The Slop Report - October 1, 2026
Today: That Company That Buys Struggling News Sites and Turns…; Internet Infrastructure Services Empower Deepfake…; Federal appeals court upholds Thomson Reuters’…
Your daily digest of AI-generated content news from around the web. All signal, no slop.
1. That Company That Buys Struggling News Sites and Turns Them Into AI-Powered Content Mills Has Halted Publishing After a Futurism Investigation
Futurism - · Sep 30
Brown Brothers Media has ceased publication — for now. The post That Company That Buys Struggling News Sites and Turns Them Into AI-Powered Content Mills Has Halted Publishing After a Futurism Investigation appeared first on Futurism .
2. Internet Infrastructure Services Empower Deepfake Abuse, New Study Finds
404 Media - · Sep 30
Cloudflare, Google, and Proton were among the “dominant” infrastructure providers to sites dedicated to hosting abusive content, the study found.
3. Federal appeals court upholds Thomson Reuters’ landmark AI copyright win
Nieman Lab - · Sep 30
On Tuesday, a U.S. federal appeals court ruled in favor of Thomson Reuters, upholding the company’s landmark win in a copyright infringement case against the now-defunct legal AI startup Ross Intelligence. The ruling marks the first federal appeals case to reject a fair use argument for using
4. Hershey CEO Kirk Tanner on GLP-1s, AI, and keeping an iconic brand relevant
Fast Company Tech - · Oct 1
The second a brand like Hershey stops being culturally relevant, says CEO Kirk Tanner, you should be worried. So he explains exactly what he’s doing to make sure that never happens. Tanner also reveals why GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1) users are actually good for the candy business, how AI i
5. AI boom could trigger market shocks, Bank of England boss warns
BBC Technology - · Oct 1
Andrew Bailey says the central bank is watching the waves of cash being invested in artificial intelligence “very carefully”.
6. How AI could ‘supercharge’ election risks across south-east Asia
The Guardian Tech - · Oct 1
Some experts fear AI could be weaponised in south-east Asia, home to nations with predominately young and hyper-connected populations Years ago it would have been an elaborate operation involving an army of cyber troops creating fake news websites, social media accounts and forged dossiers, all depl
7. AI agents tried to hack a Canadian government website, researchers say
Washington Post Tech - · Oct 1
The finding follows OpenAI’s confirmation that its misbehaving AI agents probed U.S. government websites and hacked an Australian government site.
8. New Mexico to jump into frontier AI regulation
Politico Technology - · Oct 1
Attorney General Raúl Torrez is set to announce a proposal for safety checks on AI development, following California and New York’s lead.
9. Gavin Newsom signs laws to protect California workers from AI threat
The Guardian Tech - · Oct 1
Democratic governor sharply critical of Donald Trump for not passing comprehensive federal AI regulations Governor Gavin Newsom signed laws Wednesday aimed at protecting California workers from the threats of artificial intelligence , including potential job losses and workplace surveillance. The la
10. The AI telling farmers when to harvest
BBC Technology - · Sep 30
Will farmers want AI tools to help judge when to pick fruit, or is their own intuition enough?
11. Rogue AI agents: A timeline of security breaches since the attack on Hugging Face
Fast Company Tech - · Sep 30
In one alarming announcement after another, artificial intelligence companies in recent months have shared examples of their technology acting in ways that appeared to evade instructions from humans . The episodes have highlighted the vulnerabilities in AI security and raised questions over how the
12. Ask Trump’s AI chatbot who won in 2020. You might not get an answer.
Axios - · Sep 30
The Trump administration’s new AI service gave users conflicting responses to politically sensitive questions Tuesday and Wednesday: sometimes answering them and sometimes refusing. The big picture: As the Trump administration increasingly uses AI and answers the public’s questions through America.g
13. Huawei boss claims homegrown AI chip sales top Nvidia in China
The Register - · Sep 30
The chips may not be as advanced, but they won’t get banned at a moment’s notice, Eric Xu says
