the web as we knew it
"unhinged"
Meatspace is Lora and Sarah’s weekly digest of weird/wack/need-to-know tech news — and our warm takes on all of it.
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Dear friends,
Just because Match.com is, as we regretted to inform u last week, under fire for seemingly profiting off of grievous fraud doesn’t mean that love is dead!
After all, yesterday was apparently national boyfriend day. It rly snuck up on us as we were still in the mindset of celebrating national son day (last monday, we think) and national daughter day (last friday, per aunts on IG). Not to mention that we are also in the thick of national cybersecurity awareness month AND Mean Girls day was Oct 3. And it’s spooky szn on twitter.
If u are looking to find a boyfriend, Facebook dating may not be the most promising place to start. Per Kaitlyn Tiffany in the Atlantic, it seems that ppl who thrive on FB dating are those who thrive on normal Facebook (attend events; in lots of groups; throw themselves earnestly into every new feature).
But you don’t need a real boyfriend to fall asleep to boyfriend ASMR each night. In this delicious Styles piece, we learn how a man who has never been a boyfriend in meatspace serves as ASMR boyfriend to half a million in cyberspace.
And sometimes all u need is a friend! Insta rolled out its long-rumored Threads feature, which lets u DM your friends on yet another platform. It also asks for 24/7 access to your location and battery level, whether you’re working out or not, and a list of your close friends on insta. Like any committed pal would!!
And this week….We are only gonna say it once but…….nice!
NEUTRAL MILK HOTEL
If you are like us, your love of carrying really big backpacks is second only to your love of browsing sites on the world wide web. This fun activity could soon become slower and worse, because a federal appeals court approved the FCC’s repeal of Obama-era open-internet rules!
The concept of getting rid of net neutrality was tbh confusing, but then we saw that a federal appeals court described it as “unhinged” and we knew we had to look into it more carefully.
Under the new rule, broadband companies will be able to sell higher speeds of internet to different websites depending on how much they can pay; and block certain websites entirely whenever they feel like it. The power that Verizon now has...
Organizations working on behalf of Big Broadband cared so deeply about this legal battle that they impersonated deceased people to leave public comments on the FCC website. According to BuzzFeed News, millions and millions of the comments filed in support of the repeal were fake.
These shady efforts were largely successful, but the court added one caveat this week: States can still preempt, and pass their own net neutrality laws. Thanks states!
We wonder how this will affect the business of Rachael Ray, who is opening up a virtual restaurant on Uber Eats. Probably not at all! Congrats to her.
And speaking of COURT: Elizabeth Holmes hasn’t been paying her lawyers, and “probably never will.” Lean in!
TRUST FALL
The Verge published leaked audio from two employee meetings with Mark Zuckerberg. Highlights include that he wants to crush TikTok, that he is not afraid of selfie queen Elizabeth Warren, and that he thought all tech companies including his own got press that was TOO glowing in the heyday of SV.
Also, the two leading chum box companies (Taboola and Outbrain) — which provide those little ads at the bottom of articles about what vegetable u absolutely must avoid and what celebs look like without makeup — have merged. But before the sun even set on their wedding night, Recode was pointing out that the consolidation of the two biggest players in the space may be a red flag to antitrust regulators. What will become of what TechCrunch calls “a last chance saloon” for some media companies that rely on ads?
While Google is upping internet privacy protections (seems good!) antitrust investigators flag that such protections may make Google (more) anticompetitive. And Uber’s foray into being the Tinder for shift workers — if Tinder also set worker’s wages via algorithm — also has anti-trust experts going hmm.
👀
This rando in tweed pretending to be a model and crashing the Chanel show only to be intercepted by Gigi Hadid? That’s benevolent trickery. A Google contractor inviting you to play a “selfie game” only to secretly record a picture of your face and log it into an ever-thickening surveillance database? That’s malevolent trickery.
The New York Daily News reported that, in cities like Atlanta, Google employees have been conducting “field research” by convincing people — many of them homeless or people with “darker skin tones” — to scan their faces in exchange for $5. Google said taking advantage of these vulnerable populations was done in an effort to create a “diverse database” and reduce racial bias in its smartphone’s recognition technology. But an ex-staffer also said they targeted homeless people bc they were less likely to talk to the press! Gigi.... We need you to do something about this
TASTY BITES
How nextdoor encourages hate of the homeless (OneZero)
Illinois might float a gig worker bill similar to California’s (Chicago Tribune)
When Everyone’s a Tech Company, No One Is (Washington Post)
Is this the pee tape? (Slate)
LAX is ending curbside pickup for Uber and Lyft and people are truly melting down about it (L.A. Times)
There is no time on TikTok (Wired)
Even if you are viral tiktok teen yodeling Karen, profiled here (Vox)
Facebook has been exempting politicians from its third-party fact checking service (Facebook)
Cursed h/t Liza R:
Back to browsing the web as we know it!
Lora and Sarah