Latest / Mini Scroll / MINI TECH SCROLL: MKBHD shuts Panels, Lemon8 surges before under-16s ban, Slop Evader + social-first journalism debate

Transcript

MINI TECH SCROLL: MKBHD shuts Panels, Lemon8 surges before under-16s ban, Slop Evader + social-first journalism debate · Mini Scroll

• 0:00
  Hey everyone and welcome to Mini Scroll, the daily Internet
• 0:03
  culture podcast bring you the biggest stories from social
• 0:06
  media, the creator economy and the digital space every Monday
• 0:09
  through Thursday and sometimes Fridays.
• 0:11
  My name is Annabelle and I'm your Wednesday Mini Tech Scroll
• 0:14
  host and also the deputy editor of the youth digital media brand
• 0:18
  Centennial World. Welcome back to Mini Tech Scroll
• 0:22
  for another week. We are really getting close to
• 0:24
  the end of the year. I don't really have too many
• 0:27
  updates before we get into the stories for this week, apart
• 0:30
  from the fact that we have officially launched A Patreon
• 0:34
  for the Centennial World Podcast Network.
• 0:37
  Lauren has spoken about it on Monday and Tuesday's episode and
• 0:41
  it's also LinkedIn. The description of this episode.
• 0:44
  But if you want to join, it is 599 AUDA month and it will
• 0:49
  mostly be behind the scenes content from Lauren and the
• 0:52
  Centennial World Team and Podcast Network.
• 0:55
  And you will be getting at least three pieces of extra content
• 0:59
  per month. I think it will be really fun.
• 1:02
  There's also a Discord server if you are a member.
• 1:05
  So I'm really looking forward to see what happens with this new
• 1:09
  type of content. If you end up enjoying this
• 1:11
  episode, Please remember to rate, review and subscribe and
• 1:15
  star rate US on Spotify. And other than that, let's just
• 1:18
  get right into the content. So the first story that I wanted
• 1:21
  to talk about today is a little bit niche, but I wanted to talk
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  about this tool that I've seen making the rounds online called
• 1:28
  Slop Evader. Over the past week, I've seen
• 1:30
  various text journalists cover Slop Evader, which is a browser
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  extension. And I know talking about a
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  browser extension might seem a little bit boring, but stay with
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  me. So Slop Evaders function slash
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  purpose is quite literally in its name.
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  It's meant to help you evade AI generated slop.
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  And according to the website, it's a search tool that will
• 1:50
  only show content that has been published or created before
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  November 30th, 2022, the day ChatGPT was released to the
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  public. Little did we we know at the
• 2:00
  time how much would change since then, but as it's explained on
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  the website Quote, since the public release of ChatGPT and
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  other large language models, the Internet is being increasingly
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  polluted by AI generated text, images and video.
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  This browser extension uses the Google Search API to only return
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  content published before November 30th, 2022, so you can
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  be sure that it was written or produced by the human hand.
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  The extension was built by an Australian artist and
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  environmental engineer called Tiger Brain and basically how it
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  works is that it shows results before the cut off date.
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  It doesn't necessarily scan for AI and then filter out those
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  results, but you can basically put a question or query in the
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  extension and then it will redirect you to the relevant
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  website. And obviously the information
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  presented might be out of date since it was from before 2023.
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  But the main purpose here is that it's not AI generated
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  obviously. And also there are already kind
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  of similar functions or tools that exist like in Google, you
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  can search a specific time frame for results.
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  But obviously this extension just adds a little bit more
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  drama. I have been scrolling through
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  Reddit to see some of the reactions to slap Evader and
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  there has been some mixed responses.
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  I will say that most users definitely seem happy to use or
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  have access to a tool that can filter out AI generated content.
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  1 user took to Reddit right and quote.
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  I actually like this idea and will look into using this tool.
