I wanted to share some quick thoughts on how modern Card Game Development Company and Board Game development company are reshaping the industry:

From Traditional to Digital
Game studios are now blending classic tabletop mechanics with mobile and web platforms, bringing beloved game styles to players worldwide with real-time multiplayer, AI-driven opponents, and cross-platform play.

Smarter Design, Faster Prototyping
We're using Unity, Unreal, and custom engines to rapidly prototype, test, and scale card/board games. What used to take months now takes weeks, with player feedback loops built in from day one.

Global Audiences, Local Flavors
New games aren't just Western-centric anymore. Studios are building culturally rich, regionally themed games that resonate with players globally, such as mythology-based card decks or strategic board games with historical themes.

If you're a developer, publisher, or player interested in the evolution of card and board gaming, I’d love to connect and hear your thoughts.

In an industry full of grifters and companies hell-bent on making the internet worse, it is hard to think of a worse actor than Meta, or a worse product that the AI Discover feed.

404 Media

2025-06-17 14:47:09

Meta Invents New Way to Humiliate Users With Feed of People's Chats With AI

I was sick last week, so I did not have time to write about the Discover Tab in Meta’s AI app, which, as Katie Notopoulos of Business Insider has pointed out, is the “saddest place on the internet.” Many very good articles have already been written about it, and yet, I cannot allow its existence to go unremarked upon in the pages of 404 Media.

If you somehow missed this while millions of people were protesting in the streets, state politicians were being assassinated, war was breaking out between Israel and Iran, the military was deployed to the streets of Los Angeles, and a Coinbase-sponsored military parade rolled past dozens of passersby in Washington, D.C., here is what the “Discover” tab is: The Meta AI app, which is the company’s competitor to the ChatGPT app, is posting users’ conversations on a public “Discover” page where anyone can see the things that users are asking Meta’s chatbot to make for them.

This includes various innocuous image and video generations that have become completely inescapable on all of Meta’s platforms (things like “egg with one eye made of black and gold,” “adorable Maltese dog becomes a heroic lifeguard,” “one second for God to step into your mind”), but it also includes entire chatbot conversations where users are seemingly unknowingly leaking a mix of embarrassing, personal, and sensitive details about their lives onto a public platform owned by Mark Zuckerberg. In almost all cases, I was able to trivially tie these chats to actual, real people because the app uses your Instagram or Facebook account as your login.

In several minutes last week, I saved a series of these chats into a Slack channel I created and called “insanemetaAI.” These included:

• entire conversations about “my current medical condition,” which I could tie back to a real human being with one click
• details about someone’s life insurance plan
• “At a point in time with cerebral palsy, do you start to lose the use of your legs cause that’s what it’s feeling like so that’s what I’m worried about”
• details about a situationship gone wrong after a woman did not like a gift
• an older disabled man wondering whether he could find and “afford” a young wife in Medellin, Colombia on his salary (“I'm at the stage in my life where I want to find a young woman to care for me and cook for me. I just want to relax. I'm disabled and need a wheelchair, I am severely overweight and suffer from fibromyalgia and asthma. I'm 5'9 280lb but I think a good young woman who keeps me company could help me lose the weight.”)
• “What counties [sic] do younger women like older white men? I need details. I am 66 and single. I’m from Iowa and am open to moving to a new country if I can find a younger woman.”
• “My boyfriend tells me to not be so sensitive, does that affect him being a feminist?”

Rachel Tobac, CEO of Social Proof Security, compiled a series of chats she saw on the platform and messaged them to me. These are even crazier and include people asking “What cream or ointment can be used to soothe a bad scarring reaction on scrotum sack caused by shaving razor,” “create a letter pleading judge bowser to not sentence me to death over the murder of two people” (possibly a joke?), someone asking if their sister, a vice president at a company that “has not paid its corporate taxes in 12 years,” could be liable for that, audio of a person talking about how they are homeless, and someone asking for help with their cancer diagnosis, someone discussing being newly sexually interested in trans people, etc.

Tobac gave me a list of the types of things she’s seen people posting in the Discover feed, including people’s exact medical issues, discussions of crimes they had committed, their home addresses, talking to the bot about extramarital affairs, etc.

“When a tool doesn’t work the way a person expects, there can be massive personal security consequences,” Tobac told me.

