This Week in WordPress #376 - CourtneyR.dev's 2nd Brain

This Week in WordPress #376 ![rw-book-cover](https://readwise-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/static/images/article4.6bc1851654a0.png) 🔗 **Source:** [This Week in WordPress #376](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uig16bIOGLg) > [!note]+ Document Notes > tags: [wordpress, ai-regulation, cybersecurity, social-media-policy, open-source, cms-migration] > author: [MISSING] > source: WP Builds > reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uig16bIOGLg > date created: {{date:YYYY-MM-DD}} {{time:HH:mm}} > > # 🏷️ This Week in WordPress #376 >  ## 🧭 Table of Contents - [📝 Summary](#-summary) - [📖 Main Content](#-main-content) - [🗒️ Notes](#️-notes) - [📚 References](#-references) - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#️-paraphrase) - [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter) - [✅ Action Items](#-action-items) - [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses) - [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion) - [🔄 Refactor Appendix](#-refactor-appendix--this-week-in-wordpress-376) --- ## 📝 Summary - **What happened.** Episode 376 of WP Builds' *This Week in WordPress* brought together host Nathan Wrigley, Tim Nash, Mark Westguard (WS Form), and Mark Benz (MainWP) to cover four substantive topics: Anthropic's Fable/Mythos AI export ban, the UK government's proposed under-16 social-media ban, a multi-plugin CDN supply-chain attack affecting Optin Monster and related plugins, and CERN's migration from Drupal to WordPress. - **Why it matters.** Each story carries outsized implications for the open web: AI model governance is now an active geopolitical tool; social-media age verification may inadvertently sweep in WordPress comment sections and blogs; a supply-chain attack via third-party CDN JavaScript illustrates a systemic WordPress ecosystem risk; and CERN's endorsement of WordPress validates the platform at institutional scale while raising honest questions about whether the decision would survive 2025 scrutiny. - **Key stakeholders.** Anthropic, the US government, Amazon, OpenAI; UK Prime Minister and social-media platforms (Meta, Google/YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok); Awesome Motive (Optin Monster, Trust Pulse, Push Engage), Updraft Plus, site owners; CERN, the WordPress and Drupal open-source communities. - **Risks and tradeoffs.** The Anthropic ban may accelerate open-source LLM adoption but could also destabilise AI model supply chains globally. Age-verification legislation is technically underspecified and could impose compliance burdens on any public-commenting WordPress site. The CDN-based supply-chain attack underscores that remote JavaScript loading is an ongoing systemic vulnerability the plugin repository policy already tries to address. CERN's WordPress multi-site build is extraordinarily complex and was decided before Drupal's recent technical renaissance. - **Bottom line.** Three of the four stories converge on the same meta-theme: dependency on centralised, third-party-controlled infrastructure — whether an AI API, a social-media platform, or a CDN-hosted JavaScript file — creates fragility that self-hosted and open-source approaches partially mitigate. --- ## 📖 Main Content ### 🤖 Anthropic Fable/Mythos Export Ban Anthropic hyped its *Mythos* model family as too powerful to release publicly, then shipped *Fable* as a guardrailed public version. After a brief, well-received launch, the US government placed an **export control ban** on the models, effectively preventing non-US persons from using them. Because the majority of Anthropic's own staff are non-US citizens, Anthropic was forced to shut the models down entirely. **Key contested points:** - Was the ban driven by genuine national-security concerns (the models reportedly performed well at code review / security analysis) or by political/commercial pressure? Tim Nash noted that allegedly the Trump family holds stakes in OpenAI but not Anthropic — a claim he flagged as unverified. - The third party that reportedly triggered the ban was **Amazon**, Anthropic's largest investor and cloud partner, not OpenAI as widely assumed. - The panel observed that being "banned by the US government" may paradoxically be the best marketing Anthropic could receive — echoing Apple's G4 processor export-control ad from the late 1990s. **Systemic implication flagged by Tim Nash:** Every enterprise that relies on a closed-model API now has a vivid case study of overnight loss of access. This may accelerate investment in **open-source LLMs** (e.g., Meta's LLaMA family), sovereign AI infrastructure at the national level, and consumer GPU hardware — with corresponding price