Hi, welcome to your Weekend.
This wasn’t an easy week for anyone. But if you’re on a trust and safety team of a social media company, this was likely the worst week in memory. In just three days after Hamas committed its depraved terrorist attacks in Israel last Saturday, Meta reported removing nearly 800,000 pieces of content labeled as “disturbing.” That is seven times more than the daily averages over the previous two months.
X CEO Linda Yaccarino claimed that her platform had also removed tens of thousands of offending tweets. You wouldn’t know it from spending any time on that service. Always a cesspool of toxicity in the best of times, it’s been serving up a constant stream of horrifically violent videos and misinformation all week long.
Given The Information’s own reporting that X has fired many of its content moderators, it is no surprise that the platform prefers users to do their own moderation. X has posted instructions on how to change your user settings so that “sensitive” content carries a warning label or doesn’t show up in search results. Great.
The European Union’s media regulators are watching all of this closely, issuing stern warnings about compliance with the continent’s new Digital Services Act, and giving platform owners aggressive deadlines to respond to its probes. I find myself cheering for EU commissioner Thierry Breton, who clearly wants to bring the owners of very large online platforms, or VLOPs, to heel.
Breton and his EU enforcers may bring the hammer down on the offending platforms soon, levying fines of up 6% of global revenues. On behalf of the overwhelmed (or out of work) content moderators out there, he should swing away.
Now onto this week’s stories...
social studies
A Geography Game Has Its First Superstar. Can It Survive Its First Player Revolt?
GeoGuessr emerged in the pandemic as a way to see the world without leaving home. It also gave us the glory of Rainbolt. Will its inaugural World Cup, which started yesterday, help it overcome a mutiny in its ranks? Jessica Lucas explores the game’s muddy road ahead.
the ai age
Found in Translation: The AI Lip-Synch Apps Have Arrived
Gone are the days when companies needed to hire multiple video hosts to present the same story in different languages. Amanda Florian takes us inside the suddenly crowded space of AI-enabled translators, lip-dubbers and deepfakes.
Weekend reads
If You’re Ripping Michael Lewis’ Book on Sam Bankman-Fried, You’re Reading It Wrong
Adam Lashinsky is back with another review of a tech best-seller: Michael Lewis’s “Going Infinite.” Despite the valid criticism published elsewhere, Lewis’s retelling of the FTX saga is a wildly entertaining read—even if the author has no intention of burying his protagonist.
Watching: The Eras Tour (cinematic version)
It’s me, hi, The Information’s leading Taylor Swift correspondent. On Saturday, I’m heading to the AMC to watch “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour.” Does it matter that I saw The Eras Tour in real life this May? Such a question! For those of us who worship at the altar of Swift, there is no such thing as too much Taylor. And I’m not the only one. Per The New York Times, analysts are expecting the film to gross between $150 to $200 million over opening weekend. That means it might overtake “Barbie” as the biggest debut of the year (Gerwig’s blockbuster opened at $162 million). It’s all quite remarkable for a superstar who sees filmmaking more as supplemental income than true calling. —Annie
Reading: The anti-Andrew Tate influencers
I’ve written quite a bit about toxic masculinity in the past. And the response that always bothers me the most contains some version of the refrain, “Men aren’t allowed to be men anymore.” The truth is, I’m all for dudes being dudes. (I spent the first four years of my career at a men’s magazine, after all.) Talk about sports! Drink beer! Lift weights! Obsess about the Roman Empire! But do you have to disdain women in order to be your most masculine self? I think not. And neither does Hannah Ewans, who wrote a much-needed feature for British GQ on the “anti-Andrew Tates” of the internet. These guys are trying to undo the damage done by misogynist influencers by offering young men an alternative to incel-dom. Ewans points out something I’ve long observed: “One of the strangest paradoxes of Tate’s rise is that I’ve never come across an adult woman who is attracted to him.” —Julia
Noticing: A Vesuvius breakthrough
Last month, Margaux wrote about former GitHub CEO and prolific AI investor Nat Friedman and his quest to decode 2,000-year-old burned scrolls discovered in the ashes of Mount Vesuvius. Friedman’s Vesuvius Challenge promises $1 million in prizes to anyone who can find text passages buried within two of the charred Herculaneum papyri. Well, there’s been a crack in the case! This week, Friedman announced that 21-year-old computer science student (and SpaceX intern) Luke Farritor deciphered the word “πορφυρας,” meaning “purple dye” or “cloths of purple,” within the scrolls. For this finding, Farritor won $40,000. That leaves the $700,000 Vesuvius Challenge Grand Prize still unclaimed (your move, Information readers). To the amateur archeologists out there, we say good luck. And to our colleague Margaux, who is getting married this weekend, we say congratulations! —Annie
Until next Weekend, thanks for reading.
—Jon
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