What's going on here?
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@mttaggart Locking the comments seems pretty... bad? I mean, one of their authors generated slop, and one of their editors approved slop. Is it more complicated or...? (I'm being a little flippant, but this is a terrible look for Ars already.)
@theorangetheme I think the lock might be SOP for a pulled story. And mods tend not to like rampant speculation.
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What's going on here? The matplotlib maintainer this story is about correctly notes that all the quotes from his post in the article are made up.
AI isn't intended to be accurate, useful, or productive.
It's just automated information pollution like Steve Bannon's version of Russian "flood the zone with sh*t" disinformation.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/11/12/jeffrey-epstein-donald-trump-russia-emails-00648919https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/crime/article312917423.html
https://www.bylinesupplement.com/p/in-putins-orbit-the-crypto-politics
Look at the investors behind AI.
Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE
They don't have to fly planes into buildings anymore to destroy democracy & fry the planet.https://breakingdefense.com/2026/02/future-of-military-ai-in-saudi-arabia-ai-enhanced-or-ai-native/
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/27/technology/saudi-arabia-ai-exporter.html
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AI isn't intended to be accurate, useful, or productive.
It's just automated information pollution like Steve Bannon's version of Russian "flood the zone with sh*t" disinformation.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/11/12/jeffrey-epstein-donald-trump-russia-emails-00648919https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/crime/article312917423.html
https://www.bylinesupplement.com/p/in-putins-orbit-the-crypto-politics
Look at the investors behind AI.
Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE
They don't have to fly planes into buildings anymore to destroy democracy & fry the planet.https://breakingdefense.com/2026/02/future-of-military-ai-in-saudi-arabia-ai-enhanced-or-ai-native/
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/27/technology/saudi-arabia-ai-exporter.html
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Russia & Putin
Putin deluded himself that AI-enabled warfare will solve his manpower problems & population bottlenecks. 1.3 million dead soldiers so far in Ukraine.
https://www.neimagazine.com/news/putin-links-nuclear-buildout-to-russias-ai-ambitions/ -
@mttaggart i expect better from kyle; i do not trust benj edwards at all. between him and eric berger doing free pr for elon musk ars is in a sorry state right now
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Russia & Putin
Putin deluded himself that AI-enabled warfare will solve his manpower problems & population bottlenecks. 1.3 million dead soldiers so far in Ukraine.
https://www.neimagazine.com/news/putin-links-nuclear-buildout-to-russias-ai-ambitions/3/
Koch Network
Building a White Supremacist Constitution one brick at a time over 60 years.The hate is now automated, corrupt, & well funded.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/20/us/politics/koch-network-2024-election-trump.htmlhttps://www.desmog.com/2025/12/11/the-koch-network-is-pushing-trump-to-accelerate-ai-documents-show/
https://progressive.org/latest/like-dad-charles-koch-bircher-new-documents/
With AI, the wealthy skip paying for hate-for-hire campaigns like Facebook, Tenet Media, or the Russian Internet Research Agency
https://www.democracynow.org/2014/7/8/kochs_anti_civil_rights_roots
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/who-sponsored-the-hate
https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/5326284-birchers-conspiracies-trump-legacy/
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/did-the-john-birch-society-win-in-the-end
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@catsalad Slop on slop on slop. Literally.
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What's going on here? The matplotlib maintainer this story is about correctly notes that all the quotes from his post in the article are made up.
@mttaggart ALAS, THE MOONSHARK HAS EATEN YOUR LINK.
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Koch Network
Building a White Supremacist Constitution one brick at a time over 60 years.The hate is now automated, corrupt, & well funded.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/20/us/politics/koch-network-2024-election-trump.htmlhttps://www.desmog.com/2025/12/11/the-koch-network-is-pushing-trump-to-accelerate-ai-documents-show/
https://progressive.org/latest/like-dad-charles-koch-bircher-new-documents/
With AI, the wealthy skip paying for hate-for-hire campaigns like Facebook, Tenet Media, or the Russian Internet Research Agency
https://www.democracynow.org/2014/7/8/kochs_anti_civil_rights_roots
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/who-sponsored-the-hate
https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/5326284-birchers-conspiracies-trump-legacy/
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/did-the-john-birch-society-win-in-the-end
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https://arlenegoldbard-1818.medium.com/flood-the-zone-25e592e1fc39
https://www.vice.com/en/article/steve-bannon-jan-6-trial-arguments/
https://www.persuasion.community/p/trumps-firehose-of-falsehood
Pam Bondi's performance in congressional hearings was an excellent example of Russian-style media manipulation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firehose_of_falsehoodFirehosing & automation
https://mediamanipulation.org/definitions/distributed-amplification/ -
What's going on here? The matplotlib maintainer this story is about correctly notes that all the quotes from his post in the article are made up.
@mttaggart this seems so unlike Benji Edwards, I'm really surprised
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https://arlenegoldbard-1818.medium.com/flood-the-zone-25e592e1fc39
https://www.vice.com/en/article/steve-bannon-jan-6-trial-arguments/
https://www.persuasion.community/p/trumps-firehose-of-falsehood
Pam Bondi's performance in congressional hearings was an excellent example of Russian-style media manipulation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firehose_of_falsehoodFirehosing & automation
https://mediamanipulation.org/definitions/distributed-amplification/ -
@mttaggart @catsalad wait, was there *any* truth in there whatsoever? Like, it sounds like it was 100% made up?
Just like the Daily Mail is known for?
@http_error_418 @mttaggart @catsalad No, I saw the original Git page yesterday and there was a blog post from him after.
It's a mess, but it's real.
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@bnys @mttaggart Yep, when you add the Transphobic pieces a few year back and Aurich moderation that tends to let the polite fascist slide while banning people calling out fascist, they lost my sub, which Siracusa had earned them.
@Sobex @bnys @mttaggart
and while this was a faster response than the trans hit piece of a couple years ago, it's the same playbook: lock comments, promise an investigation, and hope it dies down over the weekend.
A pity really. A place I used to value. For me, the anti-trans piece was the end. -
@mttaggart i expect better from kyle; i do not trust benj edwards at all. between him and eric berger doing free pr for elon musk ars is in a sorry state right now
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UPDATE: They pulled the story, but I had it up and had SingleFile in my browser, so: https://mttaggart.neocities.org/ars-whoopsie
They surely pulled it and it now has their moonshark 404 page, the moonshark ate the AI slop.
Edit: since the story itself was about an AI agent, we can dub this a clusterfuck.
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What's going on here? The matplotlib maintainer this story is about correctly notes that all the quotes from his post in the article are made up.
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@mttaggart ALAS, THE MOONSHARK HAS EATEN YOUR LINK.
@inpc Keep reading the thread friendo
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Aaand the full comments thread from the original story: https://arstechnica.com/civis/threads/after-a-routine-code-rejection-an-ai-agent-published-a-hit-piece-on-someone-by-name.1511649/
@mttaggart did you archive that?
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What's going on here? The matplotlib maintainer this story is about correctly notes that all the quotes from his post in the article are made up.
@mttaggart@infosec.exchange dead internet theory is true again
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@mttaggart so, ars technica is now merely slop as well?
@mttaggart ah:
We are doing an investigation right now to figure out exactly what happened. Given that it's Friday afternoon we probably won't have something to report back until Monday, but we will follow up with an explanation for our readers. Edit: Monday is a holiday, my bad, and I don't know what we'll be able to say, so I don't want to over-promise anything.
OK, we’ll wait and see…
