Katherine Argent

This tweet has gone viral and we all know why. No matter what Google claims, people don’t like AI Overviews. No matter what Meta claims, no one wants to watch an endless scroll of AI slop video. And no matter what X claims, only maladjusted creeps like its founder think anime girlfriends are cool.

@lilyraynyc @Liddlebigmouth1 Standard for the end of a month when people are moving out. 🤷🏻‍♀️

@Liddlebigmouth1 It has always looked like this on trash day.

Ah, New York City. The warm smell of uncollectedivism.

@elonmusk @FLOTUS Pushing hard in advance for the pardon aren’t you, Sparky?

Congratulations to the @FLOTUS!

@stelzner_n1150 Well, most of us are wondering WTF is wrong with you that you were willing to overlook his personal flaws in ‘16 and ‘20 when his Epstein involvement, racism, corruption, fascist tendencies and lawlessness were already evident.

I was willing to overlook Trump’s personal flaws when I voted for him in 2016 and 2020. Now we find out he’s at best a pedophile protector and at worst a pedophile himself. Now the country is in free fall, and he’s almost 80. What are we doing here?

Also, viz the last line, the post specifically says to avoid steam cleaning mattresses because it can lead to mold. And stain removal depends on the stain — several methods are provided. So, not only is G hijacking a branded search but misrepresenting the brand's advice.

So even with a branded search, Google's going to shove AIOs between a website and the people trying to reach it? The penalties in the eventual publisher-led lawsuit are going to be wild.

@elonmusk Sorry, wannabe pedo says what?

What matters is not release of some subset of the Epstein files, but rather the prosecution of those who committed heinous crimes with Epstein. When there is at least one arrest, some justice will have been done. If not, this is all performative. Nothing but a distraction.

@ednewtonrex 2a. Insert product between people and what they’re trying to accomplish — without their consent — in a way that makes not using the product more time-consuming and frustrating.

The generative AI business model: 1. Build product by repeatedly copying creatives’ work 2. Make product cheap so people use it (possible because we didn’t pay for the copies) 3. Money flows to us instead of creative community 4. Repeat

“I made (recipe name) and now my family begs for it / I can’t stop making it / I make it every week / it’s all I eat / I’ve made it 52 weeks in a row / it’s all my family wants.” Worried for your mental health over there, .@thekitchn.

@glenngabe I feel like this is saying “You can opt out and we’ll work faster at taking your traffic instead of trickling some to you now and then.”

Huge news. Sites may eventually be able to opt-out of generative Search features like AI Overviews and AI Mode. From Google: "Building on this framework, and working with the web ecosystem, we're now exploring updates to our controls to let sites specifically opt out of Search generative AI features. Our goal is to protect the helpfulness of Search for people who want information quickly, while also giving websites the right tools to manage their content."

@lilyraynyc Yeah, lemme get right on that.

Reminds me of when Google introduced the rel=sponsored attribute for links “Why should we do this?” “Idk, cuz it helps train Google I guess.”

Plot twist: I’ve decided I won’t have enough initials after my name, so I’m getting an MFA. Now this account is Lit. 📚

I’m an athlete now thanks to my Apple Watch.

@FloorPriceGuy Shhh. I’m not back for real. Just needed to vent.

@effthealgorithm Nice to see you again. You were missed!

Just popping in to say FUCK YOU GOOGLE.

I hit a breaking point today. Maybe you’re close to yours, too? It just feels like everything is going too far: the rage bait, the comments from bots, the comments from trolls. The government. The news. I’ve lived more hours online than off since the late 90s. I’m not saying that to brag — it’s sad, really, when I think about it. But it is also a fact: I once loved how the internet connected people, but did so asynchronously so we could reach out to others when we wanted. And when we didn’t, we didn’t. But these past few years, everything has changed. Social media has become less about being social and more about showing us ads. The dark patterns designed to engineer our dopamine cycles and keep us scrolling feel more predatory than ever. They feel evil. It all feels evil. I just wanted to see some cute cat pics and keep in touch with friends. I didn’t intend to become a target for psyops designed to enrage and divide people. I didn’t post with the intent of having that data mined to more accurately target me with ads. I didn’t invite anyone to undermine my self-esteem so I’d try to find it by collecting likes and reposts. This isn’t how I want to live. This isn’t what I think we were put on earth to do. This is not who and how I want to be. So, I’m taking a social media sabbatical. I don’t know for how long — for all I know, the withdrawals may be stronger than I am and I’ll be back here in a few days, or even sooner. But even in that failure, I’ll have learned how strongly the platforms have engineered my addiction and in that case I’ll have to try again and again until it works and I’m free. Because this? The online back and forth between people who we likely won’t meet, whose minds we are unlikely to change, who may not even be actual people but bots? It’s not living. It’s not real. It’s not worthy of us.

A periodic reminder that everyone should read this marvelous 2002 essay. “When people’s imaginative energy is replaced by the drop-down menu ‘creativity’ of big tech platforms, on a mass scale, we’re facing a particularly dire form of immiseration.”

Just like it did to ours.

We didn’t need ad revenue to share information until Google started dictating the technical aspects required to rank. When it was just about having good content, we could host it on a $5/mo server (or even our own) and use the default theme from MovableType then later WordPress. But now we have to have lightning fast hosts, a CDN, compression plugins, premium caching…plus pay agencies to optimize all those things. And since they’ve kneecapped traffic, we now also need expensive newsletter plans, social media scheduling programs, virtual assistants… Ads pay for all that. No traffic? No website.

For better or for worse, ad revene is the lifeblood of the internet. It's what keeps the internet "free" so we don't have to whip out a credit card on every .com. Ad revenue is only obtained by "getting clicks." The internet would not be what it is today if people couldn't be compensated for their time and effort in providing all that information in some sort of organized, non-invasive way. So, yes, the internet needs clicks to financially sustain itself. Clicks are necessary for it to continue and AI does nothing but take those away. Which is why AI is destined to starve the internet to death. And that seems to be what Big Tech intends.

@elonmusk You knew this one was coming when you posted. 😉

If she’s a 10, you’re an asset 💯😂

@StephenM Non-fascist.

What is the correct term to describe the conduct of the Democrat Party?