“Meta AI should pause the public Discover feed,” she added. “Their users clearly don’t understand that their AI chat bot prompts about their murder, cancer diagnosis, personal health issues, etc have been made public. [Meta should have] ensured all AI chat bot prompts are private by default, with no option to accidentally share to a social media feed. Don’t wait for users to accidentally post their secrets publicly. Notice that humans interact with AI chatbots with an expectation of privacy, and meet them where they are at. Alert users who have posted their prompts publicly and that their prompts have been removed for them from the feed to protect their privacy.”

Since several journalists wrote about this issue, Meta has made it clearer to users when interactions with its bot will be shared to the Discover tab. Notopoulos reported Monday that Meta seemed to no longer be sharing text chats to the Discover tab. When I looked for prompts Monday afternoon, the vast majority were for images. But the text prompts were back Tuesday morning, including a full audio conversation of a woman asking the bot what the statute of limitations are for a woman to press charges for domestic abuse in the state of Indiana, which had taken place two minutes before it was shown to me. I was also shown six straight text prompts of people asking questions about the movie franchise John Wick, a chat about “exploring historical inconsistencies surrounding the Holocaust,” and someone asking for advice on “anesthesia for obstetric procedures.”

I was also, Tuesday morning, fed a lengthy chat where an identifiable person explained that they are depressed: “just life hitting me all the wrong ways daily.” The person then left a comment on the post “Was this posted somewhere because I would be horrified? Yikes?”

Several of the chats I saw and mentioned in this article are now private, but most of them are not. I can imagine few things on the internet that would be more invasive than this, but only if I try hard. This is like Google publishing your search history publicly, or randomly taking some of the emails you send and publishing them in a feed to help inspire other people on what types of emails they too could send. It is like Pornhub turning your searches or watch history into a public feed that could be trivially tied to your actual identity. Mistake or not, feature or not (and it’s not clear what this actually is), it is crazy that Meta did this; I still cannot actually believe it.

In an industry full of grifters and companies hell-bent on making the internet worse, it is hard to think of a more impactful, worse actor than Meta, whose platforms have been fully overrun with viral AI slop, AI-powered disinformation, AI scams, AI nudify apps, and AI influencers and whose impact is outsized because billions of people still use its products as their main entry point to the internet. Meta has shown essentially zero interest in moderating AI slop and spam and as we have reported many times, literally funds it, sees it as critical to its business model, and believes that in the future we will all have AI friends on its platforms. While reporting on the company, it has been hard to imagine what rock bottom will be, because Meta keeps innovating bizarre and previously unimaginable ways to destroy confidence in social media, invade people’s privacy, and generally fuck up its platforms and the internet more broadly.

If I twist myself into a pretzel, I can rationalize why Meta launched this feature, and what its idea for doing so is. Presented with an empty text box that says “Ask Meta AI,” people do not know what to do with it, what to type, or what to do with AI more broadly, and so Meta is attempting to model that behavior for people and is willing to sell out its users’ private thoughts to do so. I did not have “Meta will leak people’s sad little chats with robots to the entire internet” on my 2025 bingo card, but clearly I should have.

‘AI Instagram Influencers’ Are Deepfaking Their Faces Onto Real Women’s Bodies

AI 'influencers' on Instagram have racked up hundreds of thousands of followers and millions of views by stealing reels from real women to make the AI seem more "believable."

^{Jason Koebler (404 Media)}

Okay, I'm not exactly sure what the precise story is above. Schweiz (Switzerland) being a completely landlocked country, I suppose we're to imagine the body of water here being either of lakes Geneva, Neuchâtel or Bienne, yeah?

So then, a couple personal reminiscences just below, and then let's get to Muralt's excellent art, yeah? (I promise it'll be over soon 😁)

jaredillustrations.ch/wp-conte…

As for me, I did visit Schweiz and Lake Geneva a long time ago as a youth, and was impressed by its supreme cleanliness, and (expensive, haha) charm. The chocolates were incredible, and I remember a nice sweetened, hot cocoa mix called... "Suchet," was it? (hmm, or was that an Italian one?) Point is, there wasn't anything quite like that hot chocolate across the two major US cities I grew up in, I think maybe because such brands processed cocoa solids a bit differently than in the American market. (side-note: I found the Toblerone chocolate imported to the USA quite excellent, but surprisingly clumsy in terms of marketing to the American market, but... whatever)

deih43ym53wif.cloudfront.net/l…

Oh, and I especially remember the super-pleasant little family hikes we took, around our hotel, I think around the base of Mt. Jungfrau or her 'sibs.' I also recall the countryside teeming with a sort of 'classic Teletubbies' landscape, i.e. vaast, perfectly manicured English-style lawns, featuring cattle grazing just as they pleased...

