Platforms & Communities Reporter, The Verge
Mia Sato is a reporter at The Verge covering tech companies, platforms, and users. Since joining The Verge in 2021, she’s reported on the war in Ukraine and the spread of propaganda on TikTok; Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter; and how tech platforms and digital publishers are using artificial intelligence tools.
Sato has written about tech platforms and communities since 2019. Before joining Vox Media she was a reporter at MIT Technology Review, where she covered the intersection of technology and the coronavirus pandemic. Prior to that she served as the audience engagement editor at The Markup. As a freelance reporter, she’s written about the subversive Hmong radio shows hosted on conference call software, online knitting activism, and the teens running businesses in Instagram comment sections. Her work has appeared in outlets like The New Republic, The Appeal, and Chicago Magazine. She is based in Brooklyn.
Got a tip? Contact her at mia@theverge.com or email for her Signal number.
A deep dive by Rolling Stone tracked the deaths of children who died after taking fake drugs they bought on the app. Parents and law enforcement officials blame, in part, the disappearing messages feature that made Snapchat popular in the first place.
[Rolling Stone]
Prices are rising as Shein eyes IPOs in the UK and the US. The average price of a dress is up 28 percent in the US compared to a year ago, for example.
Despite labor violations and the overall secrecy of the company, business is booming for the fast fashion brand. We’ll see if shoppers mind the slightly higher prices.
We don’t know exactly how often AI Overviews will appear in search, but early observations point to trouble for publishers.
A Press Gazette experiment found that AI Overviews appeared on nearly a quarter of top news-related Google searches, pushing down organic results. Some publishers are bracing for their Google traffic to trickle to zero. Others say it’s already happened.
Shein, the Chinese fast fashion company popular in the US, recorded $32.2 billion in sales. To give you a sense of scale, Zara’s sales came in at $28 billion, and H&M’s at $22 billion.
Under EU regulations, Shein will face more scrutiny alongside companies like Amazon. Shein is expected to go public in the US this year.
The video “We Schooled Hundreds of Teachers” was funded in part by Stand Together, an organization founded by right-wing billionaire Charles Koch, reports Fast Company.
The video profiles Ron Clark Academy, a private school in Atlanta. For decades, the Koch family has worked to undermine public schools. “Education alternatives” are one of Stand Together’s key issues.
The platform’s “tag” feature is different than traditional hashtags — users can tag phrases, not just words, and the # symbol disappears once the tag is added.
App researcher Alessandro Paluzzi reports Meta is experimenting with displaying the # symbol. It’s a small change, but could potentially help when crossposting to the fediverse, which currently breaks the added Threads tag.