The 404 Media Podcast

Latest Episodes:

The Lawyer Fighting Government Surveillance for 30 Years (With EFF's Cindy Cohn) Apr 06, 2026

Show notes

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 rights nonprofit after decades of service. Cindy's new book “Privacy’s Defender,” is a memoir of her work to protect Americans’ privacy and fight government surveillance.
Privacy’s Defender weaves Cindy’s life story through three incredibly important court cases. Rather than being a dry recounting of three complicated and technical cases, Cindy recounts her strategies in each case, the trials and tribulations she was going through during each period, and the stakes of each case. A quick backgrounder — the cases are Bernstein vs Department of Justice, decided in 1996, which established code and encryption as protected speech under the first amendment, a lasting decision that became critical in Apple’s lawsuit against the FBI in the aftermath of the San Bernardino shooting. It also follows EFF’s lawsuit against AT&T for building a secret backdoor in its internet data centers that gave data to the NSA for warrantless surveillance against American citizens, a case that was built in part around testimony and documents shared by Mark Klein, who showed schematics and design documents for secret surveillance rooms in AT&T’s offices. And finally it follows the Alphabet Cases, which were lawsuits against FBI gag orders for national security letters, which are secret demands for customer information that came with gag orders against internet companies that prevented them from disclosing the fact that the FBI approached them for information. Those cases concerned both Cloudflare and a telecom company called CREDO, and went on for many years.

Our interview with Cindy shows that the fight for privacy happens in fits and spurts, and is rarely linear.

Cindy's Book Privacy Defender: https://www.eff.org/Privacys-Defender

Youtube Version: https://youtu.be/2OwH_XyfEhs

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Inside the AI Slop Propaganda Wars Apr 01, 2026

Show notes

This week Matthew Gault joins us to discuss his article about Iran’s AI slop and LEGO-focused propaganda, and why the creators chose LEGO. After the break, Jason tells us all about the new automated system in baseball and the drama it’s causing. In the subscribers-only section, Sam walks us through perhaps one of the worst sex apps of all time.

Iran Is Winning the AI Slop Propaganda War

'You Can't Defeat the Robots!': Baseball's AI Strike Zone Is Must-Watch Television

Subscriber's Story - I Tried to Find the ‘Arousal Intelligence’ In An Animated, Augmented Reality Porn Star

YouTube Version: https://youtu.be/_4buUas3tGs

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The Journalist Who Tracked Epstein Island Visitors’ Phones Mar 30, 2026

Show notes

This week Joseph talks to Dhruv Mehrotra, a journalist and technologist at Bloomberg. Before that, Dhruv was at WIRED, where you probably saw a ton of his interesting work. Dhruv sits in a very unusual space in journalism: he is able to both write technical tools to dig through data, or collect information, or really anything else, and is also able to just write a damn good story. That is a very unique blend. The pair chat about Dhruv’s entry into journalism, how computational journalism has changed over the years, and how Dhruv uses AI too.

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The Company Secretly Turning Your Zoom Meetings into Podcasts Mar 25, 2026

Show notes

This week we start with Emanuel’s crazy story about WebinarTV, a company that is secretly recording Zoom meetings and turning them into AI-powered podcasts. It’s nuts. After the break, Joseph tells us about the eccentric billionaire who tried to become a cocaine kingpin. In the subscribers-only section, we lament the lose of the metaverse.

1:06 - This Company Is Secretly Turning Your Zoom Meetings into AI Podcasts

25:58 - An Adrenaline Junkie Millionaire’s Quest to Become a Cocaine Kingpin

Sub's Story: RIP Metaverse, an $80 Billion Dumpster Fire Nobody Wanted

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The Marketing Tricks of "Artificial Intelligence" Mar 23, 2026

Show notes

This week, Sam talks to Emily Bender and Alex Hanna about the marketing ploys of “artificial intelligence,” why ridicule works to keep big tech’s claims in check, and what makes them hopeful for the future. They’re the authors of The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want.Dr. Alex Hanna is a writer and sociologist of technology, labor, and politics. She’s the Director of Research at the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR) and a Lecturer in the School of Information at the University of California Berkeley.

Dr. Emily M. Bender is a Professor of Linguistics at the University of Washington where she is also the Faculty Director of the Computational Linguistics Master of Science program and affiliate faculty in the School of Computer Science and Engineering and the Information School.They also host the The Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 podcast which “deflates AI hype and draws attention to the real harms of the automation technologies we call ‘artificial intelligence’.”

