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- [00:00]
Jason
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- [01:10]
Joseph
Hello, welcome to the 404 Media podcast where we bring you unparalleled access to hidden worlds, both online and IRL. 404 Media is a journalist founded company and needs your support. To subscribe, go to 404 Media Co as well as bonus content every every single week. Subscribers also get access to additional episodes where we respond to their best comments. Gain access to that content at 404 Media co. I'm your host Joseph and with me are 404 Media co founders Sam Cole. Hey. Emmanuel Mayberg.
- [01:41]
Emmanuel
Hello.
- [01:41]
Joseph
And Jason Kebler.
- [01:43]
Jason
Hello. Hello.
- [01:45]
Joseph
So later this week we will be uploading a recording we did in Los Angeles. We've sort of been a bit stacked up with bonus recordings. I feel like every week we've published something. We had the New York one, then we had a comment show for paying subscribers as well. Now we have this LA podcast. Jason, just briefly, do you just want to remind people sort of what that event was and what we spoke about and maybe what they can hear in that bonus pod coming later in the week?
- [02:17]
Jason
Yeah, it was about the technology that ICE uses for its raids and mass deportation campaign. It pulled together a lot of our reporting over the last few months and we did this. It's now been a month somehow, but it just took us a minute to get it edited and out. And as Joseph said, we've been stacked. But I remember what we talked about and it's still totally relevant today. So Please check it out.
- [02:42]
Joseph
Yeah, and one thing I'll add just on ICE Technology. So today I went to go check the ICE procurement records, which I very regularly do, and I saw that Ice can carry on with its purchase of $2 million worth of spyware. They bought this in 2014. It was blocked by the Biden administration, I think, after reporting from Wired and there was concerns about it being used. I checked that and it says that the work order, the Stop Work order, has been lifted. So ICE now or soon will have access to very, very powerful cell phone spyware technology. The company's also being implicated in a scandal in Italy. I believe Jacques Paulson, the independent journalist, was first to report this yesterday. The Stop Work order was actually lifted, I think, on Friday. And it's like the one weekend I don't check the procurement records, it gets lifted. But that makes, I think, our conversation in LA even more timely. So definitely go check it out. And we'll be keeping an eye on that. And then just find a bit of housekeeping for the podcast next week. It's probably just going to be Jason Emanuel because I'm away for something. Sam's away on a reporting trip as well. So look forward to that, listeners, and look forward to Jason Emanuel doing all of the work. Thank you.
- [04:09]
Jason
I'm going to find other people to put on. We're going to grab people off the street.
- [04:15]
Joseph
Do it. Sure, why not? All right, for this week, we're still here, so let's do this first story. It's a couple of stories written by Jason and our regular contributor Matthew Galt as well. The first one is Trump Take lego. And I'm just going to read out the second headline as well, even though we'll talk about it in a bit, because the context is the tariffs. Trump tariffs cause chaos on ebay as every hobby becomes logistical minefield. Well, let's go back to lego. First of all, Jason, what's your first LEGO memory?
- [04:49]
Jason
I'm not a LEGO guy, to be honest. My brother and my sister are super into Lego and they're both younger than me. I find LEGO to be LEGO brand bricks to be pretty difficult to put together. Doesn't work very well with my brain and so I never got into it other than I just remember, like my brother and my sister always asked for LEGO stuff for Christmas and for their birthdays and things like that, whereas I asked for, I don't know, cool sports stuff, video games, things of this nature. I will say another, like, core memory for me, though, is at my very first journalism Job where I was an intern fact checker. I fact checked an article about Legos and specifically about AFOLs, which are adult fans of Lego. And I believe the articles published and called them Legos as opposed to LEGO brand bricks.
- [05:52]
Joseph
Right.
- [05:53]
Jason
And we got many, many, many letters to the editor. It was at a magazine, so it was printed in a magazine. And you're not supposed to call them Legos. Like, the company gets mad about it, the fandom gets mad about it. LEGO is the brand. So they're LEGO brand bricks, LEGO brand blocks. Don't call them Legos. People will be mad.
- [06:17]
Joseph
And you were also mad because not to throw him under the bus, but completely to throw him under the bus. When Matthew goal filed this, didn't he refer to it as Legos, plural? And then you were like, oh, my God, you can't do that. We're going to die.
