Jeremy B. Merrill
@jeremybmerrill
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data journalist, tech desk, Washington Post. sometime software/ML engineer. curious about ad{s,tech}, crypto, linguistics, TikTok, AI, algorithms.
Joined October 2008
28 of the 220 invitees to Trump's crypto dinner last night were "ghost wallets" -- totally anonymous, with no transactions on the blockchain besides interactions with large CEXes. Who is #6, "Woo"? Only Binance + $Trump team know.
washingtonpost.com
White House officials have argued the dinner poses no conflict of interest because the president's assets are in a blind trust managed by his adult sons.
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RT @bethreinhard: WaPo review of 8k federal webpages since 1/20 found 662 examples of deletions and adds: “Diversity” is out. “Climate resi….
washingtonpost.com
“Diversity” has been deleted. “Climate resilience” is now a popular substitute for “climate change.” And “pregnant people” has been replaced by “pregnant women.”
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RT @eilperin: Federal websites have already changed dramatically under Trump. Check out this @washingtonpost analysis to see what's differe….
washingtonpost.com
“Diversity” has been deleted. “Climate resilience” is now a popular substitute for “climate change.” And “pregnant people” has been replaced by “pregnant women.”
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RT @caitlinsgilbert: NEW: political content shown on TikTok can depend on your gender—women received ~11% more content about Harris than me….
washingtonpost.com
A Washington Post analysis of six months of feeds points to gender differences in how the hugely popular platform serves up political news.
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RT @NaomiNixWrites: New: China is increasingly targeting down-ballot elections in America, often amplifying antisemitic conspiracies. The o….
washingtonpost.com
China is increasingly targeting down-ballot races in America, spreading divisive and antisemitic claims about politicians on the social media platform X.
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🚨 YOUR DATA WILL ONLY BE USED FOR THIS EXPERIMENT and you can remain anonymous :-) 🚨.
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I need a CRAZY favor. I've long wondered how the TikTok algorithm works. My @washingtonpost colleagues and I are investigating why memes trend, how much time people spend and how niches work. Can you share your TikTok browsing data with me?.
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My algorithm to solve NYT Connections puzzles is good. but not good enough. Of all 63M possible solutions for one puzzle, ranked by how "coherent" it is, the algorithm's guess (red line) looks perfect. But on a log scale? You can see 154 are better.
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Hardly anybody's talking about Joe Biden anymore. Until he dropped out, conservatives consistently talked about Joe Biden online more often than liberals did -- about 13% of messages from conservatives mentioned him, compared to 8% from liberals. Now it's down more than 50%.
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RT @faizsays: NEW: Elon Musk's declining use of X for his businesses. He now devotes roughly the same share of his feed to politics that he….
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Almost 5 percent of Elon Musk's tweets consist of only the “tears of joy” or “rolling on the floor laughing” emoji.
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RT @yuntiandeng: Happy to see WildChat featured in @washingtonpost by @jeremybmerrill @rachelerman! Read the article here: .
washingtonpost.com
AI chatbots are taking the world by storm. We analyzed thousands of conversations to see what people are really asking them and what topics are most discussed.
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My takeaway? We've spent a lot of time worrying about how chatbots will cope with questions about politics and health. but these questions are quite rare. (And a lot of politics questions don't seek information, but are, instead, for instance, "Create peom admiring joe biden").
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Sex, homework help and creative writing: that's what people actually use chatbots like ChatGPT for, according to my just-published analysis of real chatbot conversations published by the Allen Institute. Read here 🎁:
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The XKCD alt-text effect: yesterday's comic's alt text was about an obscure bodily organ called the "thymus". Visits to the Wikipedia page for "thymus" average 1,000 (literally, unrounded, 1,000!!) . but totaled almost 5,000 yesterday. XKCD alt-text effect == 4,000 visits
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"metrics for my real friends, real tricks for my meh friends". I did a fun NLP experiment, you'll all enjoy it. Learn more here -->. Bluesky: Mastodon: Blog:
journa.host
Which "champagne for my real friends, real pain for my sham friends"-style toast is better? 1. ChatGPT's "Confetti for my loyal friends, bitter truth for my deceitful friends" Or 2. My algorithm's:...
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RT @drewharwell: New: Elon Musk’s X is throttling traffic to news websites and competitors he dislikes. Five-second delays on links to New….
washingtonpost.com
The delayed websites include X’s online rivals Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky and Substack as well as Reuters and the New York Times, all of which Musk previously has singled out for ridicule or attack.
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this link does not include a 5s delay.
New: Elon Musk’s X is throttling traffic to news websites and competitors he dislikes. Five-second delays on links to New York Times, Reuters, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky and Substack. Most other sites we tested have zero delay. @jeremybmerrill.
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@krystalball the commentary from Breaking Points: thank you, @krystalball, for sharing our investigation!.
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"These influencers, taking advertiser cash to scam their own audience, without any scruples? They should be ashamed of themselves." - @krystalball, on our investigation of the gold IRA industry which is endorsed by dozens of right-wing media stars.
washingtonpost.com
Ads for gold coins have become a mainstay on Fox News, Newsmax and other conservative outlets, even as regulators have accused some companies of defrauding elderly clients.
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