The Outline
Jon Christian
In Twitter’s early days, only one celebrity could tweet at a time
Early Twitter workers are dishing on the site’s blunder years
Cancer surgery might make the disease more likely to recur
Surgery weakens the immune system, which might make bodies more vulnerable to more tumors.
Here are the 13 most popular Russian troll accounts on Reddit
Reddit believes close to a thousand accounts circulated propaganda for the IRA.
How platforms alter history
The rush to delete digital evidence of violent tendencies or ideologies is understandable, but what is the cost?
If you see a tweeted link, chances are it’s a bot
Bots are doing most of the link tweeting now, according to new research.
No wonder the teens are vaping
A study shows Facebook is doing a bad job of policing tobacco-adjacent ads, even in accordance with its own policies.
Zuck won’t commit to EU privacy protections for all, but it may not be his choice
Whether Facebook must protect all users according to new EU laws is still a matter to be settled in court.
Google bans covert crypto-mining from Chrome
After all, Chrome needs all the memory it can get HI-YOOOO
How “David Jewberg” fooled the Russian media for years
Russians do fake news to their own country, too.
California needs to chill out
A coffee-roasting byproduct means that CA coffee shops will now carry an overzealous warning.
Wylie: It’s possible that the Facebook app is listening to you
But it’s probably not using speech recognition.
The ocean’s ancient history reveals a violent future
How raising the planet’s temperature can cause catastrophic storms and kill all ocean life.
The long arm of the law embraces Facebook
The FTC formally filed an investigation and European privacy regulations are coming in a mere few weeks.
Tumblr bans accounts associated with Russian election meddlers
An email sent around to users who interacted with the accounts claims “democracy requires transparency.”
Don’t let anyone tell you platforms can’t be regulated
We have strict, proactive regulations for lots of industries, and we can definitely get a handle on Facebook and everything else.
Buzz Lightyear has nothing on these foldable wings that are inspired by earwigs
Gross bugs are the inspiration for a new “programmable metamaterial.”
Congress says jump, Reddit asks how high
Reddit took down r/BeerTrade and several other innocuous subreddits because a new act passed Congress.
We still can’t predict major earthquakes
Detection systems pick up even minor earthquakes, but can’t tell us if they will get bad more than a few seconds before.
Will Zuckerberg sweat through his hoodie again?
International governments are clamoring for Facebook's founder to provide answers
If you downloaded the Bitcoin blockchain, you may have downloaded child porn
A new paper reveals some troubling implications for the blockchain when no one oversees what’s on it.
A list of all the places that the sea already came for
From San Francisco to Easter Island, it could all become Atlantis.
The UN confirms Facebook is tearing Myanmar apart
Ethnic violence in the country is being driven up by Facebook, one of the only free resources of information in the country.
The stress of a bad economy is literally killing us
A new study found that the Great Recession correlated with upticks in blood glucose and blood pressure.
This insanely popular YouTube channel is making bank off fake science
Some of the channel’s videos have millions of views, but its explanations appear completely fabricated.
The tricky way Facebook spammers plagiarize and get away with it
How to steal an article, make it go viral, and keep it invisible from Google.
Here’s proof of what we all suspected: fake news travels faster
An analysis of six million tweets over eleven years proves out the old saw that lies travel faster than the truth.
Bad gut bacteria can spread to the rest of your body
Researchers are still figuring out all the ways our gut biome affects our well-being.
Google is still hawking Infowars snake oil
YouTube has started taking down Alex Jones videos and pulling advertisers who have objected to him, but Google itself is happy to keep making money from him.
Under pressure, Reddit bans infamous gore forum NoMorals
After pressure from users and the media, Reddit has shuttered the community known for making memes of dead children, and posting gory videos.
Cuba “sonic attacks” may have been spy device audio interference
Researchers think they found out what caused the mysterious concussion-like symptoms people experienced in Cuba.
The flu is getting stronger and it's all our fault
On the heels of the worst flu season in a decade, research shows that our survival of diseases might mean the worst infections survive, too.
This skate punk album was created by artificial intelligence
A neural network used NOFX’s music to create ten new tracks.
Coral reef death means violent, destructive waves are coming
New research shows reefs break up tidal forces; without them, coasts and small island nations will be hit hard.
China is using big data to target minority populations
The Chinese government is watching citizens with cameras, facial recognition, and device tracking.
This MIT archive will be your trippiest scrolling experience today
A Center for Visual Studies archive scatters 50 years of art across three-dimensional space.
Russia wins the gold medal in hacking
U.S. intelligence confirms it was Russia that ruined the opening ceremonies; North Korea may still be the bigger threat.
The 2018 election will be extremely vulnerable to hacking
Keeping voting systems offline wouldn't even remotely keep them safe.
Trump is about to piss off the same gamers who helped put him in office
By linking video games to mass shootings, he repeats an old myth and risks angering his online base.
When climate change gets bad, the ocean will make it worse
You won't like the sea when it’s angry.
People share bad opinions online because everyone is exhausted
Congrats Facebook: people are sharing more and more because they have lost all perspective of what should or shouldn't be shared.
“What’s a spliff?” And other things doctors need to learn about legal weed
One doctor explains to his peers how to talk to patients about marijuana, plus the right formats and amounts.
When the government deactivates your implant
Should your transit card chip be invalid just because it’s under your skin?
The most-shared tweets made by Russian trolls that Twitter scrubbed from the internet
They might surprise you.
Website slow? Could be secret crypto-mining
More and more sites are trying to use latent processing power to mine for themselves.
The sea is coming for us
The water isn’t just steadily rising; it’s accelerating.
Neural networks: from Google gimmick to creepy, beautiful, uncanny art
Artists, like the rest of us, are working to grasp the point of programming in art.
