The Wikimedia Foundation’s chief technology and product officer explains how she helps manage one of the most visited sites in the world in the age of generative AI. 

Wikipedia is turning 25 this month, and it’s never been more important. 

The online, collectively created encyclopedia has been a cornerstone of the internet decades, but as generative AI started flooding every platform with AI-generated slop over the last couple of years, Wikipedia’s governance model, editing process, and dedication to citing reliable sources has emerged as one of the most reliable and resilient models we have. 

And yet, as successful as the model is, it’s almost never replicated. 

This week on the podcast we’re joined by Selena Deckelmann, the Chief Product and Technology Officer at the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit organization that operates Wikipedia. That means Selena oversees the technical infrastructure and product strategy for one of the most visited sites in the world, and one the most comprehensive repositories of human knowledge ever assembled. Wikipedia is turning 25 this month, so I wanted to talk to Selena about how Wikipedia works and how it plans to continue to work in the age of generative AI.  

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Listen to the weekly podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. 

Wikipedia’s value in the age of generative AI

The Editors Protecting Wikipedia from AI Hoaxes

Wikipedia Pauses AI-Generated Summaries After Editor Backlash

Wikipedia Says AI Is Causing a Dangerous Decline in Human Visitors

Jimmy Wales Says Wikipedia Could Use AI. Editors Call It the 'Antithesis of Wikipedia'

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We start this week with Joseph’s article about Webloc, a tool ICE bought that can monitor phones in entire neighborhoods. After the break, Emanuel and Sam talk about their recent coverage of Grok. In the subscribers-only section, Jason explains how police inadvertently unmasked millions of their surveillance targets through a Flock redaction error.

Timestamps:

YouTube version: https://youtu.be/rurJo6vPhUY

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This week, Jason is talking to YouTuber Benn Jordan, who has done some of our favorite reporting on Flock, the automated license plate reader surveillance company. A couple months ago, he found vulnerabilities in some of Flock’s license plate reader cameras. I have been following Benn’s work for a while, and soon after that video came out, he reached out to me to tell me he had learned that some of Flock’s Condor cameras were left live-streaming to the open internet. In this episode, we discuss how he discovered the issue and what happened next.

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We start this week with Matthew’s story about an organization tracking the location of AI data centers around the U.S. and elsewhere in the world. After the break, Jason tells us all about what Grok got up to over the holiday break, and we ruminate on what the breakdown in the information ecosystem means. In the subscribers-only section, we talk about how we bought 404media.com!

Timestamps:

1:38 - Researchers Are Hunting America for Hidden Datacenters

25:58 - Grok's AI CSAM Shitshow

Subscriber's Story: We Bought 404media.com

YouTube version: https://youtu.be/zT9lEyHnZIk

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On this special guest episode of the 404 Media Podcast, Sam talks to Alexzandra Kekesi, VP of Brand and Community at Pornhub. Kekesi started in her current role in August 2023, after working for Pornhub and its parent company for more than a decade. She joined us from Montreal, where Pornhub is headquartered. They discuss the stigma facing the adult industry, Luigi Mangione porn, the trad wife to feet pics pipeline, and algorithms that shut you down for showing side boob. Kekesi also breaks down Pornhub’s choice to pull out of states in more than a third of the U.S., following regressive age verification laws.

Pornhub Sees Surge of Interest in Tradwife Content, ‘Modesty,’ and Mindfulness

Pornhub Is Now Blocked In Almost All of the U.S. South

Age Verification Laws Drag Us Back to the Dark Ages of the Internet

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This is a special interview episode with Meredith Whittaker, the president of the Signal Foundation. I'm sure you all know, and maybe even use, the Signal messaging app. Here we sat down with Whittaker to talk all about the state of Signal today, the threat of AI to end-to-end encryption, what backdoors actually look like, and much more. This is a wide-ranging discussion where one of the few journalists who has revealed new details about backdoors (Joseph) gets to speak to one of the most important people in the world of encryption (Whittaker). Definitely take a listen. Paid subscribers got access to this episode early by the way.

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Joseph speaks to Craig Silverman, one of the co-founders of Indicator. Indicator is a new, independent media company that Craig runs with Alexios Mantzarlis. For years Craig has covered the world of ad fraud and disinformation using all sorts of open source intelligence (OSINT) techniques. Definitely check out Indicator at Indicator.media. The site publishes its own investigations but also tips and tricks you can use yourself.

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We start this week with Jason’s story about Flock exposing a bunch of AI-powered cameras. These cameras zoom in on people as they walk by, sometimes so closely you can read what’s on their phone screen. After the break, we talk about some of our biggest stories this year. In the subscribers-only section, we give some of our personal recommendations of games, other reporting, or just a more chill life.

Timestamps:
0:00 - Intro
00:54 -  Gift a 404 Media subscription
2:27 - Flock Exposed Its AI-Powered Cameras to the Internet. We Tracked Ourselves
26:34 -  Anyone Can Push Updates to the DOGE.gov Website
29:52 -  Mike Waltz Accidentally Reveals Obscure App the Government Is Using to Archive Signal Messages
34:29 -  How Tea’s Founder Convinced Millions of Women to Spill Their Secrets, Then Exposed Them to the World
44:59 -  Half of the US Now Requires You to Upload Your ID or Scan Your Face to Watch Porn

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Marisa Kabas is the founder of The Handbasket, an independent newsletter and website that has been breaking stories left and right about government workers, the media business, and Trump’s mass deportation campaign. Jason and Marisa share notes Marisa about doing journalism without a big newsroom, how the media business has changed over the last decade, and why sources often prefer to talk to journalists who don’t work for mainstream media.

YouTube Version: https://youtu.be/e73spvZnc9s

The Handbasket: https://www.thehandbasket.co

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Joseph had to use a different mic this week, that will be fixed next time! We start this week talking about a very unusual case: someone is being charged for allegedly wiping a phone before CBP could search it. There are a lot of questions remaining, but a super interesting case. After the break, we talk about Matthew’s article on an Anthropic exec forcing AI onto a queer gamer Discord. In the subscribers-only section, we all chat about the Disney and OpenAI deal.

Timestamps:

00:48 - Man Charged for Wiping Phone Before CBP Could Search It

23:02 - Anthropic Exec Forces AI Chatbot on Gay Discord Community, Members Flee

YouTube version: https://youtu.be/tOpIpReZPoM

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