YouTube Version: https://youtu.be/UwBZiuH-1QY

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The Disappearing DOGE Depositions Mar 18, 2026

Show notes

This week we start with Joseph’s series of articles about the DOGE depositions. He watched hours and hours of them, then a judge ordered them removed from YouTube. But, they’ve already been archived all over the web. After the break, Jason tells us about the AI data labelers who are fighting back. In the subscribers-only section, Jason breaks down what’s wrong with all the AI job loss research at the moment.

0:00 - Intro 0:51 - Google Street View's Unmappable City 3:40 - I Watched 6 Hours of DOGE Bro Testimony. Here's What They Had to Say For Themselves 13:24 - DOGE Deposition Videos Taken Down After Judge Order and Widespread Mockery 18:58 - The Removed DOGE Deposition Videos Have Already Been Backed Up Across the Internet 28:32 - 'AI Is African Intelligence': The Workers Who Train AI Are Fighting Back

SUB'S STORY - AI Job Loss Research Ignores How AI Is Utterly Destroying the Internet

YouTube Version: https://youtu.be/xtMniLj_yzQ

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Google Street View's Unmappable City Mar 16, 2026

Show notes

There's only one city in America that isn't on Google's Street View. Documentary filmmaker Chris Parr set out to map it, using North Oak, Minnesota's byzantine rules and the help of a drone. His experience shows who gets privacy in America, and who doesn't.

'I Mapped Google’s ONLY SECRET CITY'

YouTube Version: https://youtu.be/3iGvHBr0mJw

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How to Talk to Your Friend Experiencing 'AI Psychosis' Mar 11, 2026

Show notes

This week we start with Sam’s story discussing something that has come up a lot but no one has really answered: how do you speak to your friend or family member falling into AI psychosis? After the break, Joseph breaks down what happened when the FBI wanted data from ProtonMail. In the subscribers-only section, Emanuel tells us about the viral developers behind an app called Quittr, and how they exposed very sensitive data of hundreds of thousands of users.

1:21 - 'How to Talk to Someone Experiencing 'AI Psychosis'

27:33 - Proton Mail Helped FBI Unmask Anonymous ‘Stop Cop City’ Protester

SUBSCRIBER'S STORY: Viral 'Quittr' Porn Addiction App Exposed the Masturbation Habits of Hundreds of Thousands of Users

YouTube Version: https://youtu.be/oRiJHLIYkkw

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Understanding Roblox’s Grooming Problem Mar 09, 2026

Show notes

Cecilia D’Anstasio on Roblox efforts to protect children from pedophiles.

Roblox is one of those games that is more popular than you can imagine, but unless you are of a certain age group and live in that world, you’ll rarely hear about it unless it makes the news for some terrible reason. More recently, for example, we wrote about the Tumbler Ridge shooter who created a mass shooting simulator in Roblox.

But what is Roblox, how big is it exactly, and why does it seem like it's so frequently embroiled in controversy? This week we’re joined by Cecilia D’anstasio in an attempt to answer all of these questions.

This week we’re joined by Cecilia D’Anstasio. Cecilia reports about video games at Bloomberg, and has written many important articles about the business and controversies of one of the biggest games in the world, Roblox. A few weeks ago we had Patrick Klepek on to discuss Roblox from a parent’s perspective, but today we’re going to hear about it from the perspective of a great investigative reporter and for my money the most knowledgeable journalists about Roblox.

404 Media is a journalist-founded company and needs your support. To subscribe, go to 404media.co. As well as bonus content every single week, subscribers get access to additional episodes where we respond to their best comments. Subscribers also get early access to our interview series. Gain access to that content at 404media.co.

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The Depravity Economy Mar 04, 2026

Show notes

This week we discuss our coverage of the U.S.-Israel strikes against Iran, specifically how Polymarket and Kalshi are letting people profit from death, and that Amazon data centers were on fire after missiles hit Dubai. Then Emanuel talks about how AI translations are adding 'hallucinations' to Wikipedia articles. In the subscribers-only section, Sam tells us about a change with Amazon wishlists that may expose your address.

0:00 - Intro

1:32 - With Iran War, Kalshi and Polymarket Bet That the Depravity Economy Has No Bottom

29:07 - AI Translations Are Adding Hallucinations To Wikipedia Articles

SUBSCRIBER'S STORY - Amazon Change Means Wishlists Might Expose Your Address

YouTube Version: https://youtu.be/paHMe9kFf0w

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