people from the military, terminating a national LGBTQ suicide hotline, and ending critical HIV research. In short, joy is a tough sell for Pride revelers in 2025.

Still, like other marginalized groups, the LGBTQ community is resilient and has long faced down intolerant CEOs and politicians. Mashable caught up with a group of queer creators rolling with the changes of the 2020s and who continue to innovate and spread messages of hope and inclusivity. From drag legend Kim Chi to history-maker Tona Brown, these individuals are not letting billionaires get them down.

Cyrus Veyssi

Credit: Cyrus Vessi / Mashable Composite

The internet's self-proclaimed "bougie gay uncle," Cyrus Veyssi is not like every other beauty and lifestyle influencer online. As a non-binary creator, Veyssi is intentionally fluid with their content, committed to showing off all sides of their life, from the glam-filled to the humorous. They face hate comments head on, with empathy rooted in the acceptance and participation of his Iranian family. Veyssi's viral videos featuring their father, lovingly known as Baba to both Veyssi and his adopted internet children, emulate what unconditional love and support for queer youth can produce: A creative, glowing future of self-acceptance. 

Mashable: How have you typically recognized Pride online? What has it looked like this year, online or off?

I'm honestly most excited to get back to the core of what Pride signifies — our community sticking up for and advocating for each other. Corporate Pride has always been a mechanism to produce and benefit off of the backs of the Black and Brown trans/queer folks who started the gay liberation movement, and as amazing as it is to get the opportunity to partner with amazing brands every year, it's clear that there’s a divisive shift away from sponsorships. 

Has the current political and business climates impacted how you post online or your relationship to social media? How has it shifted?

It's definitely impacted the way brands align with longterm partners, but I'll never let it dissuade me from sticking up for our communities when we need it. Obviously, there’s a balance between my branded and organic content that I think has created a space for my business to grow, as well as my community to flourish, so the focus for me is to continue to post authentically while also making space for meaningful partnerships, instead of do-and-go ads that aren't fruitful or beneficial to me in any way. 

How has your content typically been received by your followers, or anyone else who interacts with your pages?

Fairly positive for the most part, I'm very lucky! I think because I approach everything through the lens of humor, and know how to take a joke myself, there really isn’t anything negative that someone's said that I haven't already heard or can't manipulate into something funny for everyone to enjoy. Comedy can disarm anyone, and extend a hand to those who may not ever consider following me to becoming a fan. 

Do you feel the reception or amplification of such content has changed on platforms — like Instagram, TikTok, X — since their owners aligned themselves with anti-DEI, anti-LGBTQ policies?

I think I simply receive more inundated hate coming from certain sectors of the internet whenever ANY of my content goes viral — it's not necessarily the platform but often what the algorithm is choosing to amplify that week. So if trans folks are going viral for something silly that bigots have chosen to amplify, my content will definitely funnel into their feed and stir the pot a bit. 

What message do you want to send out, as we honor another global Pride month?

You are much more capable and powerful than you give yourself credit for. It'd be a shame for you to waste time thinking to yourself about all the nasty things people say, when the world around you is full of people ready to embrace you! 

Jere Chang

Credit: Jere Chang / Mashable Composite

Jere Chang (AKA Ms. Chang Gifted) has been teaching in classrooms across the Atlanta area for more than 20 years, but her lessons aren't just in front of a blackboard. Speaking in front of millions of social media followers, Chang is a motivational speaker to the masses. Through colorful, honest storytelling about her life as a teacher, wife, and parent, she imparts real-world lessons from her colorful world, centering joy, inclusion, and authenticity.

How do you typically recognize Pride on your social media channels?

I recognize Pride on my social media by living out loud and being unapologetically myself. That means posting content with my wife and our kids, sharing everyday moments that celebrate who we are as a family. Whether we’re attending a Pride event together or just dancing in the kitchen, I want people to see that queer joy exists in the ordinary and the extraordinary. 

For me, Pride isn’t limited to a month, it's a year-round celebration of authenticity. That decision is intentional. I didn't grow up seeing many families that looked like mine, so I share our story openly in hopes that someone out there, maybe a young queer kid or a teacher in a small town, feels seen, affirmed, and reminded that they're not alone.

How have these posts been typically received by your followers?

The response has been overwhelmingly positive. I've had parents, teachers, and even teenagers slide into my DMs just to say, "Thank you for being visible," or "I've never seen a family like yours on my feed before, and now I want to see more!" Of course, every now and then someone brings hate and tries to drown out our gay happiness, but honestly, that just reminds me why visibility matters. 

For me, love always outweighs the noise. People are craving realness, and when they see a queer family just doing life like packing school lunches, going to Pride, or traveling with kids, they feel connected. I think it reminds folks that Pride isn't just a parade, it's a presence. The more we show up, the more space we make for others to do the same.

Is the current government climate making you rethink how you honor Pride month?

The current government hasn’t impacted how I share my life online. I've always believed in showing up authentically, and that hasn't changed. That said, I have noticed a declining shift in LGBTQ+ visibility and acceptance from many government agencies and major corporations. From inclusive campaigns to public affirmations of Pride, that kind of representation matters, and it motivates me to keep sharing.

As my platform has grown, I've definitely become more mindful about what I share especially when it comes to my kids. I'm incredibly proud of them, but I'm also protective. I don’t want to use my kids to make a point or push a message. Their stories are theirs, and it's important to me that they have the freedom to decide how and when they show up online.

What I share is rooted in authenticity and love. When I post my family online, it's because it feels right and not performative. I want people to see that queer families exist, thrive, and love deeply, but at the same time I want to recognize that my kids didn’t sign up to be activists. That's my lane, not theirs. I'll always share our love, our joy, and our goofy moments, but when it comes to the fight for visibility and inclusion, that burden isn't theirs to carry.

Do you feel supported for your LGBTQ-related content from platforms — such Instagram, TikTok, or X — since their owners took a more conservative turn?

Despite the shifts in leadership and tone on some platforms, I've been fortunate that my LGBTQ+ related content continues to reach and resonate with my audience. I think part of that is because I lead with joy, honesty, and real-life moments. 

That said, I'm always aware of the broader climate. I know algorithms can shift, policies can change, and sometimes it feels like queer voices are walking a tighter rope, but for now, I still feel like there's room for me, and others, to show up authentically. As long as that space exists, I'll keep using it to highlight the beauty, humor, and everyday magic of queer life.

Any message for Pride you’d like to send out to the world? 

To every young LGBTQ+ person out there: I want you to know that I believe in you, I see you, and I have so much hope because of you. As an older lesbian, I've lived through moments when it felt like the world wasn't ready for us. I remember when coming out meant risking everything, when our love had to be hidden, and when even the smallest acts of visibility were met with silence or hate, but I've also lived long enough to see that change can happen. I've seen hatred turn into understanding, and I've seen people who once stood on the sidelines become allies. I've seen doors open that were once nailed shut.

That said, there’s still so much work to do. In many ways, it feels like we’re in a moment of pushback, where progress is being questioned, and where some are trying to dim the light we’ve worked so hard to shine. It’s easy to feel discouraged. It’s easy to feel like we’re slipping backwards, but here’s what I know for sure: We are not going back and we are not done.

In fact, that darkness only ignites me more. It makes me want to speak louder, show up more visibly, and post more intentionally for myself, my family, and for the kids who need to know that queer love is beautiful, that queer joy is real, and that their story deserves to be seen and celebrated.

When I look at the younger generation, I feel nothing but awe. You are stepping into your truth with a confidence that inspires me daily. You’re refusing to settle for tolerance when what we deserve is celebration. You’re pushing boundaries and designing your journey. 

Keep being exactly who you are, even when it’s hard, because every time you speak up, show up, or simply exist unapologetically, you make space for someone else to do the same. I’ll be right there with you, cheering you on, fighting beside you, and reminding you that this world is better with you in it exactly as you are.

Kim Chi

Credit: Kim Chi / Mashable Composite

Multi-hyphenate drag queen Kim Chi is a lot of things to a lot of fans: Their favorite reality TV star, the founder of their go-to pastel-hued makeup brand, and the author and creator behind their most bookmarked tasty food content. But — when not acting as ambassador and former competitor for RuPaul's Drag Race, or promoting the latest drop of her "pigmented and proud" makeup line on TikTok — Kim Chi is an outspoken, unabashed champion for the queer AAPI community, playing offense on her social media channels and donning her Pride regalia to march defiantly and openly in the face of widespread attacks. 

How do you typically recognize Pride on your social media channels? Is there anything that informs how, when, or what you post? 

Pride is now more important than ever. We've gotta show up and show out every chance we get and online is the best way to do so. I don't like to let the social media algorithm control my life so I'll post whenever and wherever. I do like to read the room and maybe I'll hold off on posting things that are overly joyous when something tragic or sad happens that day. It feels like a lot of companies are staying away from addressing Pride altogether. I even shot a Pride campaign with a brand that was indefinitely shelved without an explanation. I have so much more appreciation for companies that don't treat Pride like another thing to make them money, but do it because they genuinely believe in it! You know who you are!