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  I don't really want AI quote UN quote summaries of the
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  information that tech pro overlords want me to know and or
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  not know things. A little bit sassy but fair
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  enough. Some of the negative responses
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  suggests that the tool isn't necessarily as useful as it may
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  seem. As A1 user wrote quote, this
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  doesn't actually solve anything and in fact might make it worse.
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  The thing that humans really need is for people to find their
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  stuff instead of AI slot. Doing this would guarantee that
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  you'll never actually see anything created by a human
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  that's in competition with AI, which is only going to
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  exacerbate the core problem of AI being so prolific and easy to
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  make that it cannibalizes views of human created content.
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  Another user actually made an interesting point about how the
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  day cut off might not limit present day AI content to show
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  up. So they had been using the cut
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  off date function on Google for a while and as they wrote quote,
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  in the past month or so, I've noticed articles have begun to
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  spoof their metadata or something.
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  So it will say it's from 2010, but the search will pick up on a
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  text blog that is obviously present day.
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  So I think that is definitely an important point to consider when
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  you are doing kind of research in this way.
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  But throughout the Reddit threads, people also ended up
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  comparing Slap Evader to other tools that might help you limit
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  AI content. And DuckDuckGo was one that came
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  out quite a bit, which is a browser alternative to Google,
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  let's say, that has added a function that has ultimately
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  allowed users to be able to filter out AI generated images
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  specifically. At the end of the day though, I
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  think there is definitely truth to both the positives and
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  negatives around slap Evader. But according to the creator of
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  the extension, the purpose of Slop of ADA is bigger than just
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  avoiding AI generated content. It's actually about reminding
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  ourselves that we have the choice to, even when it might
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  seem difficult. I thought that was really
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  interesting and a very valid point because we often talk
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  about how so much of our media diet is at the whims of big tech
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  and the algorithm, and a vast majority of it probably is.
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  But I think it's also nice to be reminded that there are some
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  precautions that we might be able to take.
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  And another reason why I thought this story was worth covering
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  because it's just another example of the pushback to AI
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  generated content that we're starting to see more and more.
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  Obviously, I covered this when I spoke about Divine, the Vine
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  reboot that will not be allowing any kind of enhanced or AI
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  generated content on the platform.
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  And I feel like this is something we're going to be
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  seeing more and more of. And I'm curious whether
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  mainstream platforms will start to incorporate ways to kind of
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  limit this content or if it will be relegated to more niche or
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  indie platforms. I have my outs about Meta
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  because they are obviously pouring so much money into AI
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  and AI generated slop definitely keeps people on platforms like
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  Instagram with Reels and at the end of the day that's probably
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  what matters to them. My next story for today is once
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  again about the Australian teen social media ban.
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  I spoke about the circle ban last week and how Twitch is now
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  included in the list of platforms, but if you didn't
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  catch that episode, I will give a quick summary.
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  On December 10th, so really soon, users under the age of 16
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  will essentially be kicked off social media platforms including
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  TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Threads X, Snapchat, Twitch,
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  Kik, Reddit, and YouTube. I feel like I said that all very
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  quick in one breath, but there they are.
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  So these apps and platforms will be expected to constantly
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  monitor their users and take reasonable steps to kind of
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  ensure that no child under 16 can create or use an account.
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  And if not, the apps will end up being fined up to $50 million.
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  The update I have for you today though, is that obviously under
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  16 year olds are trying to find a way around the ban, which is
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  something they've honestly been doing for months now.
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  But recently, many teens and tweens have started talking
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  about which apps to switch over to once they are locked out of
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  the ones on the list, and a couple have emerged as top
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  contenders. The first is Lemonade, which is
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  obviously owned by Byte Dance, Tik Tok's parent company and is
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  a cross of kind of Pinterest, Instagram and TikTok.
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  And another top contender is YOLP, which is a direct
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  messaging photo sharing app. And both have gained significant
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  popularity on the Aussie app stores on the Apple Store.
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  I checked before I recorded this episode.
