India's "Cockroach Party" is freaking politicians out
First, it was a meme with weird AI-generated cockroach pictures. Then, it became a youth movement that is genuinely freaking out the Indian political establishment. So how far can the Cockroach Janata Party take it?
For this episode, I hit up documentary filmmaker Angad Singh and asked him why young people are putting on cockroach masks and getting into the streets.
In short, it started with an official calling unemployed young people parasites and “cockroaches.” But then this combined with exam leaks, botched test results, and a cartoonishly hackable test portal (combined with a bunch of government lies) to fuel young people angry at a system that keeps failing them.
Links:
Here’s the ‘hacker’ on how he got into the CBSE system (and what happened afterwards) https://ni5arga.com/blog/posts/hacking-cbse/
An article on the journalist who accused a student of being Pakistani (he later apologized): https://thewire.in/education/doordarshan-anchor-calls-delhi-student-pakistani-for-raising-cbse-marking-grievance
And make sure to check out Angad's post on the CJP: https://www.patreon.com/Angadgsingh/posts/do-cockroaches-160900961
28 May 2026
chatGPT wants to "catch" Chinese people
If you're Chinese, ChatGPT has probably offered to 'steadily catch' you at least once. But what why does it keep saying that? And why is 我会稳稳地接住你 a meme (instead of making people mad)... and by the way, will Chinese college students boo at their graduations?
Zeyi Yang is a senior writer at WIRED, and his article was the inspiration for this. See below for more of his work!
oh, and welcome to 🕹️WHAT'S THIS BUTTON DO?🕹️ a series where I get experts to explain technology to the rest of us. this is episode two. hope you dig.
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== sources/references == =====================
Zeyi’s article: https://wired.com/story/chatgpt-chinese-catch-you-steadily-sycophancy/
find Zeyi on bsky: https://bsky.app/profile/zeyiyang.bsky.social OpenAI launches a new image generation model: wired.com/story/openai-beefs-up-chatgpts-image-generation-model/ openai.com/index/introducing-chatgpt-images-2-0/
Concurrent, the newsletter Zeyi mentioned: https://afraw.substack.com
A sample question of someone asking about 'catch steadily': AI 说的「稳稳地接住你」到底是什么意思？
https://www.zhihu.com/question/2028251818384192677
📝 On punctuation in other languages 📝
Efecto ChatGPT: ya empezamos a hablar todos como robots https://elpais.com/ideas/2025-10-19/ya-empezamos-a-hablar-como-robots.html
The ChatGPT effect: We’ve all started talking like robots https://english.elpais.com/technology/2025-11-01/the-chatgpt-effect-weve-all-started-talking-like-robots.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com
「それChatGPTに書いてもらったでしょ？」と思ってしまう瞬間 (The moment when I think "did you have ChatGPT write that for you?") https://note.com/megumi_log/n/n8c5a518bbc8d
AIは嫌いじゃない。でもAIっぽい文章は読めない (I don't hate AI. But I can't read AI-style writing.) https://note.com/shoppukun/n/n75b48abc390b catch yall on the next one.
28 May 2026
the canvas hack isn't over
has your school told you how bad this hack really was? My guest Ian Linkletter called this the 'Biggest Privacy Disaster in History', and he stands by that. He's been warning about Canvas/Instructure for years.
We get into why having your data on a service with 9,000 other schools is a bad idea, why extortions could go on for another 20 years or more, and what students and teachers can do next.
music, production, editing by me. hope you dig.
sources:
== sources ==
https://www.404media.co/the-biggest-student-data-privacy-disaster-in-history-canvas-hack-shows-the-danger-of-centralized-edtech/
https://www.howtogeek.com/141500/why-you-should-use-a-password-manager-and-how-to-get-started/
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/12/us/canvas-instructure-hackers-deal.html?unlocked_article_code=1.h1A.Xnzg.ALdQS5Vdvpu1&smid=url-share
https://www.pcmag.com/news/canvas-developer-apologizes-for-breach-as-class-action-lawsuits-pile-up
https://ubyssey.ca/news/canvas-cyberattack-agreement/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/11/proctorio-settles-curious-lawsuit-with-librarian-who-shared-public-youtube-videos/
https://stateofsurveillance.org/news/instructure-paid-ransom-shinyhunters-canvas-settlement-shred-logs-275-million-2026/
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jul/01/ceo-of-exam-monitoring-software-proctorio-apologises-for-posting-students-chat-logs-on-reddit
https://www.vice.com/en/article/an-exam-surveillance-company-is-trying-to-silence-critics-with-lawsuits/
https://www.vice.com/en/article/judge-rules-schools-cant-scan-your-bedroom-with-creepy-proctoring-apps/
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