Now for some reason (as that little boy), and despite a previous visit to an uncle's ranch, I'd never really SEEN cows (i.e. female milk-producing-bred cattle) up close, before. The Swiss cows seemed so cute and placid to me, which impacted me nicely those days, specifically as a troubled kid with both 'high-energy' and 'low-energy' conflicting qualities. (oof, hard to explain the whole mess, really)

Anyway! Every time our family passed by a tourist-type shop, and for the duration of the trip, I would be SURE to pick up a couple more 'milker' postcards as I discovered them, which I eventually built in to a mighty stack of excellence, which in my mind rivaled or even surpassed (haha) my buddies' typical, lame baseball card collections. Now, far as I know, 'cows against cowboys' didn't start as a conscience thing at the time, but maaybee it was subconsciously a kind of earthy, spicy retort to 'putting people in boxes,' like-- "Well, my players give delicious milk (and beef); how many of your 'baseball stars' can claim the same, losers?" (lol, I'm so ridiculous)

i.imgur.com/5Ewpl9y.jpeg

For example: "I'll trade you my awesome "Swiss-kiss" card for one of your Babe Ruth's and a huge stack of Barry Bonds!" (no, I'm not implying nuttin, babe; absolutely not!) (I swear, though, that exact image was on one my beloved collectibles)

Haha, alright, one last little ramble before I get to Muralt's stuff. It's that my family's Euro trip way back when ignited in me a real appreciation and curiosity about Europe as a whole, that in fact turned in to something of a life-long pursuit, especially when it comes to BD. See, we also visited Italy, Austria and Hungary for the record, all equally-fascinating places. Altho Hungary being part of the Soviet bloc at the time, it was a little scary getting in and out.
Yeap yeap, /DearDiary

*phew*
Okay, let's get to it--

jaredillustrations.ch/wp-conte…

Muralt is a talented illustrator and comics artist from Switzerland. He has worked for many years in areas such as comics, games, industrial design and advertising. His style is characterized by a high level of detail, realism and emotional expressiveness. He skillfully combines traditional and digital techniques, which gives his work a special look. --"DSCVR" site

jaredillustrations.ch/wp-conte…

His most famous comic is "The Fall", released in 2018. This is a graphic novel that tells about life in a post-apocalyptic world where people are forced to fight for survival in a new reality. It received high praise from critics and was popular with readers.

cdn.imagecomics.com/assets/i/r…

While working on comics and illustrations, Muralt pays special attention to details and characterizes his characters, making them unique and recognizable. This helps him create unique worlds and atmospheres in his work that are unfamiliar and memorable.

jaredillustrations.ch/wp-conte…

jaredillustrations.ch/wp-conte…

For sure, be sure to check out these cool, amazing little sketchbooks in the link, below:

jaredillustrations.ch/wp-conte…

Oh dear, that could almost double as the Statue of Liberty... 😔

Muralt's site:
jaredillustrations.ch/category…

A day after Israel attacked Iran on Friday, a cargo plane took off from China. The next day, a second plane departed from a coastal city. Then on Monday, yet another departed, this time from Shanghai – three flights in three days.

Data showed that on each flight, the plane flew westward along northern China, crossing into Kazakhstan, then south into Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan – and then falling off the radar as it neared Iran.

To add to the mystery, flight plans indicated a final destination of Luxembourg, but the aircraft appeared to have never flown near European skies.

Aviation experts have noted that the type of plane used, Boeing 747 freighters, are commonly used for transporting military equipment and weapons, and hired to fly government contract orders.

A day after Israel attacked Iran on Friday, a cargo plane took off from China. The next day, a second plane departed from a coastal city. Then on Monday, yet another departed, this time from Shanghai – three flights in three days.

Data showed that on each flight, the plane flew westward along northern China, crossing into Kazakhstan, then south into Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan – and then falling off the radar as it neared Iran.

To add to the mystery, flight plans indicated a final destination of Luxembourg, but the aircraft appeared to have never flown near European skies.