- [06:31]
Jason
Well, so I was like, matt, like, you know about lego, right? Like, you know about legos. You're an adult fan of legos. Because it seems like something that he would know about. And he was like, yeah, definitely. And then the second word of the article was legos. And I was like, trying to get us killed out here.
- [06:49]
Joseph
Yeah, my first was the Star Wars Episode 1 kits. You could get Sebulba's Podracer in a. In a LEGO kit. That was awesome. Anyway, we should probably talk about the story.
- [07:00]
Sam
Hang on. Before we get suit for defamation, before we get Super Defamat, Matthew Galt says he is not an adult fan of Legos. Thank you very much.
- [07:08]
Joseph
Did you just message him?
- [07:09]
Jason
Yeah, well, that much is clear. That much is clear because he didn't know this. The. The last thing I'll say is that lego, the brand, which is Danish, has a page about how to properly refer to their brand of blocks. And it's very serious. It's like Nintendo level of like, do not, do not mess this up or we'll be very mad. We must protect our intellectual property, et cetera. So kind of interesting.
- [07:36]
Joseph
And Jason, what does LEGO mean?
- [07:39]
Jason
Dude, I have no idea.
- [07:41]
Joseph
It means play well. Okay, on to actually talking about the story. I did a lot of LEGO when I was a kid, so headline trump, take lego. What is happening with LEGO here? What are they stopping? Exactly. And then we'll get into the reasons why. So what's actually changing here?
- [07:59]
Jason
So LEGO has this program called Pick a Brick, and it is basically a website where you can buy LEGO bricks, but you can buy them individually. So you can buy like the different heads of the minifigs. Which are the little characters you can buy, like different connectors, you can buy regular blocks, you can buy different feet and things like this. And as I understand, it's a relatively new feature, as in, like, from the last several years, because for many, many years there were like third party companies that were assembling little sets of like 10, 10 square blocks, like 10, you know, arms for minifigs and things and sending it. Because there was no, like, really good way to buy individual LEGO bricks. And then eventually LEGO launched this program called Pick Pick a Brick, where you can buy them individually. And last week they announced that if you're in the United States or Canada, you won't be able to buy a huge number of the bricks from this program. Let's see, they more than 2,500 different types of bricks are no longer available in the United States. And that is because of this thing that we're going to talk a lot about called De Minimis, which is this tariff waiver program that has been around for a long time in the United States where if something costs less than $800, you don't need to pay tariffs on it. And so this, like, this made things really easy for people who had different hobbies or who were into fashion or who just like to buy things from overseas. You could buy a shirt from like a British, like, clothes company and you wouldn't have to worry about tariffs. And that is now over. That ended on August 2020 8th. It ended on Friday. Friday was the last day and so.
- [10:02]
Joseph
Announced a long time ago, of course. And we all knew this was coming. And I feel like some people were like, oh, the tariffs already happened and things aren't that bad. It's like, well, no, now it's happening for these sorts of purchases, so people are going to actually notice it.
- [10:16]
Jason
Now it's happening for individual people because it was happening for companies for a while where it's like, oh, I'm importing tons of raw material to sell at my store or to like, do something in the US And I'm going to like, maybe pass that cost on to consumers. But now it's like if you're buying an individual item from a store overseas, this is something that you will encounter. And crucially, Trump ended this for China back in, I think, March, like a few, a few months ago he ended it for China, but it was still a thing for other countries where, where you didn't have to pay this. And there's a few, there's a few reasons, sort of like why De Minimis has Ended, I think one, it's just like part of Trump's like vindictiveness and sort of like anger about international trade. But companies like Temu and Sheehan in China were abusing this system. So like they were selling huge amounts of products to the United States and rather than shipping them over on big container ships, they were sending like lots of small shipments of less than 800. And so they weren't paying tariffs. And that, that was like, that was a problem sort of like, you know, I guess some, some people had a problem with basically, yeah, some people had a problem with it. I mean it led to like lower priced goods in the United States, but basically like they were, they were abusing a loophole in the system to do this. And so that's why it ended in China first. Also there's like a lot of people in the Trump administration and just like very people who are very hawkish about this sort of thing saying that these small packages have been abused to like import fentanyl into the United States. And it's like, don't think that is the main mechanism, but like that, that was some of the political narrative that was used to close this loophole. So anyways, it's like you can go on Lego and buy a brick for a dollar, like buy just like a single piece. But like now, because of the end of de minimis, importing that to the US to an individual customer is like a gigantic pain in the ass. And so Lego is like, we're, we're just not going to do it.