Has the current political climate impacted how you post online or your relationship to social media, especially since you've started reaching wider audiences?

Right now is a dire and sensitive time for the LGBTQIA+ community, especially trans folks. I personally focus on constantly raising awareness to what is happening but also not overwhelm my feed with too much bad news, which can also affect mental health. It is more crucial than ever to constantly remind folks they are not alone, and they are loved. We need to be a shelter and a solace for those seeking asylum from terrible news. My feed used to be sharing slices and glimpses of my life that make me happy and a lot of irreverent content but nowadays, the general tone is more somber, serious but also hopeful.

How has your content (and art) typically been received by your followers or others ?

I actually try not to read the comments because there are so many trolls and bots that would send me spiraling if I read every one of them and let it affect me. I put out what I want to say and I move on with my life. 

Do you feel supported for your LGBTQ-related content from Instagram or X since their owners took a more conservative turn? 

I've left most of the platforms and use others minimally despite being known as the social media queen back in the day. TikTok has been good to us personally and the community there is still fun and vibrant — easy to scroll past content I don't want to be a part of.

What message do you carry for those in community with you?

We are all we have. Let's continue to love one another, be a shoulder for those that need it and keep fighting for a better future. At the very minimum, just your existence alone is a protest in itself.

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Lauren Chan

Credit: Luther Cherry / Mashable Composite

Model, entrepreneur, and activist Lauren Chan was the first out lesbian to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit Edition. Chan also founded and led Henning, a fashion line that caters to women size 12 and up. The label sold to Universal Standard in 2023, with Chan brought on at the time to head brand partnerships. 

How do you typically recognize Pride on your social media channels? 

New York City's hottest club is Pride on social — it has everything: Philanthropic initiatives, party snaps full of queer joy, and genuine connection among community. I love the vulnerability and celebration that takes over my feed for all of June — and I hope I contribute to it! This year, I'm sharing panels I'm a part of (like Welcome to Chinatown's panel called "A Radical Act of Belonging"), friends' wins (like trans designer Willie Norris designing the Gotham FC Pride merch), and my relationship (we're newly engaged!). 

How have your Pride posts been typically received by your followers (or anyone else who interacts with your channels)? 

One thing I've noticed since becoming the first lesbian with her own cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue is that the queer faction of my followers in increasing — which means Pride is being super well-received. Some hilarious, brilliant lesbians have been sliding into my DMS and I also get many tender messages from folks whose stories are similar to mine.

Do you feel supported for your LGBTQ-related content from Instagram or X since their owners took a more conservative turn? 

I think it's extremely important that we are all curating our online environments in order to feel safe and represented — it's part of mental health! We spend so much time on our feeds that we cannot leave our experiences up to the algorithm. If you don't currently feel seen and celebrated by what you see online, I encourage you to make a concerted effort to block negative accounts, unfollow brands that share harmful rhetoric, and on the flip side, follow users that make you feel your best.

Any message for Pride you'd like to send out to the world? 

Pride is a celebration and a resistance! I hope that we're all able to use social media to ensure both of those aspects are heard. 

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Mal Glowenke

Credit: Mariah Miranda / Mashable Composite

Mal Glowenke, a self-described "lesbian podcaster," is host of the Made It Out podcast. The weekly show delves into sexuality, culture, religion, politics, and more. Glowenke's candor and humor, paired with high-profile guests like comedians Margaret Cho and Robby Hoffman, make the podcast a must-listen. Glowenke is expanding her brand with the launch of Made It Out Media, a new digital media company focused on telling queer women's stories.

How do you typically recognize Pride on your social media?

I feel like my content is inherently Pride content all year long, so nothing changes very much! With Made It Out Media we really try to spread queer joy, and share our thoughts on the queer experience as much as we can. I don't think June should be the only time we are putting a spotlight on our community.

Is the current government and business climate making you rethink how you honor Pride month?

The current government/climate does not make me shy away from posting or sharing any message that I feel is important to fighting for our community. If anything it makes me want to fight harder and louder.

How have your Pride posts been typically received by your followers (or anyone else who interacts with your channels)?

I've built my platform being completely transparent with who I am, therefore I feel like I've attracted people who are like-minded and also want to celebrate differences and diversity.

Occasionally my videos reach the wrong side of the algorithm and then you see an uptick in hateful comments, but who knows, maybe that means I'm reaching people whose minds need to be opened and expanded.

Any message for Pride you’d like to send out to the world?

There's a freedom in queerness that threatens people who feel trapped. I try to harness empathy for them, because how sad is it that they don't get to live this beautiful, bold life that we do.

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Paul and Matthew Castle

Credit: Matthew and Paul Castle / Mashable Composite

Matthew and Paul Castle are an inter-abled couple who document their lives as artists and LGBTQ advocates to a massive online following. Paul is a painter, illustrator, and children's book author living with Retinitis Pigmentosa, an untreatable eye disease that has led to the loss of 90 percent of his vision. Matthew is a classical violinist, as well as the inspirational half to Paul's anthropomorphic penguin characters in Pringle and Finn, otherwise known as The Pengrooms — an LGBTQ-positive children's book that champions diverse family units. But the real star of the show? Paul's guide dog, Mr. Maple, whose side job includes joining in on Matthew's harmless couple pranks and Paul's lighthearted daily vlogs. 

In the past, how have you typically recognize Pride on your social media channels?

Paul Castle: Pride has always been personal for me. I don’t just post a rainbow and call it a day — I share real pieces of my life with my husband, Matthew, and our journey as an inter-abled, same-sex couple navigating love, loss, and joy. I try to highlight not just the celebration, but the humanity. This year, Pride looks a little different. It’s been a time of deep reflection and change in my personal life, but I still feel a responsibility to show up. Online, I’m sharing stories behind my books — especially The Pengrooms, which celebrates queer family — and offline, I’m working with museums and bookstores to amplify LGBTQ+ representation in children’s literature.

Has the current climate impacted how you post online or your relationship to social media?

When platforms or companies publicly align themselves with anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, it sends a message — not just politically, but personally. I’ve grown more intentional about what I post and where I post it. In the early days, I shared more freely, like it was just me and a few kind strangers. Now, with millions of followers, every post feels a little heavier. There’s always a tension between authenticity and safety, but I try to stay grounded in purpose: Using storytelling to make people feel seen.

How has your content (and art) typically been received by your followers, or anyone else who interacts with your pages?

The response has been overwhelmingly warm, especially when people see themselves or their families reflected in my work. My books often feature same-sex couples or disabled characters — not to make a statement, but because that’s my life. And for many readers, especially parents and kids who’ve never seen families like theirs in picture books, it means everything. That said, when something goes viral, it sometimes reaches people outside my usual circle — and not everyone is kind. But I’ve learned that pushback only reinforces how necessary this work really is.

Do you feel the reception or amplification of your content has changed on platforms since their owners aligned themselves with anti-DEI, anti-LGBTQ policies?

Yes, and it’s subtle — but undeniable. Some posts that used to gain traction now seem to disappear into the void. Visibility feels more precarious than it used to. It’s frustrating when content rooted in love and representation is deprioritized by algorithms, while harmful narratives gain ground. But I’ve also seen people rally — sharing, commenting, and supporting each other in ways that feel grassroots and defiant. It’s clear we can’t rely on platforms alone. The community has become the amplifier.

Any message for Pride you’d like to send out to the world?

You don’t need to be loud to be proud. Sometimes Pride is a quiet act of resilience — a gentle refusal to shrink. Whether you’re marching in the street, reading to your child, or just surviving in a world that wasn’t built for you, you’re doing enough. And if you’re like me — navigating change, heartbreak, or healing — remember this: Your story still matters. You are still part of this community, still worthy of celebration, and still building something beautiful with every breath.

Sasha Allen

Credit: @Kenai.Va / Sasha Allen / Mashable Composite

Many may know Sasha Allen from his viral performance on NBC's The Voice, which saw him and his father Jim deliver some of the most emotional and crowd-pleasing performances of the season as members of Ariana Grande's team. But to millions of online followers, and fans who had followed the artist alongside their national TV debut, Allen is first and foremost a fierce advocate for acceptance as the first openly transgender contestant to compete on the reality competition show. Now three years on, Allen is still championing radical change in the face of discrimination, while tackling viral misconceptions and overt hate through his popular TikTok account and his debut children's book, The House That Feels Like Me, and highly anticipated EP, Jawbreaker.

In the past, how have you recognized Pride online?

How I've recognized Pride online and in real life has changed so much throughout my life, just as I have through my transition, and it's meant different things to me over the years. In previous years, when I first started transitioning, the concept of Pride was something that made me feel supported and seen and validated. It gave me something to participate in that helped me to grow my own sense of self-acceptance and identity. Over time, however, that's changed.

