The Atlantic | How Fake People Became Real Influencers by Charlie Warzel

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On this week’s Galaxy Brain episode, Charlie Warzel is joined by New York Times technology reporter Tiffany Hsu to discuss the rise of AI influencers—synthetic avatars, often indistinguishable from real people, that are flooding social-media feeds to sell supplements and promote brands. Hsu unpacks her reporting on the combination of forces converging around it, including the wellness industry, a historically fertile ground for scammers. The pair discuss how the volume of synthetic content online is producing a new kind of epistemic exhaustion: a fatigue so deep that many people have simply stopped caring whether what they’re seeing is real. So is authenticity already beside the point? And is an audience’s emotional response—rather than the truth behind the image—the only currency that matters?

Read more: https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/2026/04/how-fake-people-became-real-influencers/686755/?utm_source=feed

#charliewarzel #tiffanyhsu #galaxybrain

#CharlieWarzel & #JasonGoldman …
* “trace the history of Twitter from its hackathon foundings to Musk’s takeover.
* “What made Twitter special,
* “its original sin,
* “Goldman and the founders’ biggest and most costly mistakes, and
* “why the platform, 20 years later, is still alive.”

Gift linK: https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/2026/03/what-is-twitters-legacy-20-years-later/686570/?gift=cf3qcRXSovyxyO1pUKjM6KUnpyXFelzSypu4qWHnISU&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

#Twitter #SocialMedia #Misinformation

Techdirt Podcast Episode 441: A Manifesto To Build A Better Internet

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.techdirt.com/2026/01/21/techdirt-podcast-episode-441-a-manifesto-to-build-a-better-internet/

"It turns out that cryptocurrencies do have a very concrete use case. They are a technology that has latched on to, and then helped build, a culture that celebrates greed and speculation as virtues just as it embraces volatility."

/by #CharlieWarzel
/via @TheAtlantic

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/12/cryptos-legacy-finally-clear/680956/

#Cologne #ClimateJustice #YouthForClimate #LetzteGeneration #Crypto #CryptoCurrency #FridaysForFuture

“Conspiracy #culture is just kind of the way we talk on the #internet now.”
- #CharlieWarzel via #AnandGiridharadas

FML

https://open.substack.com/pub/anandwrites/p/kate-middleton-conspiracy-theory?r=4hxgy&utm_medium=ios

“Enshittification...when tech platforms offer a service that’s genuinely helpful or unique & subsidize the cost for users in order to hook them.

Once users are dependent, the companies 'abuse' them, squeezing out revenue by either jacking up prices or surveilling users & selling the data." #Cory Doctorow

#streamimg #CharlieWarzel #GalaxyBrain #TheAtlantic