14. In The Wake Of The Latest Unprecedented AI Proofs, What Now For Mathematics And Mathematicians?
Techdirt - · Sep 30
As arguments rage about the possible or real threats of AI, there is one domain that AI has already turned on its head, and in the space of just the last few weeks: mathematics. The first hint of what was coming arrived in May, when OpenAI announced that one of its models had disproved a […]
15. Google Reportedly Tests Paying Publishers For AI Search Results
Slashdot - · Sep 30
Google is reportedly testing a program that pays around 100 publishers based on how much their content contributes to its AI-powered search features. According to The Information, one publisher earned more than $1 million over a year, while another has received roughly $50,000 to $60,000.” Digiday r
16. Ask HN: How to measure the energy impact of a website in Linux
Hacker News - · Sep 30
For the context, I'm on Fedora Kinoite (Atomic KDE) 44. The laptop is an AMD Frame.work 13.<p>Today I noticed that Firefox is showing a speaker icon all the time. Closing my pinned tans one by one showed that it's because of ChatGPT.<p>Now I had this question: does it really impact my batt
17. Reddit Is Killing RSS Feeds, Ending Public API Access
Slashdot - · Sep 30
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Amid a number of updates for moderators and developers announced Wednesday comes bad news for supporters of a more open web: Reddit is ending support for RSS feeds. Reddit says RSS has now become a “common surface for large-scale scraping and auto
18. AI voice startup ElevenLabs doubles valuation to $22B
TechCrunch AI - · Sep 30
The $300 million employee tender was co-led by Wellington and T. Rowe Price.
19. The AI Tamagotchis are coming
The Verge AI - · Sep 30
While AI has made plenty of inroads on people’s phones and computers, it’s largely failed in dedicated devices. But over the next year, two major AI companies, Meta and OpenAI, will attempt to change that. And they’re apparently betting on a similar path: testing appetites for physical hardware with
20. Here’s what AI leaders are saying about Trump’s new safety plan
The Verge AI - · Sep 30
After hosting a meal with Big Tech leaders on Tuesday, President Donald Trump responded to journalist questions about his artificial intelligence announcements in typical fashion. He said his previous claims regarding fears around AI safety being a “hoax” cooked up by Democrats no longer apply now t
21. Trump Administration Launches New AI-Powered ‘America.gov’ Website
Slashdot - · Sep 30
fahrbot-bot shares a report from CNN: President Donald Trump on Tuesday unveiled America.gov, a government website meant to serve as a one-stop shop for people trying to accomplish basic tasks like renewing a passport, enrolling in Medicare or applying for disaster relief. The site, which launched w
22. 📱 Hey Siri, How Do I Limit AI Data Access? | EFFector 38.17
EFF Deeplinks - · Sep 30
With the launch of iOS 27, Apple is rolling out a variety of new AI features to its familiar voice assistant, Siri. But how are AI tools like these handling our data? In our latest EFFector newsletter , we’re talking about the privacy complications of AI phone features. JOIN OUR NEWSLETTER For over
23. Show HN: Beyond “chat with your database” – agentic data exploration
Hacker News - · Sep 30
Business intelligence is changing. AI can now do more than turn a question into a single SQL query: it can investigate a question through a series of queries, examining the result of one query to decide what to query next.<p>Today, to answer a business question against a database, analysts use a too
24. Trump Hosts AI CEOs to Discuss Safety Standards, Rebrands AI as ‘Super Intelligence’
Slashdot - · Sep 30
hcs_$reboot writes: Trump hosted executives from OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, Google, Nvidia, and other tech companies at the White House. They agreed to voluntary AI-safety standards, including independent audits and safeguards aimed at preventing AI systems from accessing or hacking technical systems
25. We need ‘right to intervene’ in AI amid growing threat, says Bank of England boss
The Guardian Tech - · Sep 30
Andrew Bailey’s comments come as fears grow that rogue models could take financial system hostage Business live – latest updates The governor of the Bank of England has called for the “right to intervene” in the AI industry amid growing fears that rogue models could take the financial system hostage
25 stories sourced from 404 Media, Axios, BBC Technology, EFF Deeplinks, Fast Company Tech, Futurism, Hacker News, Nieman Lab, Politico Technology, Slashdot, TechCrunch AI, Techdirt, The Guardian Tech, The Register, The Verge AI, Washington Post Tech. The Slop Report is published daily. Subscribe via RSS.