I now view Pride and my visibility during this time as an opportunity to let others know that they have a place here. I know there are so many trans kids out there, especially now, who feel exactly like I did when I was a teenager. They're scared and apprehensive, still struggling to find their place in a world that doesn't truly see them. Knowing that those kids are out there, watching me and even looking up to me, motivates much of what I post, during Pride month and all other times of year. I needed to see others being visible like that when I was a kid, so now that I feel comfortable in my identity as a trans person, I feel as though it's my duty to share my own pride surrounding that. This year, Pride for me is about joy, and showing others that they can find that too. 

Has the current climate made you rethink how you post online or your relationship to social media?

The current political climate has definitely impacted my relationship with social media, and has for a long time. When I first started posting on TikTok years ago, the majority of what I posted was political content. It's since transitioned into various LGBTQ+ content, but that in itself will always be political as well. I think, if anything, our current political climate has inspired me to be more vocal about my life experiences as a trans person, even ones that I may feel vulnerable talking about, like topics surrounding sex or medical care. I've come to find that those less talked about topics are actually the most important and impactful on my viewers, who are mostly younger LGBTQ+ people. 

How has your content (and art) typically been received by your followers, and others who interact with your pages?

I'm very lucky to say that my content and art have been so wholeheartedly embraced by my viewers, and nothing compares to knowing that there are people truly connecting to the things I create. After years of being a content creator, I've recently transitioned into releasing music as well, and put out my first EP in April. I wasn't exactly sure how this would go, but I found there to be so much overlap in the videos I make and the music I write. Being proud of my identity as a trans man informs everything that I create, and because of this, I found that people who connect with my content have also connected with my art and music.

Do you feel the reception or amplification of your content has changed?

I've definitely noticed changes, specifically in my own videos being taken down or flagged, which I've been experiencing now more than ever. Like I said, my content is inherently political since it surrounds LGBTQ+ topics, and I've found that the more political I get, the more likely it is my video gets banned. I've made videos responding to conservatives/transphobes that are then taken down for "hate speech" and "slurs." Ironically, those videos I'm responding to are actually the ones containing hate speech, not mine. I've definitely noticed favoritism towards conservatives in the TikTok algorithm lately, especially when it comes to penalizing creators. 

What message do you carry for those in community with you?

Never stop being joyful, and never stop being you. Queer people have always existed, and we will continue to exist and thrive. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, and your existence is an act of resistance. 

Tona Brown

Credit: Tona Brown / Mashable

Violinist and mezzo-soprano Tona Brown has been inspiring people for nearly a decade. After co-starring in the memorable “Tranny Road Show” in 2006, Brown would go on to perform at Carnegie Hall in 2014 — the same year she would sing the National Anthem for then-President Barack Obama at the LGBTQ Leadership Gala Dinner in New York City. Brown, the first Black trans woman to perform for a president, would later land roles in operas like As One and Suor Angelica, and author the memoir, Tonacity.

When not booking public speaking jobs or hosting masterclasses on music-making, Brown is active on social media and YouTube, where she hosts “Conversations with Tona Brown.” On the show, Brown confers with politicians, business moguls, relationship experts, and fellow musicians on how to pursue your dreams when much of the world is against you. Brown’s unsinkable optimism shone through in her responses about navigating social media in this day and age.

How do you typically recognize Pride on your social media channels?

I typically recognize Pride on my Facebook the most! I love speaking to my Facebook friends and followers and I usually change my big picture on Facebook to a Pride image or design. During Pride Month, I try to highlight LGBTQ historical figures and share content from my podcast, "Conversations with Tona Brown," discussing important issues to the LGBTQ community.

Is the current government and business climate making you rethink your Pride-related strategy or messaging?

The current administration's policies and cruelty have made me post even more than I normally would during Pride Month. I feel this is the best time to post and educate others during these challenging times with our government. I partnered with Uptime, a London-based app, so that I could ensure that my message reached an international following. The app automatically translates each episode into a six-minute hack in 26 languages! 

How have your Pride posts been typically received by your followers (or anyone else who interacts with your channels)?

My Pride posts have been very successful! Rarely would I ever get anything negative said about Pride month on my pages because of the type of audience I have. My audience is extremely diverse and very pro-LGBTQIA. 

Do you feel supported for your LGBTQ-related content from Instagram or X since their owners took a more conservative turn?

I do not feel supported by Instagram or X, but I never looked for their approval for anything. I know that as a Black trans woman, I have to pave my own way. I would have never gotten to be the first transgender woman of color to sing for a sitting president, Barack Obama, or headline at Carnegie Hall if I were waiting on anyone else's approval for my talent and desire to achieve the American dream.  

Any message for Pride you’d like to send out to the world?

My message for Pride is to live your absolute best life ever! Show the world who you are because others are not living or being authentic; however, WE ARE! Stop hiding who you are inside! Love who you are, and never allow anyone or anything to keep you from being your authentic self.

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—Additional reporting and writing by Rebecca Ruiz and Neal Broverman

On Wednesday, Nickelodeon's Tiny Chef got a call — his cooking show had been cancelled. The adorable chef delivered the news in a heartbreaking video clip that has now gone viral. "But we won an Emmy!" Tiny Chef cries. The internet is now crying with him.

The Tiny Chef Show, a blend of stop-motion and live-action, premiered on Nickelodeon in 2022. In each episode, the little chef created tiny dishes, from nachos to granola bars to apple pie, in his woodland home.

The titular tiny chef was assisted by a cast of colorful characters, including Olly, his robot best friend, Henry the snail, and Ruby, Tiny Chef's pet caterpillar. Each episode was voiced by a celebrity announcer; famously, RuPaul played this part throughout the first season. Cameos were made by Alan Cumming, Kristen Bell, Rebel Wilson, and Mayim Bialik.

Over the three years it aired, the show reached cult status, receiving critical acclaim and winning two Children's and Family Emmy Awards. Just earlier this year, the show won "Outstanding Preschool Animated Series", as Tiny Chef declares in his announcement.

The heartbreaking cancellation video has people up in arms. Fans are taking to X and TikTok to post in support of the beloved Tiny Chef – and blaming Nickelodeon for axing the show. "Nickelodeon! Who is this guy and why'd you make him cry?" a creator posted on TikTok. The hashtag #savetinychef has dozens of posts, with users rallying behind the viral character.

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Now, the show's creators are crowdfunding for help from fans to keep going. "Tiny chefs cooking show has officially been cancelled (very unexpected) and without the support of a major network we need crowd funding to keep cookin’ over here." Fans can make a one-time donation via Venmo or Paypal, or join the Tiny Chef fanclub to show more support.

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"We want nothing more than to continue sharing Cheffy’s journey with you all," wrote the creators on Instagram. "Thank you Cheffers."

The top source of news for Americans is no longer TV; it's social media.

This is according to new research by Oxford’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ) (via NiemanLab), which found that 54 percent of people in the U.S. get news via social media and video networks, overtaking TV broadcast news and news websites and apps for the first time ever.

The global study was conducted via an online questionnaire from market research firm YouGov from mid-January to the end of February 2025, meaning it's likely skewed towards a younger population and people who are into social media. The authors of the study acknowledge this.

"Online samples will tend to under-represent the news consumption habits of people who are older and less affluent, meaning online use is typically over-represented and traditional offline use under-represented. In this sense, it is sometimes better to think of results as representative of the online population," the authors say.

Social media and video up, everything else down. Credit: Reuters Institute

Still, the study shows the sharp rise of social media and online video as news sources in the U.S. According to the study, back in 2013 social media and video were a source of news for just 27 percent of the U.S. population. Now, 54 percent turn to social media as source of news; in comparison, 50 percent of people get news from TV, 48 percent get news via online news sites, and just 14 percent get news from print.

Notably, the study, which has been conducted worldwide, reveals that not all countries are the same with this regard. For example, the trends are similar in the U.S., many Latin American countries including Brazil, a number of African countries, as well as Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. On the flip side, in many European countries, as well as in Japan, social media has far less of an influence.

Not all countries show the same trends. Credit: Reuters Institute

In terms of how folks in the U.S. access the news, they primarily (57 percent) use their phones, and they prefer watching the news to reading it, with 72 percent watching online news videos on a weekly basis.

As expected, these shifts towards social media and video happen faster among younger groups, particularly those aged 18-24. But the overall findings show what many folks working in newsrooms already understand: The way people consume the news is changing quickly, and there's probably no turning back.

Following days of protest decrying the actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and militarized federal forces in Los Angeles, downtown L.A. residents remained under curfew this week while California governor Gavin Newsom went toe-to-toe with President Trump, who sent Marines into the area. Memes, and viral misinformation, were abundant. 

