What's going on here?

[mttaggart@infosec.exchange]

Putting this here so all can see it. Ars forum thread where the pull and investigation are mentioned: https://arstechnica.com/civis/threads/journalistic-standards.1511650/

[Gast]

@theotherbrook @mttaggart it still exists in their forum.

https://arstechnica.com/civis/threads/after-a-routine-code-rejection-an-ai-agent-published-a-hit-piece-on-someone-by-name.1511649/

[mttaggart@infosec.exchange]

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/

[Gast]

@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.)

[mttaggart@infosec.exchange]

@theorangetheme I think the lock might be SOP for a pulled story. And mods tend not to like rampant speculation.

[Gast]

@mttaggart

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-00648919

https://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

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-11-06/saudis-plan-100-billion-ai-powerhouse-to-rival-uae-s-tech-hub

1/

[Gast]

2/

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/

https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/putin-wanted-ai-supremacy-now-russia-is-struggling-to-stay-in-the-race-0e0deeb6

https://www.thetimes.com/world/europe/article/how-technophobe-putin-led-russia-to-surrender-in-the-ai-arms-race-xk6hrn96l

[Gast]

@SnoopJ @aud it isn’t *quite* a milkshake duck in degree, but maybe in spirit

[Gast]

@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.

[Gast]

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.html

https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattdurot/2025/07/17/bill-gates-charles-koch-and-three-other-billionaires-are-giving-1-billion-to-enhance-economic-mobility-in-the-us/

https://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.motherjones.com/politics/2017/09/top-facebook-exec-sheryl-sandberg-just-apologized-for-racist-ad-targeting/

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

[Gast]

@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?

[Gast]

@mttaggart ALAS, THE MOONSHARK HAS EATEN YOUR LINK.

[Gast]

4/

https://arlenegoldbard-1818.medium.com/flood-the-zone-25e592e1fc39

https://www.vice.com/en/article/steve-bannon-jan-6-trial-arguments/

https://www.wral.com/this-infamous-steve-bannon-quote-is-key-to-understanding-americas-crazy-politics/19984533/

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_falsehood

Firehosing & automation
https://mediamanipulation.org/definitions/distributed-amplification/

https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/14/6/391

[Gast]

@mttaggart this seems so unlike Benji Edwards, I'm really surprised

[Gast]

@Npars01

Bondi's rendition looked more like the classic (and abhorent) cartoon version of hysterical female pms. Not how to impress the board in the western world. These women Trump goes for are all broken and the men stupid.

[Gast]

@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.

[Gast]

@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.

[Gast]

@bnys @mttaggart Berger is an embarassment

[Gast]

@mttaggart

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.

[Gast]

@mttaggart

More like ArseTechnica, am I right?

@arstechnica