spikes. **Uncertainty:** No confirmed "smoking gun" — no specific Rubicon the model crossed that demonstrably caused the ban — has been disclosed publicly as of the recording date. --- ### 🔞 UK Under-16 Social Media Ban The UK Prime Minister announced plans to ban under-16s from social media, framed as an "Australian-plus" approach. Simultaneously, the UK government commissioned research (with neuroscientists) into whether fast-paced content (TikTok, YouTube Shorts) is structurally rewiring children's developing brains. **Key contested points:** - Age-verification technology that could reliably distinguish a 15-year-old from a 16-year-old does not yet exist at scale. Previous UK online porn age-verification efforts collapsed into cookie-consent-style theatre. - Apple claims it can estimate age from a photo; the panel was sceptical of accuracy in the critical 15–17 age band. - Operating-system-level age verification (pushed by multiple countries, surfacing in Apple, Google, and Linux ecosystems) is the most technically plausible route. - Children will route around bans (VPNs, peer knowledge diffusion) as they always have. **WordPress-specific risk flagged by Tim Nash:** There is no agreed legal definition of "social media." If legislation sweeps broadly, any publicly commenting WordPress site could technically qualify. Blog comment sections, and distributed/federated publishing, could face age-verification mandates. Australia's implementation narrowed the definition deliberately; the UK has not yet done so. --- ### 🔐 Optin Monster CDN Supply-Chain Attack Three plugins by Awesome Motive — **Optin Monster** (~1 million installs), **Trust Pulse**, and **Push Engage** — load JavaScript from a third-party CDN rather than bundling it locally. Between **12–14 June 2025**, that CDN endpoint was compromised. **Attack chain:** 1. Attackers exploited a known (unpatched) vulnerability in **Updraft Plus** to gain initial access. 2. From there, they reached Awesome Motive's CDN infrastructure and modified the JavaScript payload. 3. The malicious JS executed only for **logged-in users**, attempting to inject hidden backdoor administrator accounts (usernames: `developer_appi1`, email `[email protected]`; `dev_xx` variants with Gmail addresses). 4. Ordinary site visitors saw no visible effects. **Detection:** Check for unexpected administrator users matching those patterns. Because the compromise was in remotely loaded JS, no plugin update will appear in the dashboard — sites were affected regardless of update status. **Policy context:** The WordPress plugin repository already prohibits plugins from loading scripts from external CDNs precisely to prevent this class of attack. This incident is a live illustration of why that rule exists, and why compliance enforcement matters. --- ### 🌐 CERN Migrates to WordPress CERN — widely credited as the birthplace of the World Wide Web (Tim Berners-Lee's hypertext proposal, 1989) — has migrated approximately **580 websites** encompassing **500,000+ pieces of content** from Drupal to WordPress. **What was built:** A multi-site WordPress platform allowing CERN researchers to spin up new project sites on demand, underpinned by significant proprietary infrastructure. The project involved roughly three full-time staff over two years and is not yet fully rolled out. CERN presented the work as a keynote at WordCamp Europe 2025. **Panel's honest caveats:** - The decision was made ~2 years ago. Drupal has made substantial technical advances since then; the panel wondered whether the same decision-makers would reach the same conclusion today. - Drupal has historically dominated scientific/enterprise CMS deployments; the win for WordPress comes partly at Drupal's expense, which the panel acknowledged with some ambivalence. - The complexity of the build is extraordinary; this is not a reference implementation for typical WordPress shops. --- ## 🗒️ Notes > This is a transcript source with approximate topic segments. Timestamps are not precisely available from the transcript text, so segments are keyed to topic rather than timecode. #### ⏱️ [~00:00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uig16bIOGLg?t=0) Intro, panel introductions, housekeeping - Host: Nathan Wrigley. Guests: Tim Nash, Mark Westguard (WS Form), Mark Benz (MainWP). - Running gag: two guests named Mark — distinguished as "Mark with a K" and "Mark with a C." - Mark Benz's bio was ChatGPT-expanded with "add meat" prompt — a live demo of LLM output inflation. - Housekeeping: wpbuilds.com/subscribe for email list; WS Form handles subscription intake. #### ⏱️ [~00:10:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uig16bIOGLg?t=600) Anthropic Fable/Mythos export ban - Tim Nash leads. Frames it as: marketing hype → reluctant