404 Media

404 Media is a journalist-founded digital media company exploring how technology is shaping – and is shaped by – our world. The company is owned, written, and edited by four journalists who until very recently worked at VICE’s Motherboard. They glad you’re here, and they are glad they are here, too. 404 Media is focused on investigative reports, longform features, blogs, and scoops about topics including: hacking, cybersecurity, cybercrime, sex, artificial intelligence, consumer rights, surveillance, privacy, and the democratization of the internet. 404 Media aspires to do society-shifting technology journalism and to create a sustainable, responsible, reader-supported media business around it. 404 Media will report and publish stories that they believe are unique and cannot be found elsewhere. They hope these stories will take over the internet, impact public policy, and expose bad actors. They will point out the absurd - be irreverent and have fun. They will also do very serious work and hope that you will read these stories and want to send them to your group chat or bring them up as conversation starters at parties. 404 Media believes that if they do this journalism well enough, readers will be willing to subscribe because they think it's essential, because you think it should exist in the world, and because you feel you’re personally getting value from it. You will find articles about a horrifying data broker ecosystem where highly sensitive data filters from credit bureaus to violent criminals on Telegram. You’ll get a look inside a generative AI community that’s churning out sexual images of real people without their consent on a massive scale, and you’ll finally figure out why sex toy vibration patterns are so frustrating. You’ll see the incident report from the Boston ‘Cop Slide’ fiasco (thank you, FOIA). And you’ll learn why AirPods Max are being felled by small droplets of water and sweat. Furthermore, they'll explore how the DHS is using an AI tool to track “sentiment and emotion” in people's online posts, and delve into the underground world of ads for illegal products on Instagram. After that they will write lots and lots of articles about crazy shit that they hope you will want to read. Subscribers get access to all articles, commenting privileges, access to interactive sessions where we’ll brainstorm and file your Freedom of Information Act request (FOIA) ideas, bonus episodes of the 404 Media Podcast, and the knowledge that without support, this type of journalism will not exist. They will likely add more perks as they are reasonably able to think of and execute on them. If they do their jobs well enough, they will be able to do this work indefinitely. If they do it really well, they will be able to sustainably grow by hiring other journalists to do more of it. In the short term, they will be focused on doing beat reporting, blogging, investigations, and scoops about hacking, cybersecurity, sex, porn, artificial intelligence, consumer rights, cybercrime, surveillance, privacy, and the democratization of the internet. In the long term, they will focus on expanding their best work into books, documentaries, feature films, and narrative podcasts. 404 Media will focus on transparency, explaining how they do what they do, and how systems of powers do what they do. They are not going to reinvent the wheel because the wheel does not need reinventing, but they will also explain how systems of power and governance work. Specifically, this means they will be filing a lot of FOIA requests, buying a lot of court documents, and watching a lot of city council hearings. Articles that rely primarily on public records requests will not be paywalled. 404 Media will also be focused on ground-up reporting. They will embed in the communities they cover to do local reporting from the internet, which means explaining what the communities they cover care about and why it’s important. Drivers at Amazon know more about how and why a new surveillance system is ruining their lives than a PR executive does. Repair professionals looking inside an iPhone know more about a design flaw than Johny Ive ever would have. Sex workers and women who are having their likenesses stolen understand the ramifications and impacts of these technologies more than an AI startup. 404 Media’s reporting has previously shut down surveillance companies, introduced the world to deepfakes, got right-to-repair legislation passed, changed policies at major social media platforms, including Reddit and Facebook, and got hundreds of millions of dollars in fines levied against some of the most significant companies in the world. At 404 Media, they intend to continue that work, only now, they will own it themselves, and will be in charge of the direction of the company and responsible for its financial viability. This means that they will be experimental, take risks, and try different forms of generating revenue in hopes that they can figure out how to do this.

Why are they doing this?

Much has been written about the failing business model of new media. They have watched how new media companies fail, and it’s not because of a lack of audience, revenue, impact, or vital work. New media companies fail because of a growth-at-any-cost mentality, and venture capital investments made at absurd valuations. Most importantly, astronomical overhead costs make it impossible for journalists to out-earn the cost of expensive office space, the ever-changing whims of management, executives’ salaries, the cost of unnecessary enterprise software, and an endless parade of consultants brought in to figure out what’s wrong. It doesn’t have to be this way, and at 404 Media, it will not. They propose a simple alternative: pay journalists to do journalism. 404 Media have spent the last decade learning how “content” turns into money, and we believe that good journalism can bring in enough revenue to pay the people who make it livable wages. They believe it is possible to create a sustainable, profitable media company simply by doing good work, making common-sense decisions about costs, and asking our readers to support us. They are excited to be here, and they are excited you’re here, too.

The Team

Jason Koebler

Was the editor-in-chief of Motherboard for six years, where he was responsible for the editorial, creative, and commercial vision and execution of the brand. Jason has written and edited award-winning work; created, produced, and hosted shortform and longform documentaries and podcasts, and has covered everything from right to repair to the ticket scalping industry. Before that, he was a staff writer at Motherboard for four years. Email him: [email protected]. Or Signal: jason.404

Sam Cole

Business Insider Founder Creates AI Exec For His New Newsroom, Immediately Hits On Her

Technology

‘Did the same rules apply to AI colleagues and native-AI workplaces? I didn’t know yet. That was one of the things I needed to figure out.’