what's this button do?

First, it was a meme with weird AI-generated cockroach pictures. Then, it became a youth movement that is genuinely freaking out the Indian political establishment. So how far can the Cockroach Janata Party take it?

For this episode, I hit up documentary filmmaker Angad Singh and asked him why young people are putting on cockroach masks and getting into the streets.

In short, it started with an official calling unemployed young people parasites and “cockroaches.” But then this combined with exam leaks, botched test results, and a cartoonishly hackable test portal (combined with a bunch of government lies) to fuel young people angry at a system that keeps failing them.

Links:

Here’s the ‘hacker’ on how he got into the CBSE system (and what happened afterwards) https://ni5arga.com/blog/posts/hacking-cbse/

An article on the journalist who accused a student of being Pakistani (he later apologized): https://thewire.in/education/doordarshan-anchor-calls-delhi-student-pakistani-for-raising-cbse-marking-grievance

And make sure to check out Angad's post on the CJP: https://www.patreon.com/Angadgsingh/posts/do-cockroaches-160900961

If you're Chinese, ChatGPT has probably offered to 'steadily catch' you at least once. But what why does it keep saying that? And why is 我会稳稳地接住你 a meme (instead of making people mad)... and by the way, will Chinese college students boo at their graduations?

Zeyi Yang is a senior writer at WIRED, and his article was the inspiration for this. See below for more of his work!

oh, and welcome to 🕹️WHAT'S THIS BUTTON DO?🕹️ a series where I get experts to explain technology to the rest of us. this is episode two. hope you dig.

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== sources/references == =====================

Zeyi’s article: https://wired.com/story/chatgpt-chinese-catch-you-steadily-sycophancy/

find Zeyi on bsky: https://bsky.app/profile/zeyiyang.bsky.social OpenAI launches a new image generation model: wired.com/story/openai-beefs-up-chatgpts-image-generation-model/ openai.com/index/introducing-chatgpt-images-2-0/

Concurrent, the newsletter Zeyi mentioned: https://afraw.substack.com

A sample question of someone asking about 'catch steadily': AI 说的「稳稳地接住你」到底是什么意思？

https://www.zhihu.com/question/2028251818384192677

📝 On punctuation in other languages 📝

Efecto ChatGPT: ya empezamos a hablar todos como robots https://elpais.com/ideas/2025-10-19/ya-empezamos-a-hablar-como-robots.html

The ChatGPT effect: We’ve all started talking like robots https://english.elpais.com/technology/2025-11-01/the-chatgpt-effect-weve-all-started-talking-like-robots.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com

「それChatGPTに書いてもらったでしょ？」と思ってしまう瞬間 (The moment when I think "did you have ChatGPT write that for you?") https://note.com/megumi_log/n/n8c5a518bbc8d

AIは嫌いじゃない。でもAIっぽい文章は読めない (I don't hate AI. But I can't read AI-style writing.) https://note.com/shoppukun/n/n75b48abc390b catch yall on the next one.

has your school told you how bad this hack really was? My guest Ian Linkletter called this the 'Biggest Privacy Disaster in History', and he stands by that. He's been warning about Canvas/Instructure for years.

We get into why having your data on a service with 9,000 other schools is a bad idea, why extortions could go on for another 20 years or more, and what students and teachers can do next.

music, production, editing by me. hope you dig.

sources:

== sources ==

https://www.404media.co/the-biggest-student-data-privacy-disaster-in-history-canvas-hack-shows-the-danger-of-centralized-edtech/

https://www.howtogeek.com/141500/why-you-should-use-a-password-manager-and-how-to-get-started/

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/12/us/canvas-instructure-hackers-deal.html?unlocked_article_code=1.h1A.Xnzg.ALdQS5Vdvpu1&smid=url-share

https://www.pcmag.com/news/canvas-developer-apologizes-for-breach-as-class-action-lawsuits-pile-up

https://ubyssey.ca/news/canvas-cyberattack-agreement/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/11/proctorio-settles-curious-lawsuit-with-librarian-who-shared-public-youtube-videos/

https://stateofsurveillance.org/news/instructure-paid-ransom-shinyhunters-canvas-settlement-shred-logs-275-million-2026/

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jul/01/ceo-of-exam-monitoring-software-proctorio-apologises-for-posting-students-chat-logs-on-reddit

https://www.vice.com/en/article/an-exam-surveillance-company-is-trying-to-silence-critics-with-lawsuits/

https://www.vice.com/en/article/judge-rules-schools-cant-scan-your-bedroom-with-creepy-proctoring-apps/

I'm talking about the US military here (which is also the nation's largest employer, period). Dan Ming has been covering our military for a while, and he's got some insight here: back in 2021, he spoke to Sgt First Class Jessica Haut just as she had decided to transition. He's kept in contact with her since, and just recently interviewed her again.

