What I'm Reading - 5/4/25

I had a fabulous trip to San Francisco this past week. It was great to see old friends and some new ones—more on my takeaways in Wednesday’s newsletter. Plus, Eric Church released his new album, Evangaline vs. the Machine. It’s fantastic. I highly recommend it.

This weekend is garden weekend on the shore. I’m putting in more flowers, getting my automatic watering system set up, some lights on the dock, and the crab pots and fishing poles ready. I’m so excited.

Have a great Sunday!

What I’m Reading

Must-Reads

I always make it a point to read Zuckerberg’s opening statement on the earnings calls, as they are one of the best ways to understand his thinking. This week, he also gave a bunch of interviews to align with LlamaCon. Ben Thompson of Stratechery goes deep with him on a bunch of things, including how Mark sees the ad industry fundamentally changing. The Verge has a write-up of that, and make sure to read Ben’s full interview.

Another thing to note is that there’s a news setting on WhatsApp I recommend you turn on for any of your group chats: WhatsApp now lets you block people from exporting your entire chat history.

How to Use AI

1. WIRED: 17 Tips to Take Your ChatGPT Prompts to the Next Level

2. WIRED: Welcome to ‘AI Unlocked’!

3. Creator Economy by Peter Young:(6) 5 AI Prompts to Find Your Hidden Blind Spots

AI Developments

1. LinkedIn News: Duolingo to swap contractors for AI

2. Wikimedia Foundation: Our new AI strategy puts Wikipedia's humans first

3. The Times: Microsoft sales jump amid AI investment and Europe pledge

4. Axios: ChatGPT and Visa brings shopping to chatbots

5. Institute for Progress: AI Action Plan Database

6. The Media Copilot: How AI skill building has changed

7. Blair Attard-Frost on LinkedIn: "I'm sharing all lecture slides, syllabi, & reading lists from both of my AI policy courses at University of Toronto."

Stories About Specific Countries

1. The Conversation: What political ads are Australians seeing online? Astroturfing, fake grassroots groups, and outright falsehoods

2. The New York Times: Mexico’s President Punches Back Against Kristi Noem’s Anti-Migrant Ads

3. Reuters: Romanian voters again turn to TikTok for guidance in rerun of annulled election

4. POLITICO: Here we go again! How to watch Romania’s do-over election like a pro

Political & Social Commentary

1. Chaotic Era: Democrats’ existential question: How to reach “opt-out” voters

2. The New York Times: If You’re a Voter Reading This, This Essay Is Not About You

3. Rolling Stone: White House Correspondents Dinner Weekend Was the Death Knell for Traditional D.C. Media

4. POLITICO: The unlikely election of Prime Minister Mark Carney

5. The Washington Post: What Substack wants in Trump’s Washington

6. Stratechery by Ben Thompson: Amazon, Trump, and Tariff Costs; Amazon Haul and Temu; Political Lessons

7. Axios: Trump's first 100 days of tech and AI policy

8. Nieman Journalism Lab: New York Magazine is now publishing on Substack

9. Axios: Digital creator jobs jump 7.5 times since 2020 to 1.5 million

10. DFRLab: The evolving role of AI-generated media in shaping disinformation campaigns

11. The NYU Stern Center for Business & Human Rights: Gaming and Governance Brief: April 2025 Digest

12. Dwarkesh Podcast by Dwarkesh Patel: Mark Zuckerberg – Meta's AGI Plan

13. Sprout Social: The 2025 Content Benchmarks Report

14. The New York Times: Musk Is Less Confident About DOGE Goals, 100 Days Into Trump Presidency

15. Vanity Fair: How Ezra Klein’s YouTube Makeover Points to Podcasting’s TV Future

16. The Washington Post: Opinion | C’mon, YouTube. Do the right thing and add C-SPAN to your lineup.

17. Newswhip: Q1 2025 Publisher Report

    1. News content on TikTok is booming: This is especially true for hard news and even civic content. TikTok now leads all platforms in news publisher engagement, accounting for 63% of the total and leaving a once dominant Instagram behind.

    2. Hard news is back at the top of feeds, especially on Facebook and X: Fox News, ABC, CBS, and CNN saw a combined 200% increase in engagement on Facebook compared to Q1 2024, and Fox News itself had a 700%+ increase.

    3. A few giants still drive most of the attention: Just five publishers — ESPN, Bleacher Report, Daily Mail, LADbible, and Fox News — account for over half of all engagement across platforms.

Legal & Regulatory

1. The NYU Stern Center for Business & Human Rights: Online Safety Regulations Around The World: The State of Play and The Way Forward – A Resource Guide

2. CNN Politics: House passes bill aimed at protecting victims of deepfake and revenge porn

3. Center for American Progress: Public Companies Should Be Transparent About Not Complying With TikTok Ban

4. POLITICO: TikTok hit with €530M fine after illegally sending users’ data to China

5. The Washington Post: Take It Down Act, addressing nonconsensual deepfakes and 'revenge porn,' passes. What is it?

Miscellaneous Insights & Reports

1. Bloomberg: How ‘Yellowstone’ Became a $3 Billion Franchise – and Where It Goes Next

Company Announcements

1. Anthropic: Securing America's Compute Advantage: Anthropic's Position on the Diffusion Rule