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  YOLP is currently sitting at #20 and Lemonade is ironically
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  sitting at #8. Since these platforms have
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  started to gain traction among this demographic, they have
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  reportedly been quote, put on notice by the government.
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  According to the ABC, the communications Minister Anika
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  Wells said that the government would quote, have more to say
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  about the status of these apps and Lemonade specifically later
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  this week. And according to the Guardian
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  Australia, it appears that quote, the E Safety Commission,
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  which is Australia's independent regulator for online safety, has
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  written to Lemonade to say that the agency would monitor the
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  platform for possible inclusion after the scheme begins.
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  And there are also reports that Lemonade has chosen to restrict
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  its users to those over 16, even though they're not formally
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  included in the ban at this stage.
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  I thought this was an interesting story to include,
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  even though it is still breaking, because I think we can
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  see how the government and the E Safety Commissioner will be
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  continually playing catch up to try and keep young users off
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  socials. And while the minister and
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  others admit that it's not going to be perfect off the bat, it
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  goes to show how it will likely be a game of whack A mole moving
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  forward. And I do think this dynamic is a
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  very common across many of the areas in which governments
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  around the world actually might be trying to legislate.
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  Social media and the creator economy.
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  I feel like the classic example of Family Blog is where there
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  should have been protections put in place long ago, but at the
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  end of the day the digital world just moved so fast and it can be
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  really difficult for the structures to keep up given the
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  bureaucratic processes that are in place.
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  Anyway, I'm super intrigued to see what ends up happening this
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  week. The ban is quite literally 7
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  days out, so I'm sure I'll have more to say next week about
• 9:42
  that. I have two more quick stories
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  and they have a little bit of a similar theme, even though they
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  are very different. As with a lot of things in the
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  creator economy, it relates to money.
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  So the next thing I want to talk about is Marquez Brownlee, who's
• 9:54
  known online as MKBHD and his app Panels.
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  So if you don't know who Marquez Brownlee is, he's an extremely
• 10:02
  popular tech YouTube. He makes a handful of different
• 10:05
  types of videos, including reviews, unboxings, and of
• 10:08
  course kind of explainer content.
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  Marquez launched Panels in September last year and it was
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  basically a subscription based app that sells high resolution
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  Wallpapers for your phone. These subscriptions initially
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  cost around $12.00 a month or $50 a year, which would
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  basically give users full access to the collection of Wallpapers
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  and also remove ads. So it's probably a better user
• 10:31
  experience. And he has spoken about how he
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  was inspired to create this app after receiving questions from
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  his audience about where he got his Wallpapers from when he
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  would show them across various videos.
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  But Panels obviously did expand beyond that, where it became a
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  way to platform various artists and designers.
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  And while there were obviously good intentions, as you can
• 10:51
  probably guess, people did have quite a strong reaction to the
• 10:55
  app. Many users couldn't believe that
• 10:56
  the YouTube was charging for phone Wallpapers when this is
• 11:00
  literally something you could get for free.
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  In October 2024, Marquez ended up taking to YouTube with a
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  video to explain how panels came to be as well as the pricing,
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  where panels ended up taking a number of steps to try and
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  appeal to the masses after a wave of backlash, which included
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  taking away ads for the free experience as well as offering a
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  cheaper subscription option. There are so many reasons why we
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  failed on the price front. First of all, just to bring it
• 11:27
  back, a wallpaper app is niche. Paying for a wallpaper is even
• 11:33
  more niche. And so.
• 11:34
  Like a subscription to Wallpapers is something that I
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  think less than one. Percent of 1% of.
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  People would ever even consider. So if you're looking at panels
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  and find yourself thinking this seems crazy, paying for a
• 11:46
  wallpaper, you're not wrong. You are most people.
• 11:50
  So that was how panels came to be and how it was initially
• 11:54
  received. But earlier this week, Marquez
• 11:56
  shared an update on the app in an unlisted YouTube video titled
• 12:00
  Panels Update. He reflected on the journey with
• 12:03
  the app, but ultimately revealed that the app would be closing
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  down. It's been a roller.