- [12:33]
Joseph
And people even had bricks in their shopping carts. And then I think according to posts on social media, they saw them removed from those shopping carts. Well, so they were planning to buy their LEGO bricks and oh no, sorry, you, you can't do that anymore. As you said, it's not just the US but Canada as well. Any idea why the Canadians were implicated as well? Like, because some of the terrorist stuff doesn't apply there.
- [13:05]
Jason
Did Lego? Yeah, I mean, because they were shipping to a warehouse like a logistics center in the United States is sort of like my understanding of why Canada was cut off as well. Because there was not like a direct from Denmark shipping situation to Canada. They were going, they were like running it through a logistics center in the US and so those were impacted as well. I will say that Lego has been talking a lot about how they're trying to build more like manufacturing centers in the United States, which is sort of the stated purpose of a lot of these tariffs. And you know, who knows how long that Takes. But, you know, building LEGO bricks is not as complicated as building an iPhone. And so I would imagine that eventually maybe they'll relaunch this program. Well, you can still buy some of the bricks from this program. The most popular bricks they said you can still buy because they're like, already based in the US like they're. So they're shipping them to the US at such a large quantity that they're coming in through like more normal means versus, like being shipped directly from Denmark to individual people in the U.S. yeah.
- [14:13]
Joseph
And as you say, making LEGO bricks probably less complicated than making an iPhone. So why doesn't Tim Cook just produce the iPhone out of LEGO in the US with Lego? And then that would solve all the problems and then he doesn't really have to go give Trump like a gold carrot trophy or statue or whatever it was. But I think that would solve everyone's problems. So if we zoom out slightly, that's kind of all of the big mess that's happening with one hobby. A big hobby. Lego's popular, but one singular hobby. But this other piece that I mentioned, Trump tariffs cause chaos on ebay, as every hobby becomes a logistical minefield. Obviously implicates everything. And the deck, sort of the sub headline of the article says buying cameras, retro games, board games, skincare, flashlights, sex toys, watches, and anything else from overseas just became far more complicated, slow and expensive. I think we understand the more expensive. Can you just explain the complicated and slow?
- [15:23]
Jason
Yeah, it's because it's not just, hey, you have to pay this tariff. There's like a logistical aspect to paying the tariff. And so, you know, it's hard to say how this will play out in the long run. And a few readers have said, well, this has basically been the system in Europe for a long time because Europe doesn't have de minimis in most countries. I believe in probably none, but I'm not sure. Don't check me on that. But basically it's like if you. When I send shirts from my apartment in LA to our readers in Germany, for example, they have to go pick it up from the post office often and pay a tariff there. And it's like that is a process. And so what is happening is one, a lot of the national mail carriers have stopped shipping to the United States for a minute because they don't have the logistical infrastructure set up to deal with the U.S. customs system. And so like Japan Post has said they're not going to send packages to the United States. Like DHL said, they're going to Restrict some things. There's just like a bunch of individual international, like, post offices that are like, we're not going to ship to the US until further notice. So you now have to ship through FedEx and UPS. Those are the ones that still are doing it, which are both American companies and one, like, in my experience, FedEx is good. Like, they're pretty fast, but they're really expensive. They're like, they're quite expensive. And so there's that price. But now when you get a package internationally, the package is not just going to come directly to your house. It's going to clear customs at the border. And, like, who knows how long that will take? Like, it could be quick. It could take days, according to some ebay sellers I talked to and some people who are posting about this. And small companies are like, packages are getting held up for days at the border. But then when it goes through, it's like you have to log to Fed, FedEx's like, website to go pay the tariff before it will get delivered to your house. And it's just like adding all this friction and it's annoying.
- [17:40]
Joseph
Yeah, it's like crazy additional steps that lots of people aren't used to. Basically.
