The Blog Experiment | Technology Nonsense and Internet Tripe

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. SEE ALSO: ‘The Daily Show’ mocks Trump’s response to the Epstein ‘client list’ 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 buying it: Trumps followers ratio him on Truth Social over Epstein files

Dateline: Woking, 11th July 2025.Now, I am no stranger to the world of international high fashion, as you can see from this picture, so I was fascinated by the story in The Financial Times magazine about supermodels and billionaires (and lawyers). It was one of the most most interesting stories about money and identity that I read for ages, so I cannot resist drawing attention to it and noting the connection between Naomi Campbell and Larry Fink.Subscribe nowDigital Identity And Digital CredentialsThe essence of the story is that the famous supermodel Naomi Campbell was introduced to a woman who she thought was a lawyer. Ms. Campbell is quoted as saying “I trusted her, as she was presented to me as a lawyer”. As a matter of fact, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) said that the woman in question had never been a solicitor in England and Wales, so I assume that Ms. Campbell (just like the rest of us) had never thought to check whether the woman really was a lawyer or not.(Rather interestingly, the SRA also point out that “the term lawyer is not a protected term” in England, and there is nothing to stop unregulated individuals working in the law from referring to themselves as such.)The “lawyer” became a trustee of Ms. Campbell’s “Fashion for Relief” charity and managed the charity’s day-to-day operations. She went on to conduct a variety of transactions, which eventually included engaging expensive actual lawyers to act on Ms. Campbell’s behalf. Or, at least,…Naomi Campbell, Larry Fink and I Are On The Same Page

The American public is evenly divided over the implications of artificial intelligence (AI). Still, the majority thinks the new technology will reduce the need for people to do creative or important tasks, according to a new survey that was released on Thursday.  The new Gallup poll found that 49 percent of the U.S. adults said that AI is “just the latest in a long line of technological advancements that humans will learn to use to improve their lives and society.”  The other 49 percent stated AI is “very different from the technological advancements that came before, and threatens to harm humans and society.” Some two percent did not have an answer.  Even with the split, the majority of respondents, 59 percent, said AI will take care of important and routine tasks, which would lead to less need for humans to perform “important” or “creative” work, according to the poll. Nearly four-in-10, 38 percent, said that AI will mostly do mundane tasks, allowing people to do more important or creative work.  The majority of U.S. adults, 64 percent, said that they would resist using AI as long as possible, while the other 35 percent said they would embrace the technology as soon as possible, the survey found. Just one percent did not have an answer.  Around two-thirds of respondents, 66 percent, said that AI would eclipse robotics when it comes to influence in society. Over half of Americans said AI would also exceed the impact of the internet, 56 percent, computers,…US divided over AI implications: Gallup

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…. SEE ALSO: Elon Musk’s Grok AI calls itself ‘MechaHitler,’ goes on an antisemitic spree While Yaccarino didn’t say her reasons for leaving, sources familiar with the matter told NBC that the move had been in the works…Linda Yaccarino is out as X CEO

Since its release on Netflix this past June, K-pop 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.) SEE ALSO: Netflix’s ‘K-pop Demon Hunters’ review: Balancing demon-slaying with idol realness 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 K-pop Demon Hunters talks about K-pop bias picks, surviving social media, and the power of…The stars of K-pop Demon Hunters (and their parents) are watching your fan edits

Don’t forget! Our next Zoom get together for you, my treasured community of paid subscribers, is this Wednesday 9th July 5-6pm BST/9am PST/12pm EST/6pm CEST.Come and join my good friend Kirsty Rutter and I to chat about our recently published a paper in the Journal of Digital Banking 10(1) called “Digital Banking in the Artificial Intelligence Era: Stra… Read moreVirtual Fireside Chat: Non-Human Customers

Dateline: Woking, 2nd July 2025.If you are sceptical about the advent of agentic commerce, don’t be. So much of day-to-day commerce is boring, and so much of what is not boring is baffling. In either case, I’m looking forward to handing it over to the bots, and I can’t be the only one.Subscribe nowAgentic Commerce CalculationsI got an email from one of the hotel chains that I use. I have reward status with them, so I opened it and read it. They were offering me bonus points for buying points for cash. I travel a lot and stay in hotels a lot, so maybe it would make sense for me to do this. But how to work out whether to buy or not? It was straightforward. All I had to do was open up multiple windows with hotels in the chain in each of the cities I might be likely to visit over the next year then look at the price of the rooms for the approximate dates that I would be visiting. Then I needed to look at the price of the same rooms in points and work out the average points exchange rate. From there, I just made a graph comparing the bonus points offer (there were relatively more bonus points for buying more points to begin with) to look at where the bonus point cost fell below that exchange rate.Of course I didn’t. I had other things to do.Similarly, when I last needed to book some flights…I’ve Got Better Things To Do, Bots Don’t

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. SEE ALSO: What is the fediverse — and how might it affect creators? 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.”Tumblr pauses fediverse integration, WordPress switch

Much of the public discourse around artificial intelligence has focused, understandably, on its potential to fundamentally alter the workforce. But we must pay equal attention to AI’s threat to fundamentally alter humanity — particularly as it continues to creep, unregulated, into early childhood. AI may feel like a developing force largely disconnected from the way we raise children. The truth is, AI is already impacting children’s developing brains in profound ways. “Alexa” now appears in babies’ first vocabularies. Toddlers increasingly expect everyday objects to respond to voice commands — and grow frustrated when they don’t. And now, one of the world’s largest toy companies has launched a “strategic” partnership with OpenAI. Research shows that children as young as three can form social bonds with artificial conversational agents that closely resemble the ones they develop with real people.   The pace of industry innovation far outstrips the speed of research and regulation. And our kids’ wellbeing is not at the center of these inventions. Consider Meta’s chatbots, capable of engaging in sexually explicit exchanges — including while posing as minors — which are available to users of all ages. Or Google’s plans to launch an AI chatbot for children under 13, paired with a toothless disclaimer: “Your child may encounter content you don’t want them to see.”   Now, with the Senate negotiating a budget bill that would outright ban states from regulating AI for the next decade, parents stand to be left alone to navigate yet another grand social experiment conducted on their children —…AI is rewiring the next generation of children 

“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. SEE ALSO: How tech companies are, or are not, recognizing Pride in 2025 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…9 LGBTQ creators discuss not backing down from Pride