Tech, facts, and carbonara. mantzarlis.com
Today's free Indicator Briefing is *full* of things you need to know, tools you can use, and research you should read on the digital deception beat. Check it out:
Briefing: Musk sues Minnesota over synthetic nudes lawPlus: Tools for tracking foreign interference and LinkedIn launches "AI slop" buttonindicator.mediaBrazilian politics is nothing if not creative. Former president Jair Bolsonaro is under house arrest and cannot communicate publicly in support of his son Flávio’s presidential campaign. So Flávio used an AI avatar of his dad at a rally on Saturday. The opposition has presented a legal challenge.
Jair Bolsonaro uses AI avatar to endorse son's campaignYouTube video by Reuterswww.youtube.comI feel like @dwillner.bsky.social will have thoughts on how useful this "Seems like AI slop" reporting button will be for LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/posts/hsrini...
This is a big week for AI transparency as regulation kicks in: 🐻 In California on Saturday sanjosespotlight.com/ai-transpare... 🇪🇺 The EU on Sunday www.techpolicy.press/-brussels-ga...
Brussels Gains New AI Act Enforcement Powers as Autonomous AI Tests RegulatorsThe EU AI Act enters a new phase as Brussels gains enforcement powers over AI companies and introduces transparency rules for AI-generated content.www.techpolicy.pressthe shapes are also off, i would add
US government map of Africa mislabels every country at global conferenceA U.S. government map of Africa mislabeled every country during a State Department presentation at a global conference taking place in Brazil this week, causing a stir among attendees who took screen...www.reuters.comoh my "Police were looking for a man using the Kik messaging service under the name “fus__ro_dah” (two underscores after “fus”), but they accidentally requested records for the username “fus_ro_dah” (one underscore after “fus”)."
A missing underscore sent innocent man to prison for 18 monthsWhen the first step goes wrong, bad results follow.arstechnica.comI'm still too European to comprehend how the First Amendment protects this crap but I do worry that Musk may win this one
Elon Musk's xAI sues Minnesota over law to ban 'nudify' appsElon Musk's xAI, now owned by SpaceX, is challenging a law that would ban so-called nudify apps in Minnesotawww.cnbc.com1. I don't think Pangram should be used to definitively assess individual pieces of text (see: indicator.media/p/what-i-lea...) 2. I left Substack and do not trust its leadership one bit 3. However, I also don't think you can be anti-slop and deem Substack's intervention a "witch hunt"
Substackers Say New AI Detection Tool Is a ‘Witch Hunt’“I’m not going to apologize for using AI in the creation process.”www.404media.coNew on @indicator.media: Passport bro content painting Latvia as a "leftover ladies’ paradise" where men "are more valuable than gold" has escaped containment and polluted AI results
How tabloid claims about Latvia’s “man drought” fueled a misleading social media frenzy and polluted Google resultsPassport bro content objectifying Latvian women has taken over video and search platformsindicator.mediaI think this is valuable and the best use of Pangram (across large corpora, not to make definitive calls on single articles). But it's worth noting a selection bias: people test content they already suspect of being AI. And it should obviously be read as a marketing tool for the company as well.
AI Content Is Everywhere on Social Media, Especially LinkedIn | Pangram LabsWe scanned over 1 million social media posts for AI content. It turned up on every platform we checked, and 1 in 3 top LinkedIn posts flagged as AI-generated.www.pangram.comI stan a fact-checking fan
'I will not row': Norway's World Cup fan cannot be movedYouTube video by Sky Newswww.youtube.comA great, detailed, guide on web scraping tools for investigations by David Weisz, who ran three different tests on seven different scrapers. His take: "I'm blown away by the progress scrapers have made over the past decade, particularly the Chrome extensions and AI tools."
No code, no budget: 7 web scrapers put to the testScraping no longer demands coding skills or a big budget. Here's how seven options held up across three real-world tests.indicator.mediaJust filthy levels of corruption. The red was a farse, but this is worse
Kyle GriffinNYT confirms: Trump personally asked FIFA to review a U.S. player's suspension. Now he's eligible to play. The reversal of Folarin Balogun's World Cup suspension is highly unusual. It was the first time since 1962 that FIFA has nullified a suspension for a red card received during the World Cup.