Aviation experts have noted that the type of plane used, Boeing 747 freighters, are commonly used for transporting military equipment and weapons, and hired to fly government contract orders.

cross-posted from: lemmy.ca/post/45953900

The National Unity Government (NUG) has begun constructing two bomb-proof underground hospitals in its controlled areas, with plans to build up to eight, according to U Nay Phone Latt, spokesperson for the NUG Prime Minister’s Office.

https://eng.mizzima.com/2025/06/12/23326

The Israeli army killed a disabled Palestinian man in a targeted strike in southern Gaza at the end of May, claiming he was identified as a "terrorist."

The man was seen in IDF drone footage from Khan Yunis walking with a limp before being struck by munitions launched from either a drone or a loitering munition.

The IDF confirmed the strike, stating that the man had been "identified as a terrorist observing troops and moving between buildings used for terrorist activity."

An investigation by Haaretz revealed that the man killed was Muhammad al-Farra, an older civilian with cerebral palsy resulting from a childhood car accident. He walked with a limp and had special needs. His sister, Heba al-Farra, who survived the strike, identified him in the video.

Israeli army kills disabled Palestinian in Gaza 'targeted' strike, says he was identified as 'terrorist'

While the IDF claimed the target was 'a terrorist observing Israeli troops,' a Haaretz investigation found he had cerebral palsy and special needs.

^{Nir Hasson (Haaretz)}

At the heart of Andrew Cuomo’s mayoral run is the firm belief that none of the terrible things he’s done to the people whose votes he’s competing for will matter. Here’s a reminder of a few of the biggest scandals on that long list.

Andrew Cuomo Wants to Get Away With All of It

^jacobin.com

He stressed that protests were "nowhere near" the level required to deploy the troops.

Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell sharply countered Donald Trump’s claims that the city needed National Guard support, emphasizing Wednesday that protests were “nowhere near” that level.

McDonnell’s remarks come after Trump cited the police chief as validating the White House’s decision to send in troops to address largely peaceful protests over immigration raids.

When asked by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins if Trump had correctly described his position, McDonnell disputed the president’s statement.

“No, we were not in a position to request the National Guard,” he said. “We’re nowhere near a level where we would be reaching out to the governor for National Guard at this stage. And my hope is that things are going in the right direction now and that we wouldn’t have had to have done that, or we won’t either.”

LAPD Chief Shuts Down Trump Claim About City Needing National Guard

He stressed that protests were "nowhere near" the level required to deploy these troops.

^{Li Zhou (HuffPost)}

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/german-defence-minister-not-considering-sending-taurus-missiles-ukraine-2025-06-12/

Ex-Trump insider Lev Parnas over the weekend noted the situation surrounding the Los Angeles protests, saying "the clock is ticking" as Trump has "troops in the streets, tanks on standby, and plans to crush the resistance."

"I know a lot of you woke up this morning in shock—staring at the footage out of Los Angeles, asking yourselves: How could this happen? Is this real? Is this really happening in the United States of America? But let me be clear, folks—this is real. It is happening. And I need you to know that my sources deep inside Trump World have been warning me that what we witnessed overnight was no isolated event. It’s part of something much bigger. And what I have to tell you today is chilling," he wrote.

"Yesterday, when Donald Trump deployed over 2,000 federal troops into Los Angeles under the justification of 'restoring order,' most headlines ran with it like it was some isolated act of retaliation—just another example of Trump punishing blue states. And yes, part of this is personal. Make no mistake: this is revenge against California, against Governor Gavin Newsom, and against Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. But it’s not just about settling scores."

According to Parnas, in reality, "This is about control."

"What happened yesterday in Los Angeles was a test run—a dry rehearsal for something much, much bigger. I’ve been hearing from multiple trusted insiders that Trump’s inner circle—particularly Pete Hegseth and some of the more radicalized loyalists embedded at the Pentagon—are actively drafting operational plans for the mass mobilizations expected on June 14th," he added. "This isn’t just about Trump’s birthday. This isn’t just about another vanity parade. This is about shutting down resistance."

Parnas added that Trump "fears the American people rising up on June 14th, in all 50 states, with signs that say No Kings—with voices that remind the world that we are still a democracy."

"That’s why he’s pushing for tanks. That’s why he wants the biggest military display America has seen since the Cold War. Because he wants the optics of power. He wants to smother the story before it even begins. He wants his parade to dominate the headlines, not the marchers in the streets fighting for democracy," he said. "But I need you to understand this: According to my sources, there are discussions happening right now—within Trump’s most trusted circle—about invoking martial law if the protests 'get out of hand.' They’re looking for any excuse. Any video. Any act of violence. Any disruption. That’s all they need to justify a crackdown."