- [17:46]
Jason
Lots of people aren't used to. And like this article, it's affecting, like, ebay sellers, Etsy sellers, like, really small businesses, people who do this, like, on the side. And I've heard from a lot of people saying, like, I have a metal band in Norway and some of our customers are in the United States. And it's like, I don't have the time or energy, like, to jump through these hoops to send like, two vinyl records to the United States occasionally. So I'm just not going to do it. And so it's cutting off a lot of. A lot of people who want to buy things from overseas. And it's like, maybe it's, you know, American exceptionalism or just like, how I was raised, but I'm like, I'm not used to that. Like, this is not the capitalism and commerce that I was promised growing up. It's like, I'm very used to, oh, you can buy anything from anywhere and they'll send it to you. And like, now that is simply not the case. And there's like, all these small businesses that won't do it. You know, I. I first became aware of this because I'm into film photography. And almost all, not almost all, but many, many, I would say like 50% or more of the vintage film cameras that are on ebay. Are shipped from Japan. And that's because Canon and Nikon and Pentax and like all of these big camera companies are Japanese companies. And so there's just like more stock there. And also film photography remained popular in Japan longer than it remained popular in the United States. And so there's like a lot more businesses that have the cameras, that refurbish them that, you know, have stayed in this business. And so like I bought several of my cameras from ebay from Japanese sellers and it used to be really simple. I just like bought it and then I paid like usually $20 shipping and it came and I didn't have to think about it. And I messaged a bunch of Japanese ebay sellers and I was like, what is the process going to be? Am I going to have to pay tariffs? Like, am I not? And it's all over the place because some of the sellers are doing what's known as like duty paid shipping. So they're paying the shipping, they're paying the tariffs beforehand and they're including that in the overall price. So the overall price is going up. Others are saying, well, we're going to sell it for cheaper, but you're going to have to do the importing side of things. And so it becomes like a. If you're a price conscious person, which I am for a lot of these hobbies, I'm like, I want to get a good deal. If you're buying stuff on ebay, you probably want to get a good deal. You're having to calculate like which one of these cameras is going to be easy to get. Like, am I going to have to go to FedEx to pick it up? Am I going to have to pay the tariff there? What is the tariff going to be? And ebay has like a page to help you with this. And the advice they give is like, look up all this information that you don't have and aren't used to looking up. It's called harmon Harmonization tax code.
- [20:57]
Joseph
Like tools that they're offering, right? Or they point people towards.
- [21:01]
Jason
They point it to a US government tool. And that's just a list of like millions of different types of products. And they all have a co. A tariff code. And you have to like put it in there to figure out like what rate this product is tariffed at. And that website sells sucks and it's broken half the time. Like it. It's just very difficult to use because it's like a US government website. And then it's like, then ebay says literally quote, apply Some math. And it's like, I love to apply some math. Like, what math am I applying? And then it's like, buy it. And then the advice they're giving to sellers is like, expect negative feedback from buyers who can't figure this out and blame you.
- [21:41]
Joseph
Wow.
- [21:42]
Jason
And if you've ever sold anything on ebay, bought anything on ebay, it's like, feedback is how that entire website runs. Like, if you start getting negative feedback, you get dinged in the algorithm, People stop buying from you. Like, it's a real nightmare. And so this is like, it's just a shit show. And it's for every hobby. Like, after I wrote this, like, people who are into anime figurines were like, I cannot get my white, my waifus anymore. Like, I can't buy yarn. I can't buy, like, all this stuff that's just made elsewhere, like, all these hobbies. If you're into vintage anything, it's not like we're making new vintage film cameras in the United States. And so it's just a mess.
- [22:20]
Joseph
Yeah. I guess just the last thing I'll say is, if the intention of the tariffs is to move manufacturing from overseas to the U.S. do they want Norwegian heavy metal bands to become American heavy metal bands and then produce their vinyls in the States or something? I mean, it's just ridiculous on the face of it is obviously stupid for globalization and free trade. I guess. Just super last thing, what are you keeping an eye on? Just people contacting you with those stories and that sort of thing, like you mentioned?
- [22:54]
Jason
Yeah. I mean, it feels like thus far, American businesses have jumped through many, many.
- [23:00]
Joseph
Hoops to.
