Samantha Cole

Los Angeles, New York

Co-Founder and Journalist at 404 Media

journalist @404mediaco author of HOW SEX CHANGED THE INTERNET [email protected] signal: sam.404

Articles

Following Layoffs, Automattic Employees Discover Leak-Catching Watermarks

1 week ago | 404media.co | Samantha Cole

As part of the company's months-long obsession with catching employees leaking internal developments to the press, staff at Wordpress parent company Automattic recently noticed individually-unique watermarks on internal sites, according to employees who spoke to 404 Media. Automattic added the watermarks to an internal employee communications platform called P2. P2 is a WordPress product other workplaces can also use.
I Went to See ‘God’s Influencer,’ the Millennial Saint Carlo Acutis

1 week ago | 404media.co | Samantha Cole

When I walked into the Shrine of the Renunciation in Assisi, I thought about going to my friends’ houses in high school to play Xbox, and how bizarre it would be if one of those teenagers became a saint. What if the kid from down the cul-de-sac died, and they put his face on keychains, fridge magnets, and rosaries, and people stood in line to see his dead body through glass?
Twitter on a Vape: Puff, Post, Pollute

1 week ago | kqed.org | Morgan Sung |Maya Cueva |Chris Egusa |Samantha Cole

Failed to save articlePlease try againTech reporter Samantha Cole holds a SWYPE touchscreen disposable vape in July 2024. She ordered the device after viral posts that summer showed digital vapes with built-in social media apps. In this episode, tech reporter Samatha Cole shares what happened when she tried to “vape the internet” after seeing a viral post about a disposable touchscreen vape with built-in social media.
Behind the Blog: The Economy, Robot Umpires, and Monsters

1 week ago | 404media.co | Samantha Cole

This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we discuss the economy and the state of 404 Media, the need for robot umpires, and bringing on a new regular contributor to the site. EMANUEL: Something that I couldn’t help but think about a lot this week was how easily one of the worst parts of working at a big company like VICE was the regular layoffs.
Another Masterful Gambit: DOGE Moves From Secure, Reliable Tape Archives to Hackable Digital Records

2 weeks ago | 404media.co | Samantha Cole

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) announced Monday that the General Services Administration converted 14,000 magnetic to digital records, and claimed the process saved a million dollars a year. The problem is, magnetic tapes are regarded by storage and archivist professionals as being a stable, reliable, and safe medium for long-term data storage.
Behind the Blog: Ancient Civilizations and Modern-Day Driving

2 weeks ago | 404media.co | Samantha Cole

This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we discuss learning from civilizations past and learning to drive. JASON: I mentioned this on a podcast a few weeks ago, but I have been falling asleep lately to the Ancient Americas YouTube channel.
Massive, Unarchivable Datasets of Cancer, Covid, and Alzheimer's Research Could Be Lost Forever

2 weeks ago | 404media.co | Samantha Cole

Almost two dozen repositories of research and public health data supported by the National Institutes of Health are marked for “review” under the Trump administration’s direction, and researchers and archivists say the data is at risk of being lost forever if the repositories go down. “The problem with archiving this data is that we can’t,” Lisa Chinn, Head of Research Data Services at the University of Chicago, told 404 Media.
Massive, Unarchivable Datasets of Cancer, Covid, and Alzheimer's Research Could Be Lost Forever

2 weeks ago | flipboard.com | Samantha Cole

1 hour agoCountry singer, former teen idol dead at 86: ‘He was simply the best’A Grammy-nominated country and pop singer is dead at age 86.Johnny Tillotson died Tuesday while surrounded by family at his home in Los Angeles, the …3 hours ago‘60s teen idol who inspired Elvis, Dean Martin dead at 86Johnny Tillotson -- best known for his hit song, “Poetry in Motion -- died Tuesday, his wife, Nancy shared on social media. He was 86.
'I Want to Make You Immortal:' How One Woman Confronted Her Deepfakes Harasser

3 weeks ago | 404media.co | Samantha Cole

Content warning: This article contains mentions of self-harm and suicide. Joanne Chew found deepfakes of herself online the same way many women have found themselves face-swapped into porn: She was searching her own name after a big accomplishment. “Sometimes I just Google my name to see what comes up,” Chew told me in a phone call in August 2024. “I want to see, like, is it my artwork, or my acting, or my main website that comes up first?
T-Mobile Shows Users the Names, Pictures, and Exact Locations of Random Children

3 weeks ago | archive.is | Jason Koebler |Emanuel Maiberg |Samantha Cole

On Tuesday, some parents lost the ability to track the locations of their children using a T-Mobile tracking device and app and instead were shown the exact locations of random other children around the country, 404 Media has learned. T-Mobile sells a small GPS tracker for parents called SyncUP, which they can use to track the locations of young children who don’t have cell phones yet.