Meanwhile, the "No Kings" organizing coalition has planned thousands more peaceful demonstrations this weekend, specifically orchestrated to overlap with Trump's planned military parade. While the organizations behind the events are gearing up for what they've said will be the "largest single-day, peaceful protest" in the country's history, some worry they may be met with an equal show of state-sanctioned violence — and attempts to undermine news coverage via viral falsehoods. 

Peter Adams, senior vice president of research and design for the News Literacy Project, explained that mass demonstrations are rife for online misinformation, patterns which can be spotted before protesters even touch ground. Adams runs the organization's online misinformation newsletter RumorGuard, which collates viral fact-checks and critical literacy tips. 

"Protests generally only happen around events that are highly polarizing and controversial," said Adams. "The more polarizing something is, the more people's political identities are activated and invoked. We know that these identities play a very strong role in how people react to information online. As polarization has increased in American society, this is even more at play."

News and misinformation debunking organizations, such as bipartisan NewsGuard, have reputed dozens of false posts, including those made by conservative commentators alleging Newsom had posted an outdated or AI-generated photo of national guard troops as he criticized Trump's militarized protest response. Such posts were propelled by X chatbot Grok, which told some users that the photos, first published by the San Francisco Chronicle, were outdated — ChatGPT users got similarly confusing responses. 

Others, including representatives of the Trump administration, fanned the flames with misattributed or outrightly false quotes from federal and international leaders, including California congresswoman Maxine Waters and Mexican president Claudia Scheinbaum. Viral posts from partisan voices on both sides of the conflict have attempted to sway, or overtly manipulate, public perception and recast reality in terms that are more favorable to their side, Adams explains. 

"Viral misinformation expresses patterns over time, and we can learn how to recognize those patterns and inoculate ourselves to a whole swath of viral rumors," explained Adams.  

As protests continue, here's what to look out for:

AI chatbot errors and hallucinations

"Chatbots often generate outdated or inaccurate details, and that can be especially true during fast-moving events," explained Adams and other News Literacy Project experts. While users are turning to built-in chatbots to fact-check on platforms that have removed internal fact-checking programs, AI-powered assistants are increasingly unreliable sources for news. 

Despite its convenience, "AI is really prone to making big errors, and to integrating details from low quality sources alongside high quality sources, sanitizing them and presenting falsehoods alongside facts that makes it harder for people to parse," said Adams. "Don't turn to generative AI to ask whether something is true and take it at its word."

The paid protestor myth

Nearly every mass demonstration is met with accusations that at least some of its participants were hired to be on the ground, according to the News Literacy Project. On June 10, for example, a fake Craigslist ad circulated on social media claiming to seek “the toughest badasses in the city” for a $6,500 to $12,500 payout to attend the L.A. demonstrations.

Online pranks or "troll" behavior may exacerbate the spread of such rumors. It's easier than ever to fake a screenshot from a user or official accounts, said Adams, and the fact that many public officials and agencies have started to lean into ironic posting only exacerbates public confusion about which posts are authentic. 

Bricks and other objects used for 'violent' protest

Allegations that protestors have staged piles of bricks or other objects ahead of time to help violent protestors is a "recurring hoax" surrounding mass demonstrations, the organization explains. 

During last week's protests, which led to combative encounters with police and the destruction of property, some online alleged the effort was organized, including placing bricks in strategic areas; the posts misleadingly included images from construction projects in New Jersey and Malaysia.

Recycled footage of looting, arson, or previous protests

Coverage of mass protests is also frequently drowned out by unrelated footage circulated online for virality or to inflame a specific response to the events (the same is often true during severe weather disasters). Videos from the wave of protests following the 2020 murder of George Floyd, for example, made the rounds following the Los Angeles demonstrations on June 8. 

"Sharing out-of-context footage is one of the most common tricks used to spread falsehoods," said the organization.

Video game or movie clips passed off as the real thing 

More recently, hyperrealistic footage from video games have been shared as real world events and news. Generative AI may also complicate an individual's ability to discern reality from fiction.

Individuals may fall victim to fake or ironic posts mistakenly shared as real news, or what Adams calls a "stolen satire" phenomenon, as brands and online trolls take advantage of a confusing information environment. Generally, the rise of news influencers, live streamers, and people claiming to be "citizen journalists"— now more frequently on the ground at protests — feed into ongoing partisan attempts to discredit the intent and veracity of standards-based news sources, says Adams. 

"We get into a territory where no one can agree what is real, and that is an environment in which democracy cannot flourish," he said. "Be aware of your emotions. Be wary of user-generated content and unknown sources. Always stop and verify you're not amplifying anything you're not confident is true."

Threads, Mark Zuckerberg's answer to X, has been around for nearly two years. And soon, users will finally be able to send direct messages (DMs) on the app.

Until now, anyone wanting to DM someone on Threads had to jump over to Instagram. That workaround makes some sense — you can’t have a Threads account without also having an Instagram account — but switching between apps is a clunky experience, especially on a platform built for quick, conversational posts.

How to send a DM onInstagram's Threads Credit: Instagram Threads

Meta, which owns Threads along with Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp, says it’s starting to test an in-app DM inbox in select markets, including Hong Kong, Thailand, and Argentina. The plan is to roll the feature out more broadly in the near future.

"Our community has been asking for a way to continue their 1:1 conversations without breaking the flow by switching to another app," Threads said in a press release. "By keeping the conversation within the app, we’re making it easier for users to connect and build on each other’s perspectives."

Some users do seem eager for DMs. One post that read, "Kinda wish Threads had a DM because I rly be wanting to talk to some of you," got over 375 likes.

But not everyone is on board. Many Threads users actually seem to enjoy the platform’s DM-free simplicity. A June 3 post with more than 600 likes and 100 reposts said: "I actually love that Threads has no DMs tbh." Replies echoed the sentiment: "DM-free Threads is the reason I can actually enjoy posting again," one user said. Another wrote, "It’s why I'm never leaving." One popular post simply read, "reasons why I love Threads 1 – no one can dm you," and racked up thousands of likes.

So, will people embrace DMs on Threads? Time will tell. But whether you’re excited or dreading it, one thing’s for sure: They’re coming.

Third-party developers currently pay Elon Musk's X as much as millions of dollars per year to in order to access the platform's API.

However, it appears that Musk and company now want a cut of those developers' revenue instead.

X is now planning to change their API pricing scheme to a revenue share model, according to a number of companies and third-party developers that pay for X API access who reached out to Mashable.

X recently began sending out emails to paid subscribers of its Enterprise API plans, which start at $42,000 per month, informing them of the upcoming change. The new API pricing scheme is scheduled to go into effect on July 1. X has not yet shared final details about the change, such as exactly what percentage the revenue share model will be, with its customers.

"We are excited to announce that X is now part of xAI holdings, placing us at the forefront of the information revolution unfolding before us," reads the email obtained by Mashable. "In line with our renewed mission and vision, we will be conducting a comprehensive re-review of your use case from a fresh perspective. Additionally, effective July 1, 2025, we will discontinue our existing Enterprise API tiers and introduce a new streamlined v2 API tier accompanied by a new revenue-sharing pricing model."

In the email, X attributes the changing API subscription model to the "rise of Large Language Models (LLMs)" which have "fundamentally reshaped how we approach data, derive insights, and generate code."

"This shift from usage-based to value-based pricing reflects our commitment to leveling the playing field and fostering a fair, consistent ecosystem that drives growth and innovation for all," X said in the email.

Mashable reached out to X for comment on these upcoming API changes and will update this piece if we hear back.

X loses more app developers

However, some of X's API customers strongly disagree with the change. 

The popular no-code automation platform Make, which boasts more than 3 million users, officially removed X integration from its platform at the end of last month. Make tells Mashable that its decision to drop support for X is a result of these API changes.

"Our decision to remove X from our app's offering stems directly from X's revised API policies and pricing," Make VP of Market Strategy Darin Patterson said. "These new terms prevent us from continuing to offer an X integration that is both sustainable for us and provides the reliable value our customers expect.

"We’re disappointed to see that X’s commercial approach is driving a regression in what users can do with the platform," Patterson continued. "X has long been an important part of many users’ workflows, and it’s frustrating to see it become less open and accessible. If conditions change in the future, we’d be glad to explore bringing the integration back. Our commitment to offering a strong suite of other integrations remains through other platforms. We will continue focusing our resources on these to deliver the best possible value."

In addition to Make, Mashable heard from a popular social media management platform that they intend to drop X support, while another platform told us that they are waiting to see exactly what the revenue share details would be before making a final decision.

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As a result, some users of these third-party platforms have already shared their intent to stop posting on X.

"Our automation provider, http://Make.com, has deprecated support for X due to API changes," read a post on X from tech news outlet Six Colors. "This is probably our last post. Follow us on Mastodon or Bluesky or just via RSS. Bye!"