- [23:04]
Jason
Make the tariffs look to consumers. Like they're not impacting prices. Like, they're not impacting people in any way. Like, Amazon was gonna add a line item for tariffs back when they were first announced, and then Trump got mad and they're like, never mind, we're not gonna do it. Like, we're gonna. We're gonna make this all invisible to the consumer. A lot of companies have. Some have raised prices, but a lot of them have, like, held their prices down as long as they possibly can because I think they are scared of invoking the wrath of the Trump administration. And I think that this is something that can't really be hidden because the people who are impacted are, like, small businesses in other countries that are then passing that information on to American consumers. And so I'm very curious as to whether this is going to be, like, I don't think it's going to be the thing that finally turns people against Trump. But I think it is going to be something that will be like, hard to hide. And, you know, if, if you have like a hobby of any sort, like, this is probably going to be annoying for you. And so, yeah, if, if it's affected you, if it's affected your business, I would love to hear from you. My email is Jason404 Media Co and my signal is Jason404. Because I'm collecting stories from small businesses and people who are into hobbies and stuff who are like, I can't get my stuff anymore. So whatever that thing is, let me know.
- [24:39]
Joseph
Yeah, the more obscure, the better. The more obscure and expensive, the better. All right, we'll leave that there. When we come back, we're going to talk about one of Emanuel stories. And for a moment we were kind of part of the story as well in a weird way. We'll be right back after this.
- [25:12]
Sponsor Voice
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- [26:14]
Jason
Was young, I used to dream about being a professional baseball player. As I got older, my dreams have changed. And now my dream is to be a small business owner of a journalist owned tech publication. Really? Instead of dreaming of going to space, being a pro athlete or living in a castle, maybe like me, you start dreaming of owning your own business. You'll need a website, a payment system, a logo, and a way to advertise to new customers. It can all be overwhelming and confusing, but thankfully, that's where today's sponsor, Shopify, comes in. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all E commerce in the United States. From household names like Mattel and Gymshark to brands that want to be household names like 404 Media, Shopify also makes it easy to find new customers so you'll feel like you have a marketing team behind you. Easily create email and social media campaigns to find new customers wherever they're scrolling or strolling. Turn those dreams dreams into and give them the best shot at success with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com media. Go to shopify.com media shopify.com media.
- [27:43]
Emmanuel
All.
- [27:43]
Joseph
Right, and we are back. This is one that Emmanuel wrote how only fans piracy is ruining the Internet for everyone. Emmanuel obviously we'll get into the specifics here and the broader points, but maybe this just go right to the beginning of how did you first come across this? And it somehow involves us and our and our website in a weird way. How did you first come across this?
- [28:08]
Emmanuel
So I was editing a piece by Matthew Gault, who we just talked about, about the Swedish Prime Minister launching an AI bot to speak for him. And it kind of going haywire, as you might expect. And I did what we often do, which towards the end of the story we kind of link to other relevant stories that we published recently. And I thought about a story that Sam did about Facebook's AI therapists also going haywire and lying to users and things like this. So sadly, sometimes the fastest way to find a story is to just go to Google and type in some keywords plus four form media.
- [28:59]
Joseph
I do it literally every day for all of my own coverage, even for when we worked at Motherboard. It's subject Joseph Cox, Motherboard Advice okay, I found my article, right.
- [29:10]
Emmanuel
So I was doing that again. Yeah, I also do the same thing every day and it just wouldn't come up. And I was pretty surprised because I knew I was using the right search terms and I was sure that we published it because it's a story that did well and I was confused. But then I scrolled down to the bottom of the Google search results and I saw what the notice that Google puts on pages when it removes search results because of copyright takedown requests. And you can click that to follow the link to something called the Lumen database, which keeps a record of takedown requests, meaning there is the copyright holder. They file a claim against a website that they think has violated their copyrights. They say what the original content is, what the offending content is who filed the claim and when. And when I clicked that, I saw that a company called Takedowns AI filed a claim on behalf of an influencer whose name is. Sorry, I had it in front of me and I lost it, I think. Yeah, Tamara. And she has an OnlyFans. And the claim said that something in Sam's story violated her copyright. And you can log in and see the specifics of the complaint. And when I did that, I saw that an image that Sam had created for the top of the story, which is just a collage of three different profile pictures for these AI avatars, which are AI generated, she claimed, or Takedowns AI, the company that filed it for her claimed, violated her copyright, which is obviously not true because it doesn't look like her and it's AI generated and it just obviously has nothing to do with her original content.
