The 404 Media Podcast

Google Employees Meme About How Bad Their AI Is

We start this week with Emanuel’s story about the internal memes Google employees are making all about AI. Definitely check out some of the examples in the article or on YouTube. After the break, Jaso...

2026-06-10

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It’s So Not Over for Hollywood (with Devindra Hardawar)

Emanuel talks to Devindra Hardawar about AI in Hollywood and the state of the movie industry. Take your personal data back with Incogni! Use code 404MEDIA at the link below and get 60% off an annual ...

2026-06-08

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Hackers Asked Meta AI To Let Them In. It Worked

Go to surfshark.com/404Media to get 4 extra months of Surfshark VPN, plus there’s a 30-day money-back guarantee—or just use code 404MEDIA at checkout! We start this week with Jason’s story about one ...

2026-06-03

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A Repairable, No-Tech Tractor

Go to https://surfshark.com/404Media to get 4 extra months of Surfshark VPN, plus there’s a 30-day money-back guarantee—or just use code 404MEDIA at checkout! Ursa Ag is an Alberta, Canada-based comp...

2026-06-01

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How Deepfakes Destroyed a High School

Sponsor: Take your personal data back with Incogni! Use code 404MEDIA at the link below and get 60% off an annual plan: https://incogni.com/404media We start this week with Sam’s deeply reported stor...

2026-05-27

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Millions of People Are Installing Malware on Their Partners’ Phones

This week Joseph speaks to Zack Whittaker, an editor at TechCrunch. Zack has been leading coverage into the spouseware or stalkerware industry. This is malware sold to ordinary people, which they then...

2026-05-25

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Boo-sters

We start this week with Sam telling us all about the commencement speeches where speakers have been praising AI, including former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. That did not go down well! After the break, J...

2026-05-20

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The Physical Politics of the Internet with Britt Paris

This week, I’m delighted to be joined by Britt Paris. Britt is a critical informatics scholar and Associate Professor of Library and Information Science at Rutgers University’s School of Communication...

2026-05-18

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The Chinese Deepfake Software Powering Scams

We start this week with Joseph’s story about how we obtained Haotian AI, a sought-after piece of realtime video deepfake software that lets you turn into anyone else during Microsoft Teams, WhatsApp, ...

2026-05-13

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How the World Became a Casino (With Natasha Schüll)

The logic behind Polymarket, Kalshi and sports betting apps can be traced back to the inner workings of the slot machine. How did we get to a point where it’s legal for anyone to bet on anything? Be...

2026-05-11

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Flock Used Cameras at a Children’s Gymnastics Center for a Sales Pitch

This week we start with Jason's story about Flock accessing cameras in a children's gymnastics room as a sale pitch demo. After the break, Emanuel tells us why Nature retracted a paper about the alleg...

2026-05-06

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The New Luddites: Why People Are Destroying Surveillance and AI Infrastructure

This week, we talk to Brian Merchant, author of Blood in the Machine, about a rash of people physically destroying AI and surveillance infrastructure. Brian puts this wave of attacks in the historical...

2026-05-04

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How This Trippy Image Started A Massive Conspiracy Theory

This week, Jason explains the conspiracy theory circulating behind a trippy stock image that went viral after the White House Correspondents’ Dinner—was it sent here by a time traveler? (Spoiler: It w...

2026-04-29

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Government Hacking Tools Are Now in Criminals' Hands (with Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai)

This week Joseph talks to Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, a journalist at TechCrunch. Lorenzo has possibly the deepest understanding of one of the wildest cybersecurity stories in years: how an employe...

2026-04-27

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How Algorithms Make Us Feel Bad and Weird

This week Sam unpacks how social media algorithms manipulate our emotions around everything from engagement rings to wedding dresses to babies, and what it feels like getting lost in the #Weddingtok s...

2026-04-22

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Why Journalists Are Leaving Big Media (with Maddy Myers)

This week, Sam is joined by Maddy Myers, editor-in-chief of Mothership. She’s also a co-host of the video games podcast Triple Click. Maddy launched Mothership with co-founder Zoë Hannah in January....

2026-04-20

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How the FBI Extracted Deleted Signal Messages

We start this week with Joseph’s story on the inherent friction between secure chat apps like Signal and the phone they’re running on. Incoming message content can be stored in a phone’s internal noti...

2026-04-17

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How the Internet Became Hell (with Whitney Phillips)

‘The Ambivalent Intent’ and ‘The Shadow Gospel’ author Whitney Phillips on how online got so bad Why does the internet feel like it’s getting worse every single day, and why does it feel like the pol...

2026-04-13

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Wildlife Cops Are Searching AI Cameras for ICE

This week we start with Jason’s story about how wildlife cops are doing Flock lookups for ICE. It shows that ICE is gaining access to this sort of information through pretty unexpected ways. After the...

2026-04-08

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The Lawyer Fighting Government Surveillance for 30 Years (With EFF's Cindy Cohn)

This week Jason brings you an interview he did with The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s executive director Cindy Cohn, who recently announced she would be stepping down from the legendary digital rig...

2026-04-06

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The 404 Media Podcast

Episodes (191 episodes)

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