Little remains of Twitter's third-party ecosystem on X

Before Musk's acquisition of the company then-known as Twitter, the platform was beloved by third-party developers who created Twitter clients and other types of apps utilizing the company's generous free API tier. This encouraged app developers to integrate Twitter into their own platforms and, in turn, resulted in even more use of Twitter by its users.

However, just months after Musk's Twitter takeover, the company outright killed many popular third-party Twitter clients by suspending their access to the API. Shortly after that, Musk and company unveiled the end of its free API tier. Musk instituted new API plans with highly restrictive limits that forced most publicly-available third-party apps onto the company's new Enterprise API subscription, which ranged from $42,000 to $210,000 per month.

The new expensive API tiers led to a collapse in Twitter's third-party ecosystem. Many Twitter-based apps, including Twitterific and Tweetbot, announced their shuttering, unable to pay the new expensive API rates. Even major corporations like Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo removed the Twitter integrations from their respective video game consoles as a result of the API changes as well. Musk's X would later introduce a "cheaper" $5,000-per-month Pro plan, below the Enterprise API tiers, but by then many apps had already shut down or removed X from their platforms.

Musk's X further squeezed its API subscribers, already paying tens of thousands of dollars per month, with new fees late last year. In October, X announced that in addition to the monthly API subscription, X would charge developers an additional $1 per month for each X account connected to their app. For example, if a social media scheduling service had 10,000 X users connecting their X account to their platform, the company would have to pay X an additional $10,000 per month.

A federal judge blocked Florida officials from enforcing a law that would bar social media for kids under the age of 14.

In the ruling, U.S. District Judge Mark Walker wrote that "Florida’s challenged law is likely unconstitutional" but added the court "does not doubt that parents and legislators in the state have sincere concerns about the effects that social media use may have on youth."

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the bill in March of 2024 that would bar kids under 14 years old from social media and require parental permission for those who are 14 or 15. Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat already require users to be at least 13 years old, while TikTok has a curated, watch-only version for kids under 13. It's worth noting these restrictions are in-line with an existing federal law that restricts data collection on users under the age of 13.

In the judge's order granting the preliminary injunction, he wrote the law "directly burdens those youths’ rights to engage in and access speech." Internet trade group NetChoice challenged the law over free speech concerns as well as the burden and risk of requiring mass identity verification.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier defended the state law and said the state intended to appeal the decision. Lawmakers felt the law could help curb the potential harm from young people using social media.

"These platforms do not have a constitutional right to addict kids to their products,” Uthmeier’s press secretary Jae Williams said in a statement, via the Associated Press. “We disagree with the court’s order and will immediately seek relief in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.”

So it seems despite the judge's decision, this saga is far from over.

In just three decades, our tiny pocket computers have become the center of our worlds. In the eyes of many, the root of all evil. Smartphones are the fascination of businesses, researchers, and even politicians, who are seeking to regulate the impact of the palm-sized technology. 

The results vary. And, to be blunt, there's no putting that cat back in the bag. So what, then, is the solution?

"I'm interested in the role of technology in modern life, fundamentally," said Graham Dugoni, founder and CEO of Yondr, one of the biggest names in the phone-free movement, a company that provides the infrastructure for anti-device social settings with their now recognizable lockable phone pouch. 

Maybe, suggests Dugoni and other advocates, instead of putting the kibosh on devices entirely, we need to treat modern society like a teenager on a rebellious streak. Rather than saying no, we need to show them support, offer a gentle hand, maybe even make them think it's their idea. In a way, it's time for some gentle parenting.

Phone free spaces defy Big Tech

Before moving to Silicon Valley, Dugoni was soaking up the work of existentialists like Martin Heidegger, Søren Kierkegaard, and University of California, Berkeley, professor Hubert Dreyfus. Dugoni even snuck a Kierkegaard quote — "The highest and most beautiful things in life are not to be heard about, nor read about, nor seen but, if one will, are to be lived" — into Yondr's sparse online branding.

"As digital media and smartphones were kind of taking root, and there was this general feeling that everything was going to become connected everywhere, all the time, and that was going to lead us to this great outcome, I had a very different belief," he explained. "I thought that, especially for digital natives, the experience of walking around in the world with a phone in their pocket was going to be a radically different human experience." 

Too many existential quandaries — privacy, identity, community, and especially critical thinking — were being overlooked by Big Tech as phones took over lives, Dugoni thought. Of course, that turned out to be true: Constant access to the darker sides of the internet and recording devices that act like personal Big Brother drones have fostered a sense of detachment, apathy, and fear, argues the modern Luddite and researcher, alike.

So Dugoni set out to probe the big, nebulous questions with what he describes as a "National Park Service" for disconnected space. With Yondr, he would offer physical areas that were carved out from the rest of the digitally-attached world; neutral environments to remind people what a screen-free human existence feels like. 

Yondr has since ballooned, with hundreds of connected social spaces utilizing the company's green-edged pouches, locked by a magnet and, importantly, kept in the user's possession. When entering a phone-free space supported by Yondr, individuals pop their phone into a provided pouch, seal it up, and sign a metaphorical social contract that they won't touch the device until the event is over. If they must look, they have to leave the space, and use a provided unlocking area. Pouches are thin enough to see a screen light up, if someone is waiting on an important notification.  

Credit: Joseph Maldonado / Mashable

Different from a locker or coat-check system, Dugoni explains that allowing the pouch to stay in a person's possession is meant to help break the phone addiction. "Once you interrupt the impulse [to look at your screen], it allows for a new habit or new neural pathway to form. My belief is that's how you educate people about the influence of technology — implicitly."

Schools, venues, and more go phone-free

Yondr provides the infrastructure for phone-free spaces, but it doesn't enforce phone ban policies. For example, Yondr pouches are behind the scenes in many schools across the country, as phone and social media bans sweep through the nation's education system. Schools purchase the three-part Yondr pouch system, which includes a curriculum that teaches partners how to build a campaign to go phone-free, educate students about digital literacy and phone dependence, and maintain a positive relationship to the pouch. Yondr steps in as needed and offers ongoing support, but building a phone free culture is the job of staff and students. 

At Fern Creek High School in Kentucky, which is finishing up its first school year with the pouches in place, Yondr was an answer to a longstanding problem. "We were trying to eliminate phones as a distraction; we wanted to make sure students had access to the resources they needed, thinking about special education or medical conditions; and we wanted to reduce the burden on teachers," explained assistant principal Ken Christian. Inspired by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt's insights into youth mental health in The Anxious Generation, school leaders created a committee, polled the student body and teachers, and eventually settled on building a full phone-free school using Yondr. 

Credit: Yondr

Despite some early whispers of a student protest, the year has gone off without a hitch, and Fern Creek High began hosting walkthroughs for other institutions interested in the program. Students, but especially teachers, have noticed positive behavioral changes. "In a world where we are losing teachers by the day, if we can create an environment where people feel validated in their work and valued for their expertise, we're doing something right," Christian said. "We're still a public high school, and we still have behavior incidents. Our children do not act perfectly at all times. But what we have seen is the severity of those things are greatly diminished."

According to the company, pouches cannot be used as a punitive measure. Instead, Yondr wants to seed the ground for a social shift. "Every district and school launch is like a mini campaign. You have to get the whole community on board, because this is a social problem that we're dealing with," Dugoni explained of their bespoke model. "It's the same way that just patching up things on social media to protect certain people or classes is not going to solve the bigger systemic issues."

Yondr pouches have also appeared across live event spaces, including the now history-breaking run of Broadway's Othello, led by Hollywood giants Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal. Live comedy has proven to be a ripe area for the pouches, too. "It's like a game changer for the comedians," said Roze Lleshi, director of talent for the Los Angeles-based venue the Comedy Store. "They really love it because they feel like it's more free. You need freedom of expression as a comedian." 

Lleshi says she feels like audiences are more engaged with their phones stowed away, more willing to stay in the space longer, and have had less confrontations with security. Audiences have yet to push back on the policy, which is flagged at the time of purchase and repeated during an entry spiel. The venue was inspired by other comedy venues using pouches.

"The tech world promises that there's endless options in life — there's only more [options], and that leads you to a better place," Dugoni says. "The issue is, I don't see that mirrored anywhere in human nature or physical nature. Everything is finite. Boundaries are really important. Embracing limitations is actually a precondition for meaning in people's life." 

Not a one-size-fits-all solution 

As Yondr pouches and other phone-free policies have spread, many have remained skeptical of their efficacy. 

Critics have noted that pouches can be easily broken, damaged, or "jailbroken" with external magnets. Parents have expressed concern over their child not having personal devices during an emergency. Others have taken issue with the cost — money that, they say, could be better used elsewhere. Fern Creek High School's program totaled $35,000. Programs generally run at $30 per student, Yondr explained, with discounts available.

