Matthew Gault (@mjgault.bsky.social)

@eryk.bsky.social Oct 10, 2026, 11:14 PMReposted by @mjgault.bsky.social

I recently spoke to Scientific American’s Science Quickly podcast about the Hugging Face hack and how to read between the lines of the “rogue AI” frame to find human accountability m.youtube.com/watch?v=kUkf...

@renorraven.bsky.social Oct 10, 2026, 12:18 AMReposted by @mjgault.bsky.social

dragon's dogma 2

@jasonkoebler.bsky.social Oct 9, 2026, 5:13 PMReposted by @mjgault.bsky.social

I really enjoyed doing this interview with Frances Haugen about how leaking to journalists works and why sources get caught, why Meta continues to he a disaster, and what it’s like to see yourself dramatized in a movie: youtu.be/oB3IxwCfP7M?...

youtu.beThe Real Facebook Whistleblower Behind the Social ReckoningYouTube video by 404 Media

@404media.co Oct 8, 2026, 6:15 PMReposted by @mjgault.bsky.social

Iowa city council debates proper time in meeting agenda to "undo the curse that was just put on our city."

@wellerstein.bsky.social Oct 8, 2026, 6:33 PMReposted by @mjgault.bsky.social

I have noticed in various offline circles — particularly media and political science — it is still considered rather inappropriate to acknowledge that the US President is evidently quite insane. It's not that these people don't *know* it; they clearly do. You just aren't supposed to *say* it. 🙃

@mjgault.bsky.social Oct 8, 2026, 6:43 PM

lost in a lot of the coverage of this is that there's been a ten year long fight in Iowa over religious freedom. The ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Satanic Temple earlier this year

The invocation to Satan in a small town in Iowa is just the latest salvo in a 10-year-long battle over religious freedom of expression in the state. In 2016, a religious liberty group installed a Christian nativity scene at the state capitol in Des Moines. Later that year a group of atheists installed its own nativity scene honoring the Bill of Rights. In 2023, The Satanic Temple put up a pentagram built from red ribbon and topped with a mirror-mask ram’s head that invoked Baphomet in the capitol rotunda. The group also began holding winter celebrations in the Rotunda. A man vandalized the display, police arrested him and charged him with a hate crime.

In 2024 — the same year Governor Kim Reynolds signed a state law meant to protect religious freedom — officials blocked Satanists from holding their winter celebration. The ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act request looking for records about the incident and, earlier this year, sued Iowa on behalf of the Satanic Temple for violating federal free speech laws.

@mjgault.bsky.social Oct 8, 2026, 6:37 PM

spoke to a man who kicked off a city council meeting in Iowa with an invocation to Satan. “I think we're seeing you know a big shift in our politics. I think we've seen a rise of Christian nationalism in this country [...] and I find that highly troubling."

@404media.co Oct 8, 2026, 6:16 PMReposted by @mjgault.bsky.social

Iowa man kicks off controversy over religious freedom in the small town of Ottumwa by opening a city council meeting with a prayer to Satan, which then kicked off a debate about the proper time in the meeting agenda to undo the “curse

@mjgault.bsky.social story: www.404media.co/it-is-done-h...

@404media.co Oct 6, 2026, 9:34 PMReposted by @mjgault.bsky.social

A man convicted of manslaughter in Arizona will be resentenced because an AI-generated video of his victim speaking from beyond the grave was ruled to have carried “undue emotional weight” as an impact statement.

@mjgault.bsky.social story: www.404media.co/her-ai-gener...

@dexdigi.bsky.social Oct 6, 2026, 7:40 PMReposted by @mjgault.bsky.social

this is really interesting. The sister's arguments comparing AI-generated video to how long it took to accept photographs in a courtroom in particular. It's obvious she's thought about this a lot. Everyone's line for what is 'acceptable' use of AI is different. Here's another example.

@mjgault.bsky.social Oct 6, 2026, 7:34 PM

a key nuance is that she wrote the avatar's speech. the video itself was AI-generated. She plans to read the same words again during the next sentencing hearing

“Likely, the same people will go back down and make their speeches, and I will be making my victims' impact statement that I wrote for myself the first time around again, and I will be delivering Chris's AI script sentiment again,” she said. “If I need to stand there and read it myself, which would be legally lawful, I am prepared to do that. Chris's sentiment does not change. The delivery method will.”

@mjgault.bsky.social Oct 6, 2026, 7:32 PM

in Wales view, this is an artistic expression of her grief. No different than other impact statements that come in the form of a poem

Wales told 404 Media that her intent with the video was to sway the judge. “Isn’t that what you want human connection to be?” she said. “Do you ever come out of a movie and say: ‘Well, that was too emotional. That was too powerful. Human connection is powerful, and trying to convey that to somebody that's never known another person, this person on the earth, to convey their lifetime of 37 years down to a two-hour sentencing event is hard to do, and I think that victims and victims' families should be afforded every opportunity.”

@mjgault.bsky.social Oct 6, 2026, 7:28 PM

spoke to Stacey Wales, the woman who made an AI-generated avatar of her brother to speak in court, for a long time this morning

@mjgault.bsky.social Oct 6, 2026, 5:38 PM

they spent the first hour of this lengthy meeting discussing the official honoring of Charlie Kirk

@mjgault.bsky.social Oct 6, 2026, 5:27 PM

behold, it's in this thread. time stamped

@mjgault.bsky.social Oct 6, 2026, 4:03 PM

millions of Americans googled "why won't Angela Paxton say her husband's name" this weekend

@attackerman.bsky.social Oct 5, 2026, 3:56 PMReposted by @mjgault.bsky.social

“‘Many senior engineers believe it’s inevitable we’re going to have a massive data breach as a result of Hatch.’ Muse is called ‘Hatch’ internally and in Meta’s codebase.” @404media.co

404media.coMeta Rushed to Fix Muse ‘VM Escape' Vulnerability Soon Before LaunchThe vulnerability could have let a Muse user access sensitive internal Meta databases.

@mjgault.bsky.social Oct 5, 2026, 3:54 PM

the publisher is putting up yet ANOTHER wall in an attempt to fight against all that slop

@mjgault.bsky.social Oct 2, 2026, 4:57 PM

this is doubly beautiful because HeadOn was homeopathic quack medicine that literally did nothing and never went through clinical trials. The sticks were 99 percent wax. It was all marketing and no product

@jasonkoebler.bsky.social Sep 30, 2026, 9:47 PMReposted by @mjgault.bsky.social

my favorite thought experiment at the moment is the cognitive dissonance between "we will force our sentient unpaid ai agents to make millions of restaurant reservations for us. that will be their only purpose. they will live in a tamagotchi." But we also must make sure they are happy doing this