He then warned people not to fall for a trap being set by Trump associates.

"And it gets worse. What I’m being told is that Trump allies—including elements connected to Proud Boys, III Percenters, and other far-right militia networks—are planning to infiltrate the June 14th protests. Not to support them. To sabotage them. Their goal? Create chaos. Spark confrontation. Trigger a response from law enforcement. And then hand Trump the justification he needs to clamp down," Parnas wrote. "Let me say this loud and clear: We cannot give them that excuse."

Parnas went on to encourage peace, and told protesters to "stay vigilant."

'Something much much bigger': Ex-Trump insider warns of 'chilling' new plan

Citing "sources deep inside Trump World," a former associate of the president issued a major warning on Sunday.

^{David McAfee (Raw Story)}

KEY POINTS

While de-dollarization is not exactly a new phenomenon, the narrative has changed.

De-dollarization in ASEAN is expected to pick up pace, according to the Bank of America.

Some Asian economies have the greatest potential to repatriate their foreign earnings or assets back to their local currencies.

Dollar divorce? Asia's shift away from the U.S. dollar is picking up pace

A mix of geopolitical uncertainties, monetary shifts, and currency hedging is prompting a meaningful move toward de-dollarization across the region.

^{Lee Ying Shan (CNBC)}

Britain’s serious crime agency has frozen UK property worth £170m belonging to the former land minister of Bangladesh amid a crackdown on former allies of Sheikh Hasina, the autocratic leader deposed in last year’s student-led revolution.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) confirmed it had frozen assets belonging to Saifuzzaman Chowdhury, who is among allies of Hasina whose sizeable UK real estate portfolios have come under scrutiny by authorities in Dhaka investigating alleged corruption.

Analysis of Land Registry documents indicates that all of Chowdhury’s more than 300 properties are subject to asset freezing orders, preventing them from being sold or transferred.

These include a luxury home in St John’s Wood, London, bought for £11m in 2022, and an apartment block in Fitzrovia, bought for £12.65m a year earlier, part of a portfolio bought for an estimated £170m.

NCA freezes £170m of UK property belonging to ally of ousted Bangladesh leader

Saifuzzaman Chowdhury’s assets frozen as authorities in Dhaka investigate alleged corruption of former regime

^{Rob Davies (The Guardian)}

The hacking mystery roiling the Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s rightwing government is deepening after researchers said they had found new evidence that two more journalists were targeted using the same military-grade spyware that Italy has admitted to using against activists.

A parliamentary committee overseeing intelligence confirmed earlier this month that Italy had used mercenary spyware made by Israel-based Paragon Solutions against two Italian activists.

But the same committee, which launched an investigation into the hacking scandal in March, said it had been unable to determine who was behind the targeting of a prominent Italian investigative journalist, Francesco Cancellato, whose news outlet has been critical of the Meloni government.

Now a report by researchers at the Citizen Lab has revealed that a close colleague of Cancellato, Ciro Pellegrino, who is head of the investigative outlet Fanpage.it’s Naples bureau, was also targeted by a user of Paragon Solution’s spyware, which is called Graphite. The Citizen Lab said a third journalist, who chose to remain anonymous and is described as a “prominent European journalist”, had also been targeted with the spyware, it said.

Graphite Caught: First Forensic Confirmation of Paragon’s iOS Mercenary Spyware Finds Journalists Targeted -

We conducted a forensic analysis of devices belonging to two journalists who were notified by Apple that they were targeted with advanced spyware.

^{Bill Marczak (The Citizen Lab)}

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I'll note that California was trying phase down new gas cars over a period of years, and still allowed 20% plug-in hybrids at the end of the phase-down.

Edit: Gov Newsom immediately announced a lawsuit over this

https://militarnyi.com/en/news/ukrainian-general-staff-russia-has-lost-over-1-million-troops-in-war-against-ukraine/

Israel is facing a shortage of Arrow missile interceptors, raising concerns over its capacity to counter long-range ballistic attacks from Iran, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing a senior US official.

The Jerusalem Post has reached out to the IDF and other sources for comment, but cannot verify this report at this time.

According to the report, the US has been aware of the issue for several months and has taken steps to bolster Israel’s missile defense systems by deploying additional US assets across multiple domains – land, sea, and air.