Some have concerns that phone bans will make it harder to hold public figures accountable. One of Yondr's most notable performer partners, for example, is Dave Chapelle, who chose to enforce phone-free shows following public protests of his gigs after numerous transphobic statements.   

None of this has deterred partners from purchasing from Yondr, however, and organizations have found ways to adjust to the needs of their physical spaces in the name of a digital revolution. At the Comedy Store, most but not every show is a phone-free space, with some of the venue's promoters encouraging the interaction between phones and performers in the name of art, like during a roast.

As Christian asks fellow educators: "If I told you there was one single product that could change the culture of your building, so that students and staff feel more positively about being there, and you could reduce the severity of your behavior events and see academic improvements, do you think it would be worth $35,000? Being a phone-free school was worth that investment, and we would make that investment every year if we had to."

Even for all their ills, phones can also be lifesaving, with accessible and democratizing tools for education, health, and revolutionary action. Phone-free spaces thus exist in a grey area amid the modernization of accessible tech, and the obligations of venues under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). During the recent Othello run, some guests reported that they were simply offered a ticket refund after asking to keep their phones unlocked in order to monitor hearing aid levels and blood sugar counts, using popular technology like Dexcoms. 

In schools, many students are reliant on phones for language translation, or alternative communication devices, in addition to health monitoring. 

Credit: Joseph Maldonado / Mashable

This is a failure of communication, not the program itself, the company said. Christian explained that students with special cases are given Yondr velcro pouches rather than magnetized ones, making it easier for them to reach their device quickly, while Chromebooks have been used as substitute for phone apps among the schools' multilingual students. And he says it hasn't impeded the wider phone-free culture, as there's a growing awareness among students that their peers may have different tech needs.

"We recognized early on that technology is quite literally a lifeline for many, and quick access to a phone or mobile device for medical needs requires accommodations," a Yondr spokesperson clarified. "When developing our phone-free program, we made sure to create an alternative option so people could easily get to their device if needed. We accommodate medical exemptions on-site. Upon arrival, guests notify Yondr or venue staff that they require immediate access to their device for medical purposes…most often through designated wristbands that allow for easy device retrieval while maintaining the phone-free experience for others."

The next disconnected generation 

The phone-free movement exists in a multitude of forms and has benefits for all ages, but it is increasingly focused on younger generations, as the youth mental health crisis looms. 

Larissa May, founder of the youth-led nonprofit #HalfTheStory, argues that, rather than a hard line, phone-free advocates need to keep phone boundaries flexible. #HalfTheStory is an education and social initiative focused on improving the next generation's relationship with technology, including an online digital literacy curriculum known as Social Media U. 

"At a time where it is important to be talking about phones and academic performance," explained May, "I think it's even more important to be talking about phones and humanity, and #HalfTheStory is in the business of preserving humanity."

May was inspired to launch the effort by her own experiences with emotional well-being and technology, leading to a viral social media purge that turned her into a leading mental health advocate. In 2025, #HalfTheStory's mission is strongly research-based, centered on the Digital Flourishing Scale for Adolescents, with an equally knowledgeable May at the helm. It pioneers multiple digital well-being programs, including phone-free spaces. 

For example, #HalfTheStory recently partnered with youth advocates and Pinterest to launch a series of screen-free proms, where teens designed their own version of an offline social event complete with phone lockers and a return to old school memory keepers: Polaroid cameras. 

Credit: #HalfTheStory

Credit: #HalfTheStory

"We can't save the world through fear," said May. "We can't scare young people into long term change, and kids are much more excited about putting their phones away and getting out a Polaroid camera than they are in having an adult rip a phone out of their hand."

Dugoni agrees, noting that Yondr was one of the first to popularize the use of "phone-free" rather than "phone ban." "We want people to feel a sense of freedom, not that the online world or technology is bad or evil. That's not the point. The point is to get people to experience something different and see what that means for them."

Raising a phone-free counter culture

In every phone-free framework, the most important determinant of success is social buy-in, these phone-free advocates say, prioritizing the input of digital natives and making everyone feel like they had a say in how and when they use tech. 

"We know that not all screen time is created equal, and that if we don't put teens at the center of this movement, we won't be able to make long term change," said May. "It has to be their idea for them to believe and authentically participate in it." The organization's programs work, she says, because they are built from the bottom-up. And policies should meet societies and communities where they are. "There's a more low friction way to do it, and it's putting teens at the center, giving teens the keys."

At Fern Creek High School, Christian said that if they hadn't gotten approval from the school's stakeholders, primarily, its students, the phone-free policy would have never gotten off the ground. And in live event spaces, like the Comedy Store, it's artists who are asking for devices to go away, not business owners. 

Among the public, young people especially, there exists a desire to reconnect to community, said both May and Dugoni. May's work approaches this through preserving the last vestiges of youthful freedom. Christian says it's by framing phone-free spaces as an act of love. Dugoni pitches it like being phone-free is the coolest way to rebel against what those in power want from you.

"My opinion is life is always full, so if something new comes in, it pushes out something else that was there. Maybe part of the task with this generation is asking, 'What are we pushing out, and what do we value?'" said Dugoni. "What I'm most interested in is stoking that rebellious streak, and hopefully helping it find a productive outlet. Because every generation needs a counter culture. What's this generation's going to be?"

You might've seen those viral images and videos of the emotional support kangaroo in an airport. Hopefully, you at least wondered if the video was AI-generated. Or maybe you were fooled by a quick scroll. We're here to tell that, yes, the viral emotional support kangaroo was indeed AI-generated.

Here is the video in question.

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How do we know it's AI? First, it's probably best to sit back and consider the video's content. A non-domesticated creature is acting as a service animal, calmly holding a boarding pass in its hands and staring at the camera like Jim Halpert from The Office. Brother, that is not real. Second, the original was posted to the Instagram account @InfiniteUnreality, which posts AI-generated and VFX content.

That didn't stop the video from being spread all across the internet. Most notably, it was posted by the X account @DramaAlert, where it has racked up 73 million views. The responses online were a mix of people joyfully reposting, wondering what was going on at that airport, and lots of jokes. To be fair, a number of people also pointed out that the video was AI-generated. Community Notes on X eventually noted that it was AI-generated as well.

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Needless to say, to those who were duped, AI-generated video is getting much better, even if the scenario itself — an emotional support kangaroo — was hard to believe. So, as always in the age of AI, be careful out there for fakes.

Pocket will soon be no more.

Mozilla, the creators of the web browser Firefox, announced last week that it would be shutting down Pocket, the read-later platform it acquired back in 2017.

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Pocket was the most popular read-later service with more than 30 million users, according to Mozilla. The platform was originally founded in 2007 as Read It Later, just as social news and social bookmarking began to take off.

Read-later services enable users to save web pages, articles, and videos for easy access. These services enabled users to remember long articles they came across for a later time, archived web pages for offline viewing, and more.

Pocket provided a free service as well as a paid premium subscription for less than $50 per year.

However, regardless of Pocket's utility and user base, Mozilla has decided to shut the platform down. According to Mozilla, "the way people use the web has evolved," so the company has decided to shut down Pocket in order to put more resources into Firefox.

Pocket will shut down on July 8, 2025. Users will be able to export their data until October 8, 2025. After that, user data will be permanently deleted.

Pocket alternatives

Pocket may be saying goodbye, but plenty of bookmarking and read-later platforms are still alive and kicking.

If you're looking for a read-later service like Pocket, Instapaper and Readwise are two popular options. 

Instapaper launched shortly after Pocket in 2008, so it's been around for awhile. The service offers a free plan as well as a paid premium subscription option. Instapaper has a much more minimalist design than Pocket, so it might take some getting used to, but it definitely looks sleek. Plus, Instapaper is offering three free months of its $5.99 per month Premium subscription plan to anyone who imports their Pocket data over to its platform. Readwise has a bit more of a Pocket-esque UI but it does not offer a free plan beyond a 30-day trial. After that, a paid subscription to their $9.99 per month plan or their $5.59 per month "Lite" plan is required.

Read-later apps

However, my personal pick for a read-later service replacement for Pocket is an app called GoodLinks.

GoodLinks app for Mac. Credit: GoodLinks

GoodLinks is not a service like Pocket, and the previously mentioned alternatives, where user data is stored on a server. GoodLinks is a downloadable app for Mac and iOS devices. GoodLinks costs just a one-time purchase of $9.99 to get the app for life and new features for a year. Once the year is up, users can continue to use the app as is, with quality of life updates, without any additional costs. Any new features after that initial year will become completely optional one-time, in-app purchases.

GoodLinks provides all the same features those subscription services provide, such as offline reading, downloadable archives, highlights, notes, and more. Plus your data is stored locally and syncs via iCloud.

Like Pocket, all of these services allow users to save more than just articles. If you're a Pocket user looking for a more video-oriented option, Play just might be for you.