• 12:07
  Coaster override. I mean we the app ended up like
• 12:10
  #1 in the app. Both app stores for the photos
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  category and I think we had more than 2,000,000 total wallpaper
• 12:18
  downloads by the end of the summer, but at.
• 12:20
  The end of the day, it wasn't able to sustain.
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  You know, we knew it was niche, but you know, we made mistakes
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  in making our first app and ultimately we weren't able to
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  turn it into the vision that I'd.
• 12:30
  Had in a statement on panels dot art he did expand on this more
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  where quote earlier this year the makeup of the development
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  team changed and despite our best efforts to bring in
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  collaborators who shared our passion and vision, we weren't
• 12:43
  able to find the right fit. It was also revealed that the
• 12:45
  team would be open sourcing the panel's app code so if anyone
• 12:50
  had the desire to pick up where panels left off they could do
• 12:53
  so. I thought this story kind of
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  goes to show how even some of the most popular creators who
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  have specific subject matter that they cover and have maybe a
• 13:02
  niche audience or specific target demographic can't
• 13:06
  necessarily rely on said audience to support them.
• 13:09
  They are obviously going to have to produce a quality product and
• 13:12
  one that is necessary. Like gone are the days when
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  audiences would literally buy into anything a creator would
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  produce. I thought Amanda Silberling put
• 13:22
  it perfectly for TechCrunch where she wrote quote, Brownlee
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  couldn't overcome the challenge of trying to create a paying
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  market for something that consumers are not accustomed to
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  paying for. And I feel like that is really
• 13:32
  the key take away here. OK, we are finally at my last
• 13:35
  story for today and this is a little bit of a quick one to
• 13:39
  mention and it has been going on for a couple of weeks now, but
• 13:42
  it only just came across my desk.
• 13:44
  This one is a little bit more of an industry one and also once
• 13:48
  again about money a little bit. But we need to talk about how
• 13:51
  there are a couple of tick tocks going viral talking about how
• 13:54
  Aaron Parnis is killing journalism.
• 13:57
  Quote UN quote. If you aren't familiar with
• 13:59
  Aaron, he is super popular online where he first gained a
• 14:02
  following for breaking down various political issues and
• 14:05
  news stories on social media platforms like TikTok.
• 14:09
  Now he continues to post videos on TikTok and also on other
• 14:12
  platforms like Sub Stack where he has a newsletter called the
• 14:15
  Panis Perspective. In his sub stack, he condenses
• 14:19
  breaking news stories for his audience.
• 14:21
  And there are a lot of sub stacks out there that do a
• 14:24
  similar thing. For context, he has over 630 K
• 14:27
  subscribers. Like literally goals.
• 14:29
  Please go subscribe to our sub stack so we can reach that.
• 14:32
  And considering the massive audience he has, there's clearly
• 14:35
  value in what he does. And of course in new media,
• 14:39
  social media, fast journalists in general.
• 14:41
  But a creator named at public under Score Engagement took to
• 14:45
  TikTok with a review of Aaron's content and alleging that he is
• 14:48
  quote, UN quote, killing journalism.
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  He claimed that Aaron rarely cites his sources, or at least
• 14:54
  doesn't do so effectively. And I'll insert a clip of the
• 14:58
  TikTok here. We have some very serious news
• 15:00
  right now. Aaron Parnas is killing
• 15:01
  journalism. I reviewed Parnas videos and
• 15:03
  posts and found that he rarely credits his sources.
• 15:06
  In this Substack post, typical of most, he summarized 18 news
• 15:09
  items and only attributed one of them to the original reporting.
• 15:12
  And he didn't even bother to put a hyperlink.