launch → surprise ban → forced shutdown. - Amazon (not OpenAI) was reportedly the third party that flagged the model. - Key open-source sovereignty insight: every company now has a concrete reason to evaluate self-hosted LLMs. - GPU hardware price spike predicted as a downstream consequence. - Comment from Wiki Design: "sounds like marketing campaign and stock manipulation." #### ⏱️ [~00:30:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uig16bIOGLg?t=1800) UK under-16 social media ban + brain research - Tim Nash brings story; panel riffs on enforcement impossibility. - YouTube/Google placed ads near Westminster government buildings showing YouTube parental controls — framed as a preemptive counter-lobbying move. - Mark Benz: personal anecdote of a child hacking household Wi-Fi 18 ways; argues prefrontal cortex development (matures ~25) means high problem-solving ability precedes impulse control. - Tim Nash pivots to WordPress: no legal definition of social media could protect WP comment sections from scope creep. #### ⏱️ [~00:55:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uig16bIOGLg?t=3300) Optin Monster CDN supply-chain attack - Tim Nash leads. Chain: Updraft Plus vuln → CDN compromise → malicious JS → backdoor admin accounts. - Detection: look for `developer_appi1` / `dev_xx` users. - No plugin update fixes this; the compromise was upstream of the plugin version. - Plugin repo CDN-hosting ban discussed as the correct policy that wasn't enforced here. #### ⏱️ [~01:10:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uig16bIOGLg?t=4200) CERN moves to WordPress from Drupal - 580 sites, 500K+ content items, ~3 FTEs, ~2 years. - Keynote presented at WordCamp Europe 2025. - Panel ambivalent: celebrates WordPress win; sympathises with Drupal; questions whether 2023 decision survives 2025 landscape. - Call for WordPress 7.0.x release managers on make.wordpress.org mentioned briefly. --- ## 📚 References - [Anthropic Fable/Mythos announcement (Anthropic blog)](https://www.anthropic.com) - [WP Builds – This Week in WordPress #376](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uig16bIOGLg) - [Make WordPress – Call for 7.0.x Release Managers](https://make.wordpress.org) - [CERN WordPress Migration writeup (WordPress.org repository / make.wordpress.org)](https://make.wordpress.org) - [Optin Monster / Awesome Motive CDN compromise reporting](https://patchstack.com) *(search for Optin Monster June 2025)* - [Updraft Plus vulnerability disclosure](https://wpscan.com) *(antecedent vulnerability)* - [Guardian – UK under-16 social media ban coverage](https://www.theguardian.com) - [Guardian – UK brain/TikTok research coverage](https://www.theguardian.com) - [WS Form plugin](https://wsform.com) - [MainWP dashboard](https://mainwp.com) - [WordCamp Europe 2025](https://europe.wordcamp.org/2025/) --- ## 🗣️ Paraphrase - The US government's export ban on Anthropic's Fable model is the first time AI model access has been restricted via export controls, and it has created a paradox: the ban may have generated more attention for Anthropic than a successful launch would have, while simultaneously prompting enterprises globally to reconsider their dependence on closed, US-controlled AI APIs in favour of open-source alternatives. - Three of the four major stories in this episode — the AI ban, the social-media age-verification push, and the CDN supply-chain attack — share an underlying structure: centralised, third-party-controlled infrastructure fails in ways that are difficult to anticipate, and self-hosted or open-source alternatives offer partial but meaningful resilience. - CERN's move to WordPress is a significant institutional endorsement, but the panel's honest caveat is worth preserving: the decision was made two years ago, before Drupal's recent technical acceleration, and building 580 sites with custom on-demand provisioning infrastructure is not a replicable playbook for typical WordPress practitioners. - The UK's proposed under-16 social-media ban is technically underspecified in ways that could inadvertently create compliance obligations for any publicly commenting WordPress site — a legal grey zone the WordPress community should be watching closely, especially given Australia's deliberately narrow definitional choices. --- ## 📰 Newsletter **🗞️ WP Builds #376 Roundup: Bans, Brain Scans, Backdoors & CERN** This week's *This Week in WordPress* was one of those episodes where the stories kept getting bigger. Here's the tldr for your WordPress life: **🤖 The AI Soap Opera:** Anthropic launched, got banned by the US government, and may have accidentally created the greatest marketing campaign in AI history. The practical takeaway for WordPress shops: if your workflow depends on a closed AI API, the