Play isn't a read-later app, it's a watch later one. Play keeps track of YouTube videos, channels, and playlists so users can keep tabs on what they want to watch when they have time to watch it. Play also fetches all of the metadata, such as timecodes, descriptions, and more. That means users don't even need to leave the app while catching up on videos they saved.

Play: Watch Later app for Mac Credit: Play

Like GoodLinks, Play isn't a service, but an app that stores data locally and syncs via iCloud. Play is available on Mac, iOS devices, and even has an Apple TV app. You can unlock Play across all apps with a one-time purchase of $2.99. Premium features, like channel tracking, requires a $2.99 per month or $19.99 per year subscription, or can be unlocked forever with a one-time purchase of $99.99.

Bookmarking alternatives

By default, a read-later platform is basically a bookmarking platform as well. For Pocket users who used the soon-to-be-defunct platform to bookmark their favorite websites, the above alternatives work…but they are really made more for articles.

If you need a bookmarking alternative to keep your favorite websites easily accessible wherever you are and regardless of which web browser you're using, I recommend Anybox or Raindrop.io.

Anybox app for Mac Credit: Anybox

Anybox is a free downloadable app that can be used to save, search, and organize your bookmarks across Mac, iPhone, and iPad. All data is stored locally and shared via iCloud sync. All features are available at no cost, but there is a bookmark limit for the free plan. To bookmark unlimited links, there's a subscription of $1.99 per month or $14.99 per year, with a one-time payment option of $39.99 to unlock the Pro plan forever.

Raindrop.io on the other hand is an online bookmarking service. The free plan provides users to access all basic bookmarking features without any limits. The $28 per year Pro plan provides the most robust premium features of any of the service, with AI suggested tags, collections, and more. It also gives users the ability to annotate pages, add reminders to bookmarks, and save a permanent archived copy of every webpage that's saved. 

So, there you have it: A Pocket alternative for every possible use case. And, if none of those hit the spot, you can always hold out hope that Pocket will somehow live on. Kevin Rose, the founder of Digg, said he offered to buy Pocket from Mozilla shortly after the sunsetting announcement. However, Mozilla has reportedly not yet responded.

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Rose is still trying though.

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For years, research on social media and youth mental health has tried to answer a perplexing question: Does use lead to worsened well-being or do young people who are struggling disproportionately spend their time on social media?

Some studies have indicated that both scenarios are true while other research shows mixed results. This uncertainty has led to a fierce debate over how to regulate social media platforms and technology use in school.

Critics of sweeping declarations that social media is harmful say there's not enough evidence to support the claim, and that its proponents are engaging in a moral panic about technology. Advocates of reduced screen time and social media use say the research offers clear explanations for how social media negatively affects youth well-being, including through decreased sleep. A recent "consensus statement" from dozens of experts evaluated a number of such claims.

Meanwhile, many teens say they are online "almost constantly," and 1 in 5 report that social media platforms "hurt" their mental health, according to recent Pew Research Center polling.

A new, well-designed study published this week in JAMA Network Open may help clarify what's happening. Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco used data from a major federal study that follows thousands of children over a period of several years. Among the information collected from the children's parents is how much time they spend on tech devices and social media.

The researchers analyzed what happened when 11,876 tween and teen participants used social media over three years. They found that young people who had higher social media use than their individual mean reported greater depressive symptoms in subsequent years. In contrast, depression did not predict higher levels of future social media use.

Mashable asked the study's lead author, UCSF researcher and pediatrician Dr. Jason Nagata, to explain the findings, and what parents should consider when managing screen time and social media use in their own household.

Mashable: How does this research help us better understand the relationship between social media and youth mental health?

Dr. Nagata: There has been ongoing debate about whether social media contributes to depression or simply reflects underlying depressive symptoms. This national study is among the first to show that higher social media use predicts later depression — but not the reverse — suggesting directionality in this relationship.

Mashable: Why has it been so challenging to grasp whether social media negatively impacts youth mental health or vice versa?

Dr. Nagata: Most of the research on social media and mental health is cross-sectional and observational, so causality cannot be proven. More longitudinal studies like this are needed to determine the direction of these relationships.

Our study was also among the first to examine within-person effects, meaning we could track changes in social media use and mental health symptoms over time in each individual, rather than large samples as a whole.

Mashable: There's a major debate over whether the research on social media and mental health really warrants actions like implementing school phone bans. How might parents use your research findings to better inform their own approach to managing social media use at home?

Dr. Nagata: It's important for parents to encourage healthy and mindful screen use habits to prevent negative impacts on teen mental health. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends developing a family media plan, which can be an individualized set of guidelines that seem practical for each household. Families can have regular conversations with adolescents about screen use and could consider keeping bedtimes screen-free to improve sleep quality.

Our previous research has shown that parent rules limiting screen use before bedtime and around mealtime are associated with less screen time and problematic screen use. One of the biggest predictors of adolescents' screen use is their parents' screen use. It is important that parents act as role models for their children. For instance, if parents make a family rule not to use screens or text at mealtime, they should try to follow the rules also.

Mashable: You and your co-authors note that experiencing the benefits of social media can be tied to "purpose-driven" use. What does that look like?

Dr Nagata: Social media is not inherently bad or good — it really depends on how it's being used. Social media can promote connection, communication, and education, which can benefit health. However, exposure to hateful content and constant comparisons to peers on social media can worsen mental health. While social media can provide educational content, it can also provide health misinformation.

To optimize benefits while minimizing health risks, we encourage teens to be mindful and intentional about their social media use. Am I using social media to connect meaningfully, learn, or express creativity? Or am I doom scrolling out of boredom? Take time to reflect on how social media makes you feel. If you find that social media is causing more stress or anxiety than enjoyment, it may be time to consider alternative activities that make you feel better.

In recent days, it has become nearly impossible to move through the world without being confronted by the latest high-profile case of interpersonal violence — the ongoing trial of Sean "Diddy" Combs, following the harrowing testimony of singer Cassie Ventura, Diddy's ex-partner. Ventura's detailed allegations of prolonged abuse, coercion, and exploitation have dominated headlines and social media feeds, making the coverage inescapable. For many, this constant exposure brings up waves of complex feelings, including pain, anger, confusion, or even numbness. And for those of us with a personal history of trauma, these waves may at times feel like a tsunami.

This collective reaction is not only understandable, it’s deeply human.

As a trauma therapist and mental health professional who has worked alongside hundreds of survivors of interpersonal violence with a focus on human trafficking and sexual violence, I want to offer a framework for understanding what many of us are experiencing, and gentle tools for protecting our mental health as we navigate this moment.

Our reactions are personal and valid

There is no single way to respond to trauma exposure. Our reactions are shaped by our own lived experiences, including any past histories of violence. They are intersectional based on our identities, the communities we belong to, and the broader histories of injustice we carry. They are also adaptive as our minds are constantly working to make meaning, to find understanding, and ultimately, to protect us.

Sometimes, this means we feel an intense pull to learn more. We read every article, scroll through every comment thread, or watch every video in the hope that information might help us feel a little safer, more in control, or closer to justice. This search for meaning is not a flaw; it is a natural function of a brain seeking safety and clarity in a world that can often feel unsafe and chaotic.

When meaning-making becomes overexposure

There can be a point where our quest for meaning tips into overexposure, sending us into a state of disregulation. Even when we’re not seeking it out, constant exposure to the Diddy trial coverage can have an impact on our mental health. As we find ourselves reading one more post, watching one more reel, and clicking one more headline, the exposure adds up and our nervous system, especially those who have experienced past trauma, becomes activated. 

We begin to move outside our "window of tolerance,” a concept in trauma healing that describes the range of emotional states where we feel grounded and able to respond effectively to stress. When we're pushed beyond that range, we may shift into hyper-arousal, where we feel speedy, agitated, angry, panicked, or unable to stop scrolling. Or we might move into hypo-arousal, where we feel numb, detached, exhausted, or checked out.

In hyper-arousal, we might feel compelled to argue with strangers in the comments section or rapidly consume articles. In hypo-arousal, we might shut down, avoid contact with others, or feel disconnected from our bodies and emotions. Both are nervous system responses to overwhelming situations, and both are signs that we need care, not judgment.

Recognizing disregulation

Here are a few signs that our media consumption may be impacting our mental health:

• Losing track of time while reading about the case

• Feeling emotionally exhausted or detached after reading updates

• Trouble sleeping or concentrating after trial exposure 

• Thoughts of our own past experiences of violence arising 

• Spiraling into despair, hopelessness, rage, or any intense emotional state

• Feeling disconnected from your body

If you recognize yourself in any of these, you are not alone. This response is an adaptive human reaction to graphic trauma exposure.

Tools for regulation and grounding 

Caring for ourselves in the face of the Diddy trial coverage means tending to our nervous systems. Here are a few ways to support our well-being:

• Create social media boundaries. Consider limiting screen time, setting app timers, or pausing before engaging with sensitive content. 

