If you post a video to TikTok and it gets big, it risks being replicated to the word by AI copies. By deepfaking a new head and voice, the AI spambots avoid automated enforcement. Those being cloned say TikTok doesn't respond to complaints. — Read the rest
Holy cow, Batman! People are rubbing beef tallow all over themselves.
Despite the advice shared by dermatologists, some people are using rendered beef fat as a new skin care product. Essentially, they are wiping cow oil all over themselves. Tallow does leave a barrier of oil on your skin that traps in moisture, but it also causes a host of allergic reactions and is more likely to exacerbate than cure acne. — Read the rest
TikTok illegally transferred user data to servers in China and Ireland's Data Protection Commission levied a €530 million (~$600 million) fine on it Thursday. Among the most significant breaches of the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) yet to hit the "find out" stage for big tech companies, the fine came with an order that the company take "corrective measures" to guarantee future compliance. — Read the rest
Roz and Graham Hall from Stockton, England, run the Eagle Ukes YouTube channel. They found that their videos were being ripped off on TikTok—and doing very well there, with millions of views. But they learned to their dismay that TikTok has no particular interest in taking down successful content. — Read the rest
TL;DR: Digitize and preserve old film and slides with the Kodak Slide N Scan, now $164.97 (reg. $224.99) for a limited time.
We all have boxes of old family slides and negatives stashed away somewhere. They are priceless, but without a way to properly view them, they might as well be lost. — Read the rest
A bunch of extremely smart people on TikTok have discovered that dropping heavy objects on their feet gets them thousands of views.
Leading this parade of mangled metatarsals is 19-year-old Luke Pilling, who decided that dropping toasters, air fryers, and computer monitors on his tootsies was just the ticket to TikTok stardom. — Read the rest
It's not who is in charge now that matters, but who will be in charge tomorrow. After president-elect Donald Trump promised to issue an executive order blocking the ban imposed on TikTok by Congress (and found constitutional last week by the Supreme Court), the site allowed U.S. — Read the rest
The law effectively banning Tik Tok went into effect today. The ban is unpopular, the Biden administration already said it won't enforce it in its last two days, and president-elect Trump clearly wants to keep Tik Tok around, if only to somehow get it sold to Elon Musk or some other crony. — Read the rest
TL;DR: Stop wasting time scrolling and start learning—Pearls Premium gives you lifetime access to bite-sized, 15-minute summaries of bestsellers for just $29.99.
TikTok might get banned, and while it may feel like something's missing, there's plenty of great stuff to fill the void. — Read the rest
I've seen the effect of medical misinformation on social media described as "Munchausens by TikTok," which captures pithily the image of everyone drowning in sleazy, pseudoscientific wellness content, becoming obsessed with fictitious problems and minor ailments. But on reflection, thinking about it like that only compounds the problem, doesn't it? — Read the rest
TL;DR: This AI phone mount helps you record content hands-free—check out now to save 28%.
Are you ever scrolling on TikTok or Facebook (okay, who isn't?) but find someone painfully mediocre and wonder, "How did THEY get so famous?!" If it's not obviously their good looks or dance moves, it's probably their content. — Read the rest
A popular TikToker with a following of over 4 million was arrested after driving a stolen car that belonged to a therapist who had been murdered in Texas days before.
Terryon Thomas, a comedic 20-year-old who goes by Mr. Prada online, was arrested in Dallas on Tuesday after police found him driving a black Lincoln that belonged to 69-year-old William Nicholas Abraham — an author and self-described life coach — whose body was found wrapped in a tarp and "partially hidden along the road" near the Louisiana border over the weekend, according to USA Today. — Read the rest
The scream chicken filter is hilarious. The filter is a short platformer video game where you control the character, a chicken, with your voice. You can make any sound to make the chicken move while avoiding obstacles and falling to your death. — Read the rest
TL;DR: If you've got a closet full of old slides and films, digitize those physical memories with this Kodak scanner, now available for $171.99 (reg. $224) with code KODAK!
It's safe to say that our days of Polaroid pictures and disposable cameras are over (unless you're old school!). — Read the rest
The Nintendo characters at Universal Studio Hollywood were doing their thing this summer, meeting and greeting park guests, when an excited l'il Toad made a mistake and broke into some dance moves. Yes, it was cute — so darn cute, in fact, that everyone with a TikTok account started to ask the adorable toadstool to dance with them. — Read the rest
Content on TikTok frequently has images blurred out, presumably so they won't get flagged and removed by the moderators. These images surely are the worst things imaginable, shocking to our humanity: violence (usually fake violence from TV or movies), guns (usually fake guns from TV or movies), and… cigarettes (sometimes real, sometimes fake from TV or movies.). — Read the rest
If your response to boredom is to whip out your phone and scroll endlessly through TikTok, you might be doing it wrong. According to a study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, this kind of "digital switching" intensifies boredom rather than relieving it. — Read the rest
The Vertical Movie uses AI to transform movies into video clips that look like they were shot on an iPhone for TikTok.
They've given the treatment to the likes of Lord of the Rings, Inglourious Bastards, and Casino Royale but I think Jurassic Park works beautifully. — Read the rest
Ryan Walters, Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction, recently posted a video announcing that he is using information gathered from Libs of TikTok—the notoriously transphobic and anti-LGBTQ social media account founded and run by right-wing "journalist" and activist Chaya Raichik—to as Ron Filipkowski puts it, "hunt down school employees who joked about Trump's ear getting nicked so that they can be fired." — Read the rest
Trump running mate JD Vance has tried to change his tune since calling the convicted ex-president "reprehensible," "an idiot," and even "Hitler."
But his old tune has just exploded as a new viral TikTok ditty in which, using his own words, Vance sings, "I'm a never Trump guy. — Read the rest
