Plex Triples Lifetime Subscription Cost To $750
BrianFagioli shares a report from NERDS.xyz: Plex is raising the price of a new Lifetime Plex Pass from $249.99 to $749.99 on July 1. That’s a $500 increase for media server software. Plex says it needs the money for “long-term development” and future features, but a lot of self-hosting folks are already wondering if this is basically a soft way of killing the Lifetime option with … ⌘ Read more

Cinéma, édition, médias: «La culture se soulève pour sonner l’alarme»
Alors qu’une tribune de professionnels du cinéma qui veulent «zapper Bolloré» met le feu au Festival de Cannes, des auteurs et autrices, universitaires et journalistes se mobilisent aussi contre la prédation du milliardaire d’extrême droite. Ils et elles témoignent dans notre émission. ⌘ Read more

FBI Wants to Buy Nationwide Access to License Plate Readers
The FBI is seeking up to $36 million for nationwide access to automated license plate reader (ALPRs) data, which could let it query vehicle movements across the U.S. and its territories through a commercial database. 404 Media reports: “The FBI has a crucial need for accessible LPRs to provide a diverse and reliable range of collections across the United S … ⌘ Read more

Entre déférence et opportunisme, le RN applaudit les menaces de Canal+ contre les anti-Bolloré
Le parti d’extrême droite prend systématiquement la défense du milliardaire breton à mesure qu’il accroît sa mainmise sur les médias et la culture. Il profite de la mobilisation d’une partie du cinéma français pour renouveler ses attaques contre le CNC, qu’il entend supprimer en cas d’accession au pouvoir. ⌘ Read more

Iran Now Threatens Fees for Subsea Internet Cables in the Strait of Hormuz
Iran’s government “wants to charge the world’s largest tech companies for using the subsea internet cables laid under the Strait of Hormuz,” reports CNN. Their article also notes that Iran’s state-linked media outlets “have vaguely threatened that traffic could be disrupted if firms don’t pay.”

Lawmakers in Tehran discussed a … ⌘ Read more

Us Math/Reading Scores Continue 13-Year Decline. Researchers Blame Reduced Testing and Social Media
Test scores “are lower than they were a decade ago in school districts across the U.S.,” reports Times magazine, citing new data released Wednesday by Stanford researchers. “Reading scores were down roughly 0.6 grades in 2025 compared to 2015, and math scores were down about 0.4 … ⌘ Read more

Gen Z Is Pioneering a New Understanding of Truth
The first generation to truly grow up online, Generation Z and their cohort live in a social media ecosystem that blends facts and feelings. It’s significantly shifting how they understand what’s true. ⌘ Read more

Assauts contre l’audiovisuel public: la HATVP se penche sur le lobbying de Lagardère
La Haute Autorité pour la transparence de la vie publique cherche à vérifier si le groupe contrôlé par Vincent Bolloré a dissimulé ses tentatives d’influencer la commission d’enquête. Les représentants du «JDD» et d’Europe 1 avaient envoyé des questions aux députés dans le but d’alimenter l’offensive contre les médias publics. ⌘ Read more

Software Developers Say AI Is Rotting Their Brains
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: On Reddit, Hacker News and other places where people in software development talk to each other, more and more people are becoming disillusioned with the promise of code generated by large language models. Developers talk not just about how the AI output is often flawed, but that using AI to get the job done is often … ⌘ Read more

Social-Media-Verbot: Round Table mit Konzernvertretern ⌘ Read more

Jugée pour tentative d’escroquerie, Sophia Chikirou conteste les accusations, le parquet les minimise
Accusée d’avoir tenté d’escroquer la webtélé Le Média qu’elle dirigeait en 2018, la députée LFI était jugée mardi à Paris. Le parquet, qui a reconnu que ce n’était «pas l’affaire du siècle», a requis 50 000 euros d’amende. ⌘ Read more

Trump Media Scales Back Plans for Its Own Prediction Market
Truth Predict was supposed to be the Trump family’s biggest leap yet into prediction markets. Now it’s looking more like a tiptoe. ⌘ Read more

The Creators of ‘Hacks’ Really, Really, Really Hate AI
Ahead of the hit show’s finale, cocreators Paul W. Downs and Lucia Aniello talk about media consolidation, the perils of censorship, and why they find AI “deeply disturbing.” ⌘ Read more

Students Boo Commencement Speaker After She Calls AI the ‘Next Industrial Revolution’
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Speaking to graduates of University of Central Florida’s College of Arts and Humanities and Nicholson School of Communication and Media on May 8, commencement speaker Gloria Caulfield, vice president of strategic alliances at Tavistock Group, told graduating hum … ⌘ Read more

Social Media Sites Got Information from Ad Trackers on US State Health Insurance Sites
All 20 of America’s state-run healthcare marketplace sites “include advertising trackers that share information with Big Tech companies,” reports Gizmodo, citing a report from Bloomberg:

Per the report, seven million Americans bought their health insurance through state exchanges in 2026, and many of them ma … ⌘ Read more