• 15:14
  By taking the work of news outlets and passing it off as
• 15:17
  his own, Parnas is having the same effect on journalism as
• 15:20
  Google AI summaries, which have been killing the financial model
• 15:23
  of digital publishers who rely on web traffic to drive ad
• 15:26
  revenue and engagement with their audiences.
• 15:29
  He's choking off 1 of journalism's last life lines at
• 15:32
  a time when over half of all journalism jobs have been lost
• 15:35
  since 2005. I get that everybody's busy, and
• 15:37
  Parnas offers a valuable service condensing the news into an
• 15:41
  easily digestible form, and that's important in this day and
• 15:44
  age where our attention is compromised.
• 15:46
  But if he really gave an about the Walter Cronkite era of news,
• 15:49
  he'd be uplifting and championing journalism in the
• 15:52
  public interest, not drifting off of.
• 15:54
  It at Public under score Enlightenment has since made a
• 15:57
  follow up video showing some of the comments that Aaron left on
• 16:00
  his initial video where he explained that he does indeed
• 16:03
  cite his sources effectively, especially when he relies on
• 16:06
  third parties, but often he does do his own sourcing and
• 16:10
  reporting. But in that video at Public
• 16:12
  Enlightenment kind of doubled down on his initial argument.
• 16:15
  Aaron Parnas did not like my video about how he profits off
• 16:18
  of hardworking journalists without crediting them in the
• 16:20
  comments. He repeatedly insisted that he
• 16:22
  always cites his sources. Now I didn't want to cover this
• 16:25
  story to talk about Aaron Parnas specifically, but I do think it
• 16:28
  brings an interesting conversation to the forefront
• 16:31
  about plagiarism in social media.
• 16:33
  First journalism. And we truly are just in an era
• 16:36
  of plagiarism at this point, especially with AI and ChatGPT.
• 16:40
  But it was a thing before AI really took over.
• 16:43
  I'm not sure how much you guys remember this, but Video SASH
• 16:46
  Bomber guy, whose real name is Harry Brewis, went super viral a
• 16:50
  couple years ago for his almost 4 hour long documentary about
• 16:53
  plagiarism and the epidemic it is in the digital space.
• 16:57
  He focused specifically on the video essay space, calling out
• 17:01
  various creators, and using these examples, he ended up
• 17:04
  outlining the key elements of plagiarism on YouTube,
• 17:08
  specifically when creators write entire scripts using uncredited
• 17:11
  quotes or creating videos with footage from existing
• 17:15
  documentaries. And I definitely would recommend
• 17:17
  and you guys to watch this. Maybe not the whole thing, it is
• 17:19
  quite long, but if you have the time, definitely go for it.
• 17:21
  Aside from this, this whole video and saga has also brought
• 17:25
  up conversations about the cost of journalism and the role of
• 17:29
  new media versus traditional media, social media.
• 17:32
  First, journalism is clearly so important.
• 17:34
  I mean, that is part of what Centennial is.
• 17:37
  That is what Centennial is, and it is clearly a powerful way to
• 17:41
  connect with young audiences. But the investigative stuff and
• 17:44
  truly independent reporting is literally impossible without
• 17:48
  funding. And unfortunately it is hard to
• 17:50
  get funding as a little guy, or at least to source the level of
• 17:54
  funding needed for that kind of investigative work.
• 17:57
  That is why I think so many of these new age media companies
• 18:00
  slash journalist need to coexist with traditional mastheads
• 18:04
  because I think they can really work together.
• 18:06
  But I'm definitely curious to hear what you guys think about
• 18:10
  this story and yeah, how you kind of see a plagiarism fitting
• 18:14
  into digital fast journalism. Is that an issue you have come
• 18:18
  across? I'm curious.
• 18:20
  Well, that is everything from Mini Tech Scroll today.
• 18:23
  I hope you guys enjoyed and Lauren will speak to you guys
• 18:26
  tomorrow. Please join our Patreon.
• 18:29
  Other than that, thanks for listening.
• 18:30
  Bye.