- [31:25]
Joseph
Yeah. Sam, just briefly. So you make this. Yeah. You often make the sort of artwork, especially for the behind the blog stuff and for your own articles or some of our others as well. You make this piece of artwork to go at the top of the article. Just to make it very crystal clear. That did not include this adult performer's likeness in any way. Correct. It wasn't a photo of her?
- [31:52]
Sam
No. The image that the notice was specifically referencing was an AI generated, like, picture of an AI therapist that was already on Instagram. So I didn't make. I didn't generate an image of anything. I took a screenshot of something that was on Instagram that was AI generated that I guess this system picked up as, like looking enough like this other woman, which they don't really look alike.
- [32:23]
Joseph
Right. But it wasn't her. It wasn't her.
- [32:25]
Emmanuel
No, no, it looks nothing. And just to emphasize how nonsense the claim is, it looks nothing like her. It obviously wasn't taken from any of her pages. And it's AI generated, meaning that it's not lifted from any particular website. And also, I believe the legal state of AI generated content, as you can't file copyright claims on it, a judge has ruled, and I believe this has been upheld in court, that you can't claim copyright on AI generated content anyway. So it's just a completely nonsense claim.
- [33:06]
Joseph
So you, you go to look for this article, you can't find it. You find this bizarre DMCA complaint against our site. But there were other ones in there as well. Right. Do you see these other websites in the same complaint? And I think it was something like 60. Had received something similar.
- [33:26]
Emmanuel
Yeah, there were a little over 60 links in the same complaint to totally different websites. And I went through every single one of those and I could not find a single image or any type of content that could conceivably be seen as something that this influencer, Tamara has posted elsewhere. And just to make clear, all of these sites, as far as I could see, were de indexed from Google Search. Or if you were trying to find one of these things, you could not because of this claim.
- [34:08]
Joseph
Right. So all of these sites have been deindexed for this creator. What is Takedown's AI then exactly? Are they something of an agent or a middleman or how are they involved here? Exactly. And what do they do?
- [34:29]
Emmanuel
Takedowns AI is a copyright takedown service, which is a type of service that has existed for, I would say more than a decade now and is something that traditionally big corporations had, like Universal or Disney. They hire companies to kind of scan the Internet for pirated content and file takedowns. As the influencer economy grew, and specifically as the adult entertainment industry became less about big studios and more about individual creators who are on OnlyFans, they needed a solution as well because their content is pirated all the time. It's extremely common for a creator's only fans page. Somebody buys access, they download everything, they upload it to some message board. And that is devastating for their business. And these people are usually, you know, a one person business. It's a, it's a, it's an OnlyFans model. They're creating all of their own content. They don't really have the time to like scan the entire Internet and remove all this pirated content. That's when all these smaller takedown service companies popped up in order to serve them. So you pay them a monthly fee. They offer a variety of services, but the main thing they do is scan the Internet, find your content, and then file the many, many, many takedown requests that you would need in order to police piracy of your content. It's not a perfect solution. Content is still pirated. But it is something I think extremely basic at this point for any adult content creator that has any level of fame. It's something that they have to do.
- [36:39]
Joseph
Yeah. And it's also obviously impacting sites that don't have, that aren't violating these people's copyrights. And you know, it says they do it through facial recognition, keyword searches, and human reviewers to do this. So it's a pretty active process, it seems. Right.