• Check in with your body. Are you breathing shallowly? Clenching your jaw? Holding tension? Gentle movement, deep breathing, or stretching can help regulate our nervous system and bring us back into the present moment. 

• Name your feelings. Say them out loud or write them down. Naming emotions helps us metabolize them. If you’re having trouble identifying them, try looking at the emotions wheel. 

• Protect your peace in comment sections. Online space, especially comment threads, can reflect common misconceptions about violence that place undue scrutiny on survivors rather than those who caused harm. It’s okay to disengage from these conversations. Preserving your mental health does not mean you care any less; it means you are choosing where to place your energy.  

• Reach out. Talk to someone you trust. Community care is essential to healing.

• Practice grounding. Sensory-based techniques like holding a cold object, naming five things you see, and engaging your full five senses can bring you back into your body.

• Seek support. Whether through therapy, community support, or a trusted friend, reaching out to others to process what is happening can be an important lifeline. At the Sanar Institute, we specialize in providing this type of trauma-specific care to ensure that individuals and communities that have experienced interpersonal violence have access to life-changing support.

A call for collective compassion

As we navigate through this trial, this is an invitation to us all: we do not need to consume every update to care deeply about what happened. We are allowed to set boundaries. We are allowed to care for our bodies, our spirits, and to prioritize our psychological safety.

Each of us processes trauma exposure differently. Let’s offer compassion for our own responses and grace for the ways others may be showing up. The goal isn’t to disconnect from the world but to stay rooted in it, with care.

Kate Keisel, LCSW is the Co-Founder & Co-CEO of the Sanar Institute, which creates holistic access to trauma-conscious and person-centered care to support individuals and communities healing from the traumatic events of interpersonal violence. This column represents the opinion of the author.

Have a question for Elon Musk's AI chatbot Grok about the latest baseball news? Or maybe an inquiry about your local weather?

If you have a question for Grok today, there's a chance X's AI chatbot replied by talking about "white genocide" in South Africa, a controversial talking point in far-right circles.

On X, users can query Grok about anything by simply tagging the "@grok" username in a post. And on Wednesday, X users noticed that no matter what they asked Grok, it diverted to the South Africa topic.

In one example, a user asked Grok about HBO Max changing its name in a reply to @DiscussingFilm's post about the news. The user asked, "@grok How many times has HBO changed their name?"

Grok replied with a two-paragraph response. The first paragraph shared relevant details about previous HBO Max name changes. Then, Grok pivoted.

Credit: X / Mashable screenshot

"Regarding 'white genocide' in South Africa, some claim it's real, citing farm attacks and 'Kill the Boer' as evidence," the AI chatbot responded. "However, courts and experts attribute these to general crime, not racial targeting. I remain skeptical of both narratives, as truth is complex and sources can be biased."

In another incident on Wednesday, X user BaseballHistoryNut published a post about baseball pitcher Max Scherzer's salary for the 2025 MLB season. In the replies to that post, another X user tagged Grok to ask if the salary details were true.

"@grok is this accurate?" asked the X user.

"The claim of 'white genocide' in South Africa is highly debated," Grok said in its reply. "Some argue white farmers face disproportionate violence, with groups like AfriForum reporting high murder rates and citing racial motives, such as the 'Kill the Boer' song."

Credit: X / Mashable screenshot

The topic of "white genocide" in South Africa is used to paint white South African farmers as a marginalized minority in the country. Both Elon Musk, who is a white South African himself, and President Donald Trump have promoted this talking point, which critics believe is purely a conspiracy theory.

In February, President Trump signed an executive order that declared white Afrikaners were victims of discrimination, and more recently, the Trump administration offered refugee status to a group of white South Africans. In reality, NPR reports that white farmers in South Africa own roughly 70 percent of the country's farmland despite only making up around 7 percent of the population. 

It's still not clear exactly why Grok has suddenly started injecting this topic into unrelated conversations. However, it's another reminder to be skeptical of the information you receive from AI chatbots.

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Pinterest users have been complaining about mass bans for days, many claiming that they've been locked out of their accounts without clear justification. The social media platform finally addressed the furore on Thursday after Mashable reached out, however the response is unlikely to appease many users.

Reports of Pinterest's inexplicable mass bans began circulating recently, with users flocking to other platforms such as X to complain about suddenly losing their accounts. The r/Pinterest subreddit has been overtaken by posts about the issue, while the comment sections on Pinterest's official Instagram and TikTok accounts have been flooded with by irate users asking the company to fix it.

Users have accused Pinterest of issuing sweeping bans for no discernable reason, in circumstances where there is allegedly no clear violation of its Community Guidelines. Some state that they've had completely new and unused accounts banned, while others claim they've lost accounts that are over a decade old.

Pinterest enables users to save images in virtual pinboards, making it particularly popular with people gathering inspiration for creative projects or event planning, as well as collating fashion or home decoration ideas. As such, an unexpected ban can mean the loss of years of careful work and curation.

Yet despite the widespread outrage amongst users, Pinterest maintained silence on the matter for days. This has left users to speculate, with some theorising that AI moderation may be the culprit. Pinterest's Help Centre states that it uses AI in "improving content moderation."

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On Monday, moderators for the r/Pinterest subreddit pinned a thread about the mass bans, noting that "there isn't anything we can do here other than talk about it." The thread has gathered over 200 comments in the days since, with people expressing anger and frustration at the situation. Many have accused Pinterest of a lack of transparency regarding the bans, claiming that they have no idea what they could have done that warranted losing their accounts. 

"I want my Pinterest account back I find it heavily unfair it was banned and no matter how many times I appeal they don’t do anything about it," wrote Reddit user cruicifix.

"I got no response on what exactly broke the guidelines, It just stated that I should 'read the guidelines to understand their decission', super vauge and im sure there was nothing that could have gotten me banned," wrote Reddit user Admirable-Birthday-9, who stated that they used Pinterest for innocuous content such as fashion, beauty, and recipes.

Though at least two people reported that they successfully regained access to their Pinterest accounts on appeal, the majority appear to have had little success with the appeals process. Further, one of the individuals who recovered their account claimed that not all their content was still there.

In light of the issue, some users have been warning others to stop using Pinterest and search for alternatives, as they no longer trust that people are reliably able to access their saved content.

"Pins of classical paintings, life drawing poses, fashion photos, and even museum art have triggered bans under vague and inconsistently enforced content policies," claimed HH-5 on Reddit (emphasis original). "Nothing explicit — just standard references that artists have used for generations."

Pinterest finally responds to mass bans, users consider class action lawsuit

Pinterest finally broke its silence after Mashable reached out for comment on Thursday morning, addressing the situation publicly on X. Unfortunately, there's little in Pinterest's statement to appease upset users.

"We hear your concerns about recent account deactivations on Pinterest," the company posted to X on Thursday afternoon. "To ensure Pinterest remains a safe and positive platform, we continuously monitor for content that violates our Community Guidelines and accounts with violative content may be deactivated as a result. If you think your account was deactivated by mistake, please send us a DM @askpinterest."

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Pinterest also issued a similar statement directly to Mashable, though it didn't specifically address the mass bans.

"Pinterest has long-established, public Community Guidelines that clearly outline what is and isn’t allowed on the platform," said a Pinterest spokesperson. "We’re committed to building a safer and more positive platform, and enforce these policies rigorously and continuously. Users who believe their account may have been deactivated mistakenly may submit an appeal."

Unsurprisingly, Pinterest's statement on X hasn't satisfied its disgruntled users, particularly considering the lack of success many have had with their appeals. Users are lambasting the response in replies to the post, calling for Pinterest to scrap or at least overhaul its AI moderation.

Others are looking to take it even further. After Pinterest posted its statement, Reddit user wighthamster began gauging interest in a potential class action lawsuit, noting that people may have not only lost income from Pinterest ad campaigns or traffic, but also personal archives containing irreplaceable content such as personal projects or family photos. 

"Pinterest promotes itself as a platform for saving ideas, preserving memories, and conducting business… things many users invest significant time and trust in," wrote wighthamster. "Yet, recent actions suggest a pattern of arbitrary mass account suspensions, often with no functional recourse, directly contradicting its own marketed image and the reasonable expectations of its users."

Mashable has reached out to wighthamster for comment. However, multiple users have already expressed interest in being involved in the proposed legal action, some claiming that Pinterest's bans have had repercussions beyond merely losing a few saved pictures.

"For a lot of photographers artists and stylists, it’s the industry standard to present a moodboard before any project goes into action and the sheer amount of valuable references I’ve lost out on since being banned is hard to describe," wrote Affectionate-Pie-706. "I’ve had to postpone shoots and scramble to reassemble projects. Years and years of curating down the drain and multiple projects stuck in limbo."

Regardless of whether a lawsuit is filed or not, it's clear that Pinterest has a lot of work to do to win back users' trust and goodwill.