Adi Robertson
@thedextriarchy.bsky.social
17K followers 340 following 940 posts
Senior Editor, Tech & Policy, The Verge
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thank you so much! it means a lot to me that folks liked it
I feel paranoid saying this but it seems also ignored how much of an incentive this creates to restrict desktop web services, or require mobile signups for accounts, in the name of child safety
sorry but if we're gonna do reductive gender-essentialist stereotypes, I'm squarely claiming rule of law for femininity. you don't get it *and* "civilization's effete restrictions are stifling men's need to be primal individualist predators"
legitimately it's hard for me to imagine having so little self-respect
Reposted by Adi Robertson
"I was married but I'm not married anymore. Women don't like the vehicle."
"but it'd be so useful to see everyone's names beneath their faces on smart glasses" okay, it's that or a society with any meaningful measure of one of the baseline requirements for individual freedom and personal safety, pick one
I understand what a long shot this is, but if there's a single modern digital technology that should be banned as thoroughly as possible, it's the use of facial recognition for identifying people — not just in government but as private-sector software.
If I were a responsible dating app at this point I'd be looking at every subtle image cloaking technology I could muster for thwarting facial recognition tools.
We found websites that use facial recognition to let partners, stalkers, or anyone else uncover specific peoples’ Tinder profiles, reveal their approximate physical location at points in time, and track changes to their profile including their photos.

🔗 www.404media.co/viral-cheate...
Viral ‘Cheater Buster’ Sites Use Facial Recognition to Let Anyone Reveal Peoples’ Tinder Profiles
Videos demoing one of the sites have repeatedly gone viral on TikTok and other platforms recently. 404 Media verified they can locate specific peoples' Tinder profiles using their photo, and found tha...
www.404media.co
I've been super proud to work with a bunch of talented authors including @judedoyle.bsky.social and @taliabhatt.itch.io on this package over the past couple months — it's six great stories about the weird, scary moment both the internet and trans people are in
The future of being trans on the internet
The internet has long been a source of information and support for transgender people. Now, trans rights and the internet itself are in a moment of crisis. What happens next?
www.theverge.com
"heat death of the universe" is the obvious problem but if you gave me a million years or so with no bodily needs i could probably develop an intense meditation game
sending you an invite code. no reason. just because.
at long last, we have created the ring from classic horror movie don't ever look at the ring
I don't understand why Adam Mosseri would push a new feature for Instagram using the theme of a movie with a plot about how watching media someone shares with you will lead to a horrible death
www.theverge.com/news/793410/...
What’s going on with this Instagram promotion?
It keeps making me think of The Ring.
www.theverge.com
I feel like a game with art from the creator of Afro Samurai sort of deserves better than a janky live-action adaptation made on an apparent budget of about ten dollars
Furi - Official Teaser Trailer
YouTube video by Midnight Embers Productions
www.youtube.com
i love free speech too but the influencerization of goverment must be stopped
impossible good law idea friday: all elected and appointed officials are barred from hosting podcasts or having active personal social media feeds unless currently running for office within 6 months of an upcoming election
Banning cigarette ads, regulating ads for children, and other stuff is one of those "wow, we could never do that now" moments but creating an environment where everything isn't full of aggressive, invasive, sometimes dangerous advertising feels like the only path forward for a functioning internet.
I've been poking around this myself, but curious if lawsky has better answers than I've found: is there a good study of why/how US advertising regulation was pulled off in the 20th century? Or a history of advertising and US law in general?
the latest testimony in the google ad-tech trial has finally gifted me the world's most appropriate use case for this meme www.theverge.com/tech/790711/...
The wikihow "guy being menaced with a knife" meme, with WikiHow's logo over the menaced guy, Google's logo over the guy with the knife, and the Gemini logo over the knife.
Reposted by Adi Robertson
"What is this entire anti-terrorism memorandum if not an admission that terrorism works, and that terrorism has secured the White House?"

wake up babe @lopatto.bsky.social and @sarahjeong.bsky.social banger alert www.theverge.com/policy/79051...
It is of course helpful to remember that in the Trump regime, every accusation is a confession. Antifa might not be organized, but the Department of Homeland Security sure is. George Soros might not be paying professional protesters, but right-wing media personalities are bankrolled by Trumpist billionaires. In the case of Ben Shapiro, that’s billionaires Dan and Farris Wilks; for Rumble, thank Peter Thiel. This is to say nothing of Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News, or Elon Musk’s X, or the Daily Caller itself, which is funded by Charles Koch.

Indeed, the memo’s description of the environment that leads to terroristic violence applies cleanly to the entire right-wing ecosystem. But perhaps the most striking accusation-as-confession is this paragraph from the national security presidential memorandum:

This political violence is not a series of isolated incidents and does not emerge organically. Instead, it is a culmination of sophisticated, organized campaigns of targeted intimidation, radicalization, threats, and violence designed to silence opposing speech, limit political activity, change or direct policy outcomes, and prevent the functioning of a democratic society.

What is this but an elegant encapsulation of the past 10 years? It describes everything from the removal of Jimmy Kimmel from the air to the Libs of TikTok pattern of incitement to Charlie Kirk’s Professor Watchlist to Fox News’ defamation of Dominion Voting Systems and its employees to the celebrity worship of people like Kyle Rittenhouse.

What is this entire anti-terrorism memorandum if not an admission that terrorism works, and that terrorism has secured the White House?

a verge feature story with the headline / subheadline of "Everything is terrorism in Trump’s America / 
Identifying faceless ICE agents. Mutual aid for jailed protesters. Calling JD Vance a fascist. The war on ‘antifa’ is a war on free speech, and it’s just getting started."
Incidentally I don't disagree with this, just saying that even using *the government's own framing* they made their announcement in a bizarrely irresponsible way
Autism is not a curse. It is simply a trick of nature. Autistic people can live vibrant lives. Some develop useful characteristics like amazing memories for facts or even maths equations or other subjects. Others have amazing skills with their hands. They are just folks like us born without malice.
Tylenol is afaik the first thing you can give to babies — I had a couple-month window at least where it was recommended and nothing else was. (I have no clue if Trump knows this since his alternative was just "it'll be uncomfortable" and also he seems to think you give it to them in pills.)
To be clear, there's zero mention of Tylenol after birth in HHS or White House fact sheets, it's all prenatal studies. As far as I can tell Trump made up an entire risk category as a bit. Which just incidentally encourages parents to leave their kids in pain for no reason at all.
Trump and RFK's message to parents is that autism is the great medical crisis of our time but it's not important enough to announce without Trump just outright admitting he's making stuff up on stage. Even people who take what they're saying at face value should find this insulting.
According to Trump and RFK, Tylenol during pregnancy causes autism, but you're *also* not supposed to give kids Tylenol after they're born, and maybe not take it at all. There is zero way for the average person to distinguish what's backed by even sketchy research and what's pure riffing and vibes.