clock is ticking on your assumptions. Open-source LLMs are suddenly looking a lot more strategically attractive. **👶 Age Gating the Web:** The UK wants to ban under-16s from social media — but nobody has agreed on what "social media" means. Tim Nash made the uncomfortable observation that a broad reading could include any WordPress site with public commenting. Worth watching if you run community-oriented sites. **🚨 Security Alert — Check Your Plugins Now:** If you run Optin Monster, Trust Pulse, or Push Engage, check your users table *today*. A compromised CDN endpoint between June 12–14 injected backdoor admin accounts into logged-in sessions. No plugin update will fix this — you need to look for users named `developer_appi1` or `dev_xx` variants. Delete and harden. **🔭 CERN ❤️ WordPress:** The birthplace of the web is now running on WordPress — 580 sites, half a million content items, three years in the making. The keynote at WordCamp Europe was the big reveal. It's a complex, bespoke build, but it's a heck of a reference for the next time someone asks "can WordPress handle serious scale?" *Resources this week:* [wpbuilds.com/subscribe](https://wpbuilds.com/subscribe) · [make.wordpress.org](https://make.wordpress.org) (call for 7.0.x release managers) · [WS Form](https://wsform.com) --- ## ✅ Action Items #### DevRel - Produce a short explainer post/video on the Optin Monster CDN attack for WordPress practitioners: what happened, how to detect, how to remediate. - Develop a "closed vs. open AI API risk" decision guide for WordPress agencies evaluating AI integrations. - Create documentation examples showing how to load plugin assets locally (no external CDN) as a security best practice aligned with plugin repo policy. #### OSPO - **License Compliance / Security Management:** Audit whether any bundled or recommended plugins in ecosystem toolkits load JavaScript from external CDNs; flag for remediation. - **Policy & Governance:** Monitor UK and Australian social-media age-verification legislation for definitions that could encompass WordPress comment sections; prepare a policy brief. - **Software Inventory:** Add Updraft Plus and Awesome Motive plugin families to SBOM tracking with freshness SLOs given the demonstrated chained-vulnerability risk. #### Community - **Maintainers:** Optin Monster chain attack is a case study for a cross-project incident retrospective — coordinate with Updraft Plus and Awesome Motive maintainers on coordinated disclosure hygiene. - **Contributors:** Draft a "no external CDN" linting rule PR for plugin review tooling if one does not already exist. - **Ecosystem:** Initiate a cross-project discussion on sovereign/self-hosted AI infrastructure options relevant to open-source WordPress tooling. #### WordPress - **Core:** Note that WordPress 7.0.x release manager applications are open on make.wordpress.org — signal-boost to contributors. - **Plugins:** Reinforce CDN-loading prohibition in plugin review guidelines; use this incident as a training case for new reviewers. - **Hosting:** Circulate Optin Monster/CDN attack advisory to hosting partners for customer notification. - **Security:** Publish or amplify a formal advisory on the Optin Monster/Trust Pulse/Push Engage June 2025 compromise with remediation steps. - **Meta / Documentation:** Consider a dedicated "plugin security patterns" page on developer.wordpress.org covering asset-loading best practices. - **Community:** WordCamp programme coordinators — the CERN keynote format (migration case study at scale) is a strong template for future enterprise-adoption talks; consider a dedicated track. - **Training:** Develop a lesson plan on supply-chain security for WordPress plugin developers covering CDN risks, dependency pinning, and update hygiene. - **Accessibility / Polyglots:** Monitor age-verification legislation internationally; prepare translated guidance for non-English WordPress community members operating public-commenting sites. #### The WPCC - **Programs:** Consider a microgrant or fellowship track focused on sovereign/self-hosted AI tooling for WordPress. - **Projects:** Commission a governance brief on what "social media" definitions in pending legislation mean for self-hosted WordPress operators. - **Funding experiments:** Explore matched grant for open-source LLM integration research relevant to WordPress use cases. ### FAIR - **Technical independence:** The Anthropic ban is a live case for why WordPress AI integrations should prefer locally runnable or open-weight models where feasible; document provenance and fallback paths for any AI feature. - **Policies and covenants:** Advocate for clear "social media" definitional carve-outs in UK/EU/AU legislation that protect self-hosted CMS operators. - **Productized governance artifacts:** Develop an "AI API dependency risk scorecard" for WordPress-adjacent businesses to evaluate vendor lock-in exposure. --- ## 🧪 Hypotheses 1. **Open-source LLM adoption will measurably accelerate** following the Anthropic export ban, as enterprises exposed to overnight API loss re-evaluate closed-model dependencies. Measurable within 12 months via download/usage metrics for Ollama, LM Studio, and LLaMA-family models. 