This week’s 404 Media Podcast is up! Every episode Joseph, Sam, Emanuel, and Jason go deeper on a few stories we published in the last week.
Jason starts us off with his expertise on how ticket scalping works on a technical level. Custom browsers that cost hundreds of dollars each, the purchase of other peoples' Ticketmaster accounts, and more. Did you know Jason got into covering ticket scalping as a beat because he used to be a ticket scalper? A bad one, though.
Then Sam takes us through how people are using AI chatbots without the usual guardrails of ChatGPT to explore their sexuality. Please note a content warning for that section on sexual themes and violence. And Emanuel hammers home a point he firmly believes in: porn and sex isn't just part of the AI industry, it is what is driving the industry forward, and leading to new developments.
After the break Joseph explains why he thinks privacy, or perhaps anonymity, is finally dead in public spaces. This is because of a Taylor Swift fan TikTok account that is using off-the-shelf facial recognition tech to unmask random people online.
Paid subscribers get access to our weekly podcast before it hits the public feed, and gain access to bonus subscriber-only content. That includes a long Q&A episode we where we candidly answer a bunch of questions from 404 Media readers. Those include why did we choose Ghost over Substack? What do you think of DIY laptops? And, most importantly, which Mario Kart track would we race IRL?
Listen to the weekly episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Podcasts. Become a paid subscriber for access to that bonus content. Hang tight for the video version of the podcast on YouTube too.
- Why Scalpers Can Get Olivia Rodrigo Tickets and You Can't
- DIY Chatbots Unleash Large Language Models’ Repressed Sexuality
- The End of Privacy is a Taylor Swift Fan TikTok Account Armed with Facial Recognition Tech