The problem isn’t whether people can identify fake news
It’s whether they feel like it.
Oh, the places you can go and still hear “Shape of You”
A map that lets you hear the most popular song in any of 3,000 cities.
Fake reviews on Amazon means you get free stuff
Mysterious packages are showing up on random doorsteps.
YouTube science bros will get your ass to the gym
Or even make you feel like you already went.
Reddit can’t keep porn ads off its front page
Given the platform’s massive resources, why is this vital part of their business so bad?
Experts fear face swapping tech could start an international showdown
Video forensic specialists are worried Deepfakes could have national security repercussions.
MIT students are being scared straight with episodes of ‘Black Mirror’
Those who create future technologies should also fear their power.
You can now watch Nicolas Cage play James Bond
The same tool that let Redditors map celebrity faces into porn is being used to insert the actor in iconic roles he never played.
Experts: Facebook’s media survey could actually work if it doesn’t get gamed
It depends on how many users see it and what Facebook does with the data.
YouTube is overrun with fake livestreams
You’re not the only one frustrated by fake live concerts on YouTube.
I tried to switch to secure email and I want to bang my head on a desk
ProtonMail wants to be a Gmail competitor, but it’s just not that great to use.
These are the people paying journalists to promote brands in articles
How some publicists recruit writers to secretly mention or link their clients in stories on HuffPost, Forbes, and other sites.
User interface designers are horrified by Hawaii’s missile alert system
Here’s how UX experts say Hawaii could improve its interface and prevent mass panic.
Are scammers invading Dogecoin again?
The whimsical joke currency and its trusting community have attracted predators in the past.
We’d love to link you to this website but it’s impossible
A frustrating piece of art that challenges how your brain thinks about the internet.
Why is South Korea using a wooden computer to communicate across the DMZ?
The dedicated communications channel between North Korea and South Korea appears to run Windows XP.
The hot new trend in political strategy: email security
An entrepreneur-turned-activist is training politicians to take digital security seriously in the era of John Podesta’s email hack.
Is it legal to shut down a Bitcoin exchange while the price is falling?
One of the biggest Bitcoin exchanges could get hit with lawsuits after halting trading for two hours.
The bot that tweeted “fuck” in front of every word was doomed from the start
Twitter suspended @fuckeveryword after it tweeted a racial slur.
Should AI decide who gets a kidney?
Researchers are training artificial intelligence to make doctors’ hard decisions.
The world’s worst dream journal
What do your Trump dreams mean? This psychotherapist wants to find out.
Scammy startups want to pay writers in worthless cryptocurrency
Some cryptocurrency entrepreneurs are trying to convince bloggers to write articles for tokens.
The hot new trend in digital currency: pump and dump
“Penny cryptos” are the latest scam to prey on those with Bitcoin FOMO.
Meet the man trying to catch Google search at its worst
Robert Epstein may be paranoid, but he is right when he says search engines should be kept in check.
When news breaks, Google still can’t separate rumor from fact
After a bombing in New York, Google surfaced unconfirmed claims by sources including an Infowars editor.
This Christian botnet showed me how spam works on Twitter
A congregation of #Christian #Believers mobbed me with mugs and T-shirts.
How brands secretly buy their way into Forbes, Fast Company, and HuffPost stories
An Outline investigation found that contributors to prominent publications have taken payments in exchange for positive coverage.
This frostbitten black metal album was created by an artificial intelligence
And it shreds.
Who funds the crowdfunders?
Equity crowdfunding platforms were supposed to fund startups. Now they’re just trying to fund themselves.
Interview with a spampire
Meet the guy who sells your phone number to telemarketers.
We still don’t know how Google News works
There is no specific criteria and no full list of publications.
Spam is back
It seemed like we had defeated electronic junk mail. Then the spammers rose from the dead.
Weird Facebook is monetizing
Dank meme and vaporwave pages are now selling novelty mugs and T-shirts.
What would the average human do?
Artificial intelligence researchers want to teach computers to make moral choices based on millions of human survey responses.
Why does Amazon have two completely different products called Alexa?
Who is Alexa, and why is Amazon obsessed with her?
Everipedia is the Wikipedia for being wrong
The site has a pattern of creating erroneous articles for non-notable people that capture search traffic after tragic news events.
MIT released a tool that uses real people’s Twitter feeds to show you the “other side”
FlipFeed lets you drop into someone's liberal or conservative Twitter feed and see the world as they do
Regretful Trump voters, now on display
Blogs highlighting tweets from Trump supporters show people turning on him over the ACA, the Dakota Access pipeline, and now immigration.
The 3D printed gun scare never actualized
But the movement is still around.
Trump’s @POTUS Twitter account left vulnerable for nearly a week
Set your expectations low for cybersecurity under President Trump.
The most despicable and strange things Trump told ABC News
Here we go.
Nice to meet you. Now cut the small talk.
This researcher thinks you can form compelling bonds in no time by skipping straight to the deep questions.
Washington state senators are pushing to ban bitcoin in weed shops
A new bill proposes to cut the industry off from one of the solutions to its banking problem.
Emerson College plans to hire a full-time eSports professor
Schools around the country are launching classes and programs around professional gaming.
Does Europe have a more civilized internet?
Stricter internet laws keep deception and hate speech down.
An engineer rigged a rotary phone to play a text adventure
Instead of typing, you talk into the phone.
Two professors created a course on how to recognize bullshit
Sifting through misleading and incomplete information is an art these days.
Why players of the championship video game ‘Dota 2’ are suddenly in crisis
What happens when the rules of your world change overnight?
No one wants your money
Some of Bitcoin’s rivals have struck it big, but most have slipped into a slow, sad immortality.
Patient zero in the fake news epidemic
Bullshit artists made a massive fake news story go viral months before the election. How did we not see this coming?