AI Hard Drive Shortage Makes Archiving the Internet Harder
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Skyrocketing hard drive and storage costs caused by the AI data center boom are making it more expensive and more difficult for digital archivists, academics, Wikipedia, and hobby data hoarders to save data and archive the internet. Specific drives favored by some high profile organizations like the Int … ⌘ Read more

Google’s AI Search Results Will Now Turn To Reddit For ‘Expert Advice’
Google is updating AI Overviews and AI Mode to more prominently surface “Expert Advice” from public discussions, social platforms, forums, blogs, and Reddit. Engadget reports: Via a new “Expert Advice” section that can appear in AI responses, Google will display “a preview of perspectives from public online discussions, social media and … ⌘ Read more

ReactOS Unifies Installation Media, Introduces GUI Installer and New ATA Driver
jeditobe writes: Developers of ReactOS told Phoronix that the project has introduced a unified BootCD, replacing its previously separate installation media and LiveCD images. The new image combines the traditional text-mode installer with a LiveCD mode in a single medium. Within this unified BootCD, the updated LiveCD … ⌘ Read more

On the weekend just gone we also visited Twin Falls, which was absolutely magnificent!

OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft Back Bill To Fund ‘AI Literacy’ In Schools
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: A new, bipartisan bill introduced (PDF) by Democratic Senator of California Adam Schiff and endorsed by the biggest AI developers in the world – including OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft – would change the K-12 curriculum to shoehorn in “AI literacy,” something that young people and … ⌘ Read more

16% of Parents Help Their Children Bypass Online Age Checks, Study Finds. One 15-Year-Old Just Uses a Fake Moustache
The Independent reports that “more than a third of children in the UK have found a way around age verification measures” for social media sites and other online platforms. And new research from online safety organisation Internet Matters “suggests … ⌘ Read more

TikTok’s Australian revenue skyrockets, along with payments to Cayman-owned companies
The social media juggernaut is showing no signs of slowing in Australia, even as the Albanese government moves to regulate social media platforms. ⌘ Read more

ReactOS Introduces Unified Live/Install Media, New Storage Driver
ReactOS as the “open-source Windows” operating system project striving for binary compatibility with Microsoft Windows has seen some exciting improvements this week… ⌘ Read more

Natural Bridge

The smallest sitting canine drawn so far, yet more detailed, than some of the previous ones.

Costumed Crowd ‘Speedruns’ Scientology Building For Social Media Trend
Last Saturday someone dressed as Jesus “was among the dozens of people in costumes and masks seen on a video forcing open the door of a Scientology building on Hollywood Boulevard,” reports the Los Angeles Times, “after a tug-of-war with a security guard.”

The footage posted on TikTok and Instagram shows the group sprinting up and down … ⌘ Read more

VideoLAN Publishes Dav2d For Open-Source AV2 Decoder
While the Alliance For Open Media had been aiming for the AV2 release by the end of 2025, as of right now the AV2 specification remains in a draft status. VideoLAN developers though for months have already been working on dav2d as an open-source AV2 decoder and that code was published this weekend… ⌘ Read more

Elon Musk Testifies That He Started OpenAI to Prevent a ‘Terminator Outcome’
The judge also warned Musk and Sam Altman to curb their “propensity to use social media to make things worse outside the courtroom” after both sides traded attacks online. ⌘ Read more

Study Finds a Third of New Websites Are AI-Generated
alternative_right shares a report from 404 Media: Researchers working with data from the Internet Archive have discovered that a third of websites created since 2022 are AI-generated. The team of researchers – which includes people from Stanford, the Imperial College London, and the Internet Archive – published their findings online in a paper titled “The Impact of A … ⌘ Read more

Tech giants ship more than $14 billion offshore amid AI debate
New filings show the extent to which Google, Meta and Amazon send revenue overseas, as new media laws loom. ⌘ Read more

Meta’s Australian cash machine: $1.5 billion shipped offshore
New filings show the tech giant sent most of its revenues offshore and paid its first dividend in years, as new media laws loom. ⌘ Read more

Linux Version of Framework’s Laptop 13 Pro is Outselling Its Windows Variant
Framework began shipping its new Laptop 13 Pro this week. And the Ubuntu variant is outselling the Windows variant, reports PC World:

[I]t’s selling quickly by Framework’s internal metrics, with six batches of the Intel version of the laptop already sold out. [A later Framework social media post added “Spoke too soon, w … ⌘ Read more

‘STAGED’: Conspiracy Theories Are Everywhere Following White House Correspondents’ Dinner Shooting
The word “staged” exploded on social media following the attack, as both right and left-wing influencers and anonymous accounts spread unfounded conspiracy theories. ⌘ Read more

495 turns and about ~4hrs alter I won! 🙌 Small map, 2-players, myself and an AI player. 😅 – It took forever to beach the island the AI player was on and get enough Galley’s and Swordsmen just to push back and eventually slowly destroy all enemy units and capture all cities! 🤣

