Karissa Bell
@karissabe.bsky.social
Senior reporter 🗒️ for Engadget, covering social media. Say👋 at karissa.bell@engadget.com or on Signal: karissabe.51 DMs open.
Meta recently updated its smart glasses to deter people who break the LED. I was able to use cheap stickers and after-market covers to block the light without triggering Meta’s privacy features on two pairs of glasses. www.engadget.com/2227710/a-do...
A $2 sticker let me bypass the Meta Glasses' anti-creep feature - Engadget
Meta's smart glasses are supposed to alert bystanders when they're recording. Bypassing those safety features is trivially easy, unfortunately.
engadget.com
watched the odyssey last night. film ruined by everyone speaking english instead of ancient greek.
I wrote about Meta's new anti-doomer ad campaign and how its first commercial, which is all about feeling good about AI, doesn't ... really have any AI in it www.engadget.com/2222159/meta...
Meta's pro-AI ad campaign is conspicuously light on AI - Engadget
The company wants people to be anti-doomer, but doesn't say why.
engadget.com
ICYMI last week, I wrote about the Meta Glasses backlash and how, for some people, it's changing how they use their glasses *even though no one I spoke with has had a negative interaction IRL related to their glasses* www.engadget.com/2212604/the-...
The Meta Glasses backlash is changing how (or if) people use them - Engadget
Backlash online is changing how (or if) people wear Meta's smart glasses.
engadget.com
Let’s goooo! Static owns a lot of sites you may read, like @engadget.com and @slashfilm.bsky.social. I’m looking forward to building this union with our hard-working writers and editors
Static Media Union@staticmediaunion.bsky.social · 4w agoBluesky, we'd like to introduce ourselves. The staff of Static Media would like to announce that we have formed a union with @wgaeast.bsky.social. Much like Jalopnik has already unionized and been recognized, we would like to request a voluntary recognition for all the Static Media sites.
NEW: I wrote about Threads’ bizarre Mr Beast spam problem (spoiler: it’s crypto scammers) www.engadget.com/2206409/thre...
Threads' ubiquitous Mr Beast spam is part of a massive crypto scam network - Engadget
Fake Mr Beast "promotions" are ubiquitous on Threads — they're also part of massive crypto scam network.
engadget.com
As someone who has had an editor's error lead to a broken embargo on an *extremely inconsequential* story ... I feel for Nina Totenberg. It is kind of amusing how NPR has to pretend like this is some random "misunderstanding" and not what it actually is, though.
I don't know how I missed that the founder of Midjourney was the Magic Leap guy... that kinda tells me all I need to know about their med spa/body scanner concept
As a resident of Connie Chan's district in SF I can tell you... she's not it. She has repeatedly blocked housing this neighborhood desperately needs and fear-mongered about upzoning. She thinks a *third* ballot initiative over reopening the Great Highway is a good use of her time and resources.
Meta has acknowledged the Instagram account takeovers in which hackers used the AI support chatbot to change the email associated with accounts and request a password reset with this one-sentence statement.
NEW: LinkedIn is trying to crack down on AI slop posts. The company is tweaking its recommendations to remove obvious AI slop, including recycled copypasta, unoriginal content and other low-quality posts. www.engadget.com/2174163/link...
LinkedIn doesn't want your AI slop anymore - Engadget
It isn't just lazy. It's also mind-numbingly boring.
engadget.com
Earlier today, Meta announced it was testing a Meta AI chatbot for Threads that would work a lot like Grok on X.. what the company didn't say was that it had blocked the block button for the account and people are *pissed* www.engadget.com/2171113/thre...
Threads users are pissed they can't block Meta's new AI chatbot - Engadget
It's the top trending topic on the platform.
engadget.com
kinda weird framing from KTLA here but fwiw these are the same glasses Snap has been showing off for the last year and a half... they've said the new ones coming this year will look (hopefully a lot) better
Snapchat bets on smart glasses as the future
LOS ANGELES – Snap is getting ready to launch new smart glasses later this year, and the company is positioning them as a major step beyond the smartphone. I recently spoke with Snap co-found…
ktla.com
Bluesky has been wonky all day bc of a DDoS that they are apparently still trying to get under control
Bluesky@bsky.app · 4mo agoOur team received a report of intermittent app outages at about 11:40pm PDT on April 15, 2026. They worked through the night to mitigate a sophisticated Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack, which intensified throughout the day.
NEW: The uncertain future facing Meta's Oversight Board isn't just about funding. The group sees a new opportunity to work w/ Gen AI companies and has even gotten some signs of interest from a few firms. But Meta needs to agree and so far, the company hasn't. www.engadget.com/social-media...
Meta isn't setting its Oversight Board free just yet
The Oversight Board has taken steps to formalize its long-contemplated desire to work with other companies, but Engadget has learned Meta has thus far declined to move forward with that process.
engadget.com
idk seems kinda telling that OpenAI is simultaneously saying they spent untold $$$ on TBPN to promote more "constructive" narratives about the AI industry but also they plan to let them keep editorial independence (which, lol, TBPN not exactly a hard hitting enterprise)
Some amazing details here, including SBF's parents filing a legal doc that was made to look like it was mailed by SBF from prison but was very obviously sent via FedEx (which isn't accessible in prison) in Palo Alto
Molly White@molly.wiki · 4mo agoAs they angle for a presidential pardon in television interviews, Sam Bankman-Fried’s law professor parents file “pro se” motions for their adult son, leave voicemails with the judge, and sign documents claiming they're from him in prison.
So uh Vanity Fair did a big cover story on AI and was supposed to get an interview with Dario but Anthropic blew him off so he instead.. made one up with Claude and discloses it after the made-up interview. Cool. www.vanityfair.com/news/story/d...
NEW: Meta is offering creators who have large followings on other platforms (but who don't regularly post on Facebook) up to $3k a month in bonuses if they start posting on Facebook, it's the company's latest plan to bring higher quality content and more well-known creators to the platform.
Meta's latest creator push comes with $3,000 bonuses for posting on Facebook
Meta is launching a new initiative aimed at popular creators who already have large followings on other platforms and offering bonuses for posting on Facebook.
engadget.com
welp the new, new Digg didn't last long. like 2 months after launching publicly they are laying off a bunch of people and bringing back Kevin Rose to... fight the bots?
Meta is now facing a class action lawsuit over its smart glasses' privacy claims following reports that users' footage has been reviewed by human contractors in Kenya. www.engadget.com/social-media...
Meta hit with a class action lawsuit over smart glasses' privacy claims
Meta is facing a class action lawsuit for false advertising related to its AI glasses following reports about the company's use of human contractors to review footage captured from users' glasses.
engadget.com
been meaning to do this but today seemed like a good day for it
X recently released a new open-source version of its algorithm, but researchers say it's not exactly a win for transparency. Here's my deep dive about what we can actually learn about it from the code that was shared, and allll the parts that are still missing. www.engadget.com/social-media...
X's 'open source' algorithm isn't a win for transparency, researchers say
Researchers say that the recommendation algorithm published by X doesn't offer the kind of transparency that would actually be useful for anyone trying to understand how X works in 2026.
engadget.com