2. **Consumer GPU hardware prices will spike** in the near term as self-hosted AI inference demand increases following the ban — testable against GPU price indices over Q3–Q4 2025. 3. **UK age-verification legislation, if enacted without a precise "social media" definition, will generate legal uncertainty for WordPress site operators** running public comment sections — testable by surveying legal interpretation within 6 months of any enacted bill. 4. **Third-party CDN loading by WordPress plugins will continue to produce supply-chain compromises** until plugin repository policy is technically enforced (automated linting/rejection) rather than only policy-stated — testable by tracking CDN-related CVEs in the WPScan database over 12 months. 5. **CERN's WordPress build would face a more competitive Drupal comparison today** than it did two years ago — testable by convening the original decision panel with current capability matrices. 6. **Children subject to Australia-style social media bans report meaningful increases in discretionary free time** within 30 days — partially supported by anecdotal Guardian reporting referenced in episode; testable with structured longitudinal survey. ### 📊 Methodology - GPU price index scraping (e.g., camelcamelcamel, Newegg historical) pre/post ban announcement for hypothesis 2. - WPScan CVE database query filtered by "external CDN" or "remote script" for hypothesis 4. - Structured survey of WordPress agency owners and developers on AI API risk awareness, pre/post Anthropic ban, for hypothesis 1. - Legislative text analysis and legal expert consultation for hypothesis 3. - Drupal vs. WordPress feature matrix audit (Composer-first architecture, API-first content, layout builder maturity) for hypothesis 5. - Replicated Australian youth time-use survey methodology for hypothesis 6. ### ❓ Questions - What specific code-review capability in Fable triggered the export-control determination — and is that capability present in open-source models already available globally? - If Amazon reported Anthropic to the US government, what does that reveal about the competitive dynamics between cloud AI infrastructure providers? - At what point does a WordPress multisite installation with federated user accounts legally constitute "social media" under draft UK legislation? - Did CERN evaluate Drupal's post-2023 architecture (Starshot, Experience Builder) during their decision process, or was the decision locked before that work matured? - What is the realistic enforcement mechanism for the plugin repo's CDN prohibition, and how many current plugins are in violation? ### 🔮 Future Research - Sovereign AI infrastructure models for mid-sized nations: what does a UK or EU "national LLM" programme look like in practice? - Longitudinal neurodevelopmental studies on fast-paced content consumption in under-12s — the UK government-commissioned research is a starting point. - Supply-chain security in the WordPress plugin ecosystem: systematic audit of CDN-loading practices across the top 1,000 plugins by install count. - Post-migration case study: CERN WordPress — one year on. Did on-demand site provisioning work at scale? What broke? - Legal landscape mapping: which countries' social-media definitions would capture self-hosted WordPress blogs, and what compliance steps would be required? ### 💡 Implications - **Practice:** WordPress developers and agencies should audit all active plugins for external CDN JavaScript loading immediately; treat any external script load as a potential supply-chain risk. - **Policy:** WordPress community organisations (WPCC, Automattic policy team, WP&UP) should engage proactively with UK/AU/EU legislative processes to ensure self-hosted CMS platforms are not inadvertently swept into social-media regulation. - **Security:** The Updraft Plus → CDN → Optin Monster chain demonstrates that vulnerability chains cross plugin boundaries; security monitoring must be ecosystem-wide, not plugin-by-plugin. - **Education:** Developer training on "no external CDN" best practices is underrepresented in WordPress documentation and should be elevated. - **Funding models:** The Anthropic ban case strengthens the argument for funding open-source AI infrastructure as a public good — relevant to WPCC grant strategy and OSPO sovereign-tooling initiatives. --