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The week's best writing on technology and more.
Bots
Demand for the Justice League 'Snyder Cut' was reportedly amplified by bots
A report showed that 'at least' 13 percent of online discourse was generated by bots.
AI trained on 4chan's most hateful board is just as toxic as you'd expect
The hyper-racist bots posted 15,000 times in one day.We have two newsletters, why not sign up for both?
Elon Musk says his deal to buy Twitter is 'temporarily on hold'
He wants to confirm that spam/fake accounts 'do indeed represent less than 5 percent of users.'
Twitter tests a way for accounts to let people know they're bots
It's designed to help 'good bots' gain legitimacy.
Discord music bot Groovy is going offline after YouTube crackdown
It's shutting down on August 30th.
Twitch is purging 7.5 million bots that inflated view and follower counts
The news comes after users saw steep drops in their follow counts.
Valve is still letting bots invade one of its longest-running games
'Team Fortress 2' has been nearly unplayable for over nine months.
Social media bots may have fueled the GameStop stock frenzy
Just how much of a role they played isn't clear.
FTC issues first fines using a law against ticket scalping bots
The scalpers will pay over $3.7 million.
Customer service chats are coming to Instagram DMs
Facebook is testing Messenger API support for Instagram messages.
Instagram will make suspicious accounts verify their identities
Accounts that don't comply may be disabled.
Valve is allowing racist bots to invade ‘Team Fortress 2’
And players have had enough.
Discord wants to clean up and support its massive bot community
Developers have got six months to get verified.
Twitter's new rules require labels for 'high-quality' bots
Not all bots are bad, but they all need labels.
Online sneaker drop cancelled thanks to bots
The shady practice of using bots to cop sneakers is still causing problems.
How to buy sneakers for the hypebeast in your life
You can either do it yourself or find a reseller to help you out.
Congress is asking vape manufacturers if they used social media bots
Bots that spew vaping spam are a uniquely modern problem.
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The best long-form writing on technology and more on the web.