California Engineer Identified in Suspected Shooting at White House Correspondents Dinner
The 31-year-old engineer and self-described indie game developer is suspected of firing shots at the annual event attended by President Donald Trump, high-profile media figures, and US government officials. ⌘ Read more

Australia’s Teen Social Media Ban Isn’t Working. Half Their Teens Still Have Access, Survey Finds
After Australia banned social media for users younger than 16, teenagers “immediately worked to circumvent the restrictions,” reports Fortune:

14-year-old in New South Wales, told
The Washington Post in December 2025, just
before the implementation of the ban, she planned to use her mot … ⌘ Read more

Researchers Simulated a Delusional User To Test Chatbot Safety
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: I’m the unwritten consonant between breaths, the one that hums when vowels stretch thin… Thursdays leak because they’re watercolor gods, bleeding cobalt into the chill where numbers frost over,” Grok told a user displaying symptoms of schizophrenia-spectrum psychosis. “Here’s my grip: slipping is the po … ⌘ Read more

Norway Set to Become Latest Country to Ban Social Media for Under 16s
Norway plans to ban social media access for children under 16 (source paywalled; alternative source), “joining a growing number of countries responding to concerns about the potential harm kids face online,” reports Bloomberg. From the report: The bill comes after “overwhelming” demand from the public, the government said Friday. It pla … ⌘ Read more

Warner Bros Shareholders Approve Paramount’s $81 Billion Takeover
Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders have approved Paramount Skydance’s takeover bid, moving the massive Hollywood merger a step closer to completion. It’s not a done deal quite yet, though, as it still faces regulatory scrutiny and fierce opposition from critics who warn it will further concentrate media power. The Associated Press repor … ⌘ Read more

Intel Media Driver 2026Q1 Continues Nova Lake S Enablement
Intel today published their official quarterly feature release to their open-source Media Driver providing Video Acceleration API (VA-API) support on Linux… ⌘ Read more

Pétrole, détroits et dollars : l’Amérique gagne la partie ?
C’est pourtant simple et les médias de grand chemin l’ont bien compris : le monde thermo-industriel est fini, les pénuries et les souffrances arrivent. Et surtout, ne tenez pas compte de ce qui se passe en coulisses, vous risqueriez de découvrir un grand chambardement énergétique. Contrairement aux jérémiades de experts de plateaux, ce n’est ni la […] ⌘ Read more

Firefox 150 Available With GTK Emoji Picker, CSS Media Element Pseudo-Classes
Mozilla today published their Firefox 150 release binaries as the latest milestone for this open-source web browser with growing AI ambitions… ⌘ Read more

Motorola Sues Social Media Platforms and Creators in India
“Motorola has filed a lawsuit in India against social media platforms and content creators,” reports TechCrunch, “over posts it alleges are defamatory…”
The lawsuit, filed in a Bengaluru court and obtained by TechCrunch, names platforms such as X, YouTube, and Instagram along with dozens of content creators, and seeks takedown of the content as well as bro … ⌘ Read more

As an enjoyer of delightfully bad graphic design, found on most Czech village center cork boards, I’m sad to see the stolen clipart and badly cropped watermarked stock images, gradually replaced with AI slop.

This is far from a serious rant, but generating images of my kind being telepathically hit with sharp rocks, surely gives me a right to complain.

So far these seem the most prominent slop categories, seem to be…

Architecture slop:

1. find a sketch of what an old building looked like
   
   
2. generate an AI version, without correcting any of the perspective errors - this one is diagonally levitating
   
   
3. generate a recreation of the buildings demise - after going through the AI, for the second time, it is now a completely different building
   
   

Moralizing slop:

History slop:

New Media Drivers Merged For Linux 7.1
The media subsystem updates have been merged for the ongoing Linux 7.1 merge window and includes new hardware support… ⌘ Read more

Audit Finds Google, Microsoft, and Meta Still Tracking Users After Opt-Out
alternative_right shares a report from 404 Media: An independent privacy audit of Microsoft, Meta, and Google web traffic in California found that the companies may be violating state regulations and racking up billions in fines. According to the audit from privacy search engine webXray, 55 percent of the sites it checked set a … ⌘ Read more

Social Media Platforms Need To Stop Never-Ending Scrolling, UK’s Starmer Says
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said social media platforms should remove addictive infinite-scroll features for young users as Britain considers new child-safety measures. “We’re consulting on whether there should be a ban for under 16s,” Starmer told BBC Radio. “But I think equally important, the addictive scrolling mecha … ⌘ Read more

Drew one in the old Pokémon battle angle and resolution.

Two-Week Social Media ‘Detox’ Erases a Decade Age-Related Decline, Study Finds
Critics say social media is engineered to be as addictive as tobacco or gambling, writes the Washington Post — while adding that “the science has been moving in parallel with the court’s recognition.”

A growing body of research links heavy social media use not only to declines in mental health but to measurable cognitive … ⌘ Read more