So now that Trump's Executive Order has effectively banned anyone trans from serving in the military – what happens for her, and the thousands of other trans people?

Dan is @danming on most social media sites - go follow him!

This was recorded live on twitch.tv/dexdigi

Here are the links we discussed:

The original executive order from Trump - https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/prioritizing-military-excellence-and-readiness/

Some articles:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/27/us/transgender-military-ban-trump-hegseth.html

https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/trump-transgender-military-ban-rcna194741

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/22/hegseth-mocks-judge-trans-troops

And Dan's two segments from VICE with Sergeant First Class Jessica Haut:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMJFqSvuUWo (2021)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68sjjlE9Ugk (2022)

David Z Morris has been covering cryptocurrency for over a decade. And now that Trump has announced a ‘crypto reserve’, you’d think he’d be excited. But a lot of crypto experts think it’s all a pretty bad idea, and David has a hunch it probably won’t happen anyway. We also talk a bit about the ‘crypto czar’, David Sacks, and what role he may play in all of this.

(recorded March 4, 2025, on twitch.tv/dexdigi )

Links:

David’s article on this, ‘Trump's Strategic Sh*tcoin Reserve’

https://davidzmorris.substack.com/p/trumps-strategic-shtcoin-reserve

David’s 2014 article on bitcoin:

https://fortune.com/2014/01/21/bitcoin-is-not-just-digital-currency-its-napster-for-finance/

NOTE: at 31:30 we're talking about an AI-generated video of Trump sucking Elon's toes. Someone was playing it on TVs at HUD.

Greg Walters, News Editor at Crooked Media, joined the stream to talk about DOGE, and why despite the outrage, it's probably sticking around.

You can check out the newsletter we reference here:

https://crooked.com/newsletters/what-a-day-fork-in-the-doge/

And here's clip from the What a Day podcast (at 05:00):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJbnLllHkHY

three quick facts: 1. Canada *does* have a fentanyl problem. 2. But less than 1% of the fent coming into the U.S. is from there. 3. And Mexican migrants aren't bringing it in, either. I talked with Manisha Krishnan, who's been covering drugs and drug policy for nearly a decade, about what kind of weird political games are happening, and who is losing those games.

A bonus fact: Trump doesn't seem to be talking about fentanyl anymore, at least not this week. We get into why. Also booing the national anthem.

This was recorded live on stream!

You can be here for the next one; find me here: twitch.tv/dexdigi

you can find Manisha on Instagram or Bluesky:

https://www.instagram.com/baesic.unicorn/

https://bsky.app/profile/manishakrishnan.bsky.social

The links we referenced:

https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-17-edmonton-am/clip/16126506-how-much-fentanyl-actually-moved-u.s

The NYT article:

https://archive.is/eclOy

https://newrepublic.com/article/178684/fentanyl-misinformation-migrants-border-media

https://www.cbc.ca/sports/boo-national-anthem-debates-sports-1.7453849

Angad Singh interviewed one of the 4.9 million people who Canada might now be asking to 'go home', now that Trudeau is out. His piece is on YouTube, and you can watch it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5vRl23p0Zw

This one was recorded just after the Olympics. I was talking about having b-boys and b-girls in the Olympics and how that was kiinida complicated now and then our guest, documentary filmmaker Mustafa Mirza comes in with potentially the most important thing that’s happened in Pakistan sportswise in a long time, and what happens now that javelin is on the map for the 5th largest population in the world.

You can find Mustafa's work at mustafamirza.com, or @moosezafa on socials.

warning: you’re about to listen to two journalists talk about the news. But the news sucks! you say — so why should we care? Well, this $250 million deal might have just made it worse. Counterintuitive, but Matt Pearce (ex LA Times) has a pretty compelling argument. We talk about this, and AI, and a bunch of other stuff.

Keep in mind that this is a pretty complicated topic, and there are some other viewpoints on this. For example, there’s this opposing stance:

https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/04/the-california-journalism-preservation-act-would-do-more-harm-than-good-heres-how-the-state-might-better-help-news/

And on the other hand, there's Matt summarizing the situation, where he says 'hardly anyone won, except Google':

https://mattdpearce.substack.com/p/a-deep-dive-into-googles-shady-and

And also this:

https://mindandiron.substack.com/p/mind-and-iron-gavin-newsom-may-have

There’s also Matt’s big spreadsheet on astroturfing, which we mention only briefly:

https://mattdpearce.substack.com/p/californias-sb-1327-and-the-big-tech

You can find Matt Pearce at his newsletter, which I highly recommend:

https://mattdpearce.substack.com

Anyway, this is something a lot of people probably won’t even be aware of, because it’s a really boring topic. But I think this is going to be playing out repeatedly, soon. Stay in tune.