Coming of Age at the Dawn of the Social Internet

Coming of Age at the Dawn of the Social Internet

Like so many millennials, I entered the online world through AOL Instant Messenger. I created an account one unremarkable day in the late nineteen-nineties, sitting in the basement of my childhood home at our chunky white desktop computer, which connected to the Internet via a patchy dial-up modem. I picked a username, “Silk,” based on …

Read more

SEC’s X account hacked in embarrassing security lapse

SEC’s X account hacked in embarrassing security lapse

The hacker posted a fake announcement that the SEC had approved Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs). The SEC has been considering approving ETFs as an alternative way for investors to purchase bitcoin to crypto exchange such as Binance or Coinbase, with a decision expected to be imminent. The faked message raised false hope among bitcoin holders, …

Read more

The internet is a cesspit. That’s not an accident, it’s a design feature – The Irish Times

The internet is a cesspit. That’s not an accident, it’s a design feature – The Irish Times

Yes, the internet is getting worse and no, you are not imagining it. Whether it is 10,000 hyperbolic reviews praising a piece of plastic junk from China, a search engine result that turns up more ads than answers, or the rampant creation of fake news by generative artificial intelligence, the average user’s experience has deteriorated. …

Read more

Value of X has fallen 71% since Musk takeover

Value of X has fallen 71% since Musk takeover

The troubled social media platform formerly known as Twitter has lost 71% of its value since being acquired and rebranded as X by Elon Musk, according to the mutual fund Fidelity.  In a disclosure obtained by Axios, Fidelity said that it had marked down the value of the shares it holds in the platform by …

Read more

How Cillian Murphy’s Face Became the Internet’s Favorite Meme

How Cillian Murphy’s Face Became the Internet’s Favorite Meme

For more than half a decade, Cillian Murphy and his disappointed interview face have been a beloved paradox for the perpetually online. The Oppenheimer star’s tired blue eyes and plastered-on expression have long reflected the bone-deep exhaustion many smooth-brained netizens feel every day while enduring the slings and arrows of the real world. And yet, …

Read more

Why the Internet Isn’t Fun Anymore

Why the Internet Isn’t Fun Anymore

Lately on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, my timeline is filled with vapid posts orbiting the same few topics like water whirlpooling down a drain. Last week, for instance, the chatter was dominated by talk of Taylor Swift’s romance with the football player Travis Kelce. If you tried to talk about anything else, …

Read more

The Internet Isn’t Dead. It’s ‘Saturday Night Live’

The Internet Isn’t Dead. It’s ‘Saturday Night Live’

The internet sucks now. Once a playground fueled by experimentation and freedom and connection, it’s a flimsy husk of what it was, all merriment and serendipity leached from our screens by vile capitalist forces. Everything is too commercialized. We commodified the self, then we commodified robots to impersonate the self, and now they’re taking our …

Read more

Things we want to leave behind in 2023

Things we want to leave behind in 2023

Listen & Subscribe Choose your preferred player: For questions about subscriptions or your Slate Plus feed, check our FAQ. Please enable javascript to get your Slate Plus feeds. Get Your Slate Plus Podcast If you can’t access your feeds, please contact customer support. Thanks! Check your phone for a link to finish setting up your …

Read more