- [36:58]
Emmanuel
So there's a lot of companies in this space. Like I said, some companies have been in this space for more than a decade. I talked to one of them for this article, and everybody uses the same tools more or less. There's facial recognition, there's reverse image search, there is searching for keywords, which usually means just like searching for the creator's name or username, their OnlyFans handle. And then there's a lot of automation in how the takedown request is created and filed to various services. We're talking about Google here because one of the most effective things they can do is just have Google delist the sites that contain the pirated material. But they also do this on YouTube, they do this on Instagram for people who are using their images in order to catfish other users. And there's just a lot of takedown notices to generate. So there's some automation on that end as well. I think the difference, as I am finding out, or as I have found out when I was looking into this article, is how much automation or human review exists before the request is sent out to a platform. And I would say that as you might expect, the less human review exists, the more errors you see to be clear. And I tried to be clear about this in the article as well. Takedowns AI is the company that I saw had a lot of errors. So the claim that we were in, we were one mistake out of 68. I found other really bad, embarrassing mistakes. For example, there's this creator that goes by the username Honeybee, and there was a Takedowns AI complaint filed to Google on her behalf. And it included links to things like an academic article about actual honeybees. Right. Like the University of Missouri had an article about Honeybees that was delisted because Takedowns AI was like, Honeybee equals Honeybee. Get rid of that. All that being said, I would say even with Takedowns AI, which has a lot more automation in the process, the vast majority of their claims are legitimate. Right. They're filing hundreds of claims a day. I believe they filed several million claims since they were founded in 2022. And it seems to me that the vast majority of those claims are legit. But it only takes one error to really damage the discoverability of our website, of other websites. It's not trivial damage that they're doing to the Internet and to specific websites.
- [40:02]
Joseph
Yeah. It's much more about the sort of secondary effects or impact it's having on other parts of the World Wide Web, not even their own clients or those creators. It's like, hey, you've just removed a 404 Media article. Or a study or whatever from Google, which, yes, it's gone downhill massively for a while now, but it's still a massive source of traffic and discoverability for so many people, for academics, for media outlets or whatever. And I guess just the last question is this was one way in to talk about dmca, this thing that we've spoken about a bunch and back and Motherboard as well. And then outlets like Techta for example, will cover, or Torrent Freak, I think as well will cover DMCA a ton. What's the more fundamental, the deeper issue here, if there is one? This is just that DMCA sucks or like, what is a deeper issue here?
- [41:02]
Emmanuel
I'm really glad you asked because it was very interesting to see the response to the article. I say in the story that what I think makes this problem interesting and really tricky is that it's not just one thing. It is the intersection of several things that are very shitty about the Internet. And one of them clearly, as you said, is this DMCA takedown process, legally and on specific platforms is very flawed. And we've known this for many years, right? Like the, the way I think this comes up most often is on YouTube, there's content ID. They use automated tools to kind of match audio and take down what they think are infringing videos. And a lot of silly stuff happens where like the artist that created the music that appears in their video is taken down because Content ID is so aggressive. So, so there's that aspect of it for sure. The, the one that people don't think about very often. And it's the reason that I mentioned it in the headline and kind of the reason I led with it is like this OnlyFans piracy problem. It's like this is a really big problem and these individual creators don't have the same power and resources that a Disney has that all these giant record companies have. And they're just trying to make a living. They have legal pressure, censorship from platforms and this is just like another burden that they deal with that people don't think about. And I guess finally is the thing we keep coming back to, which is our over reliance on Google, right? It's just like this is the dominant search engine. This is how you find stuff on the Internet. Their DMCA takedown process is also flawed. I don't think they don't care about it. I don't think that they're not trying to make it better, but they get millions and millions of these requests. Some of them go bad. And you might not even know that. It's like we didn't even know that this was impacting us until I searched for this. And you can imagine how often that happens. So all three of these things are colliding. And after I publish the story, you know, I heard from people in SEO, I heard from other OnlyFans creators, I heard from other takedown services. I heard from people who are like mad about Google. So it's interesting how all these problems are coming to a head in like this one way for sure.
- [43:49]
Joseph
And just like the tariff story. Again, if you're impacted by this as well, of course, reach out. We'll leave that there. If you're listening to the free version of the podcast, I'll now play us out. But if you are a paying 404 media subscriber, we're going to talk a bunch. Talk about a bunch of the recent ChatGPT reporting from ourselves and from other outlets and how it's related to, you know, some really, really dark stuff. Unfortunately, I'm sure you probably know what I'm talking about. You can subscribe and gain access to that content at 404 Media co. As a reminder, 404 Media is journalist founded and supported by subscribers. If you do wish to subscribe to 404 Media and directly support our work, please go to 404 Media co. You'll get unlimited access to our articles and an ad free version of this podcast. You also get to listen to the Subscribers only section where we talk about a bonus story each week. This podcast is made in partnership with Kaleidoscope. Another way to support us is by leaving a five star rating and review for the podcast. That stuff really helps us out. This has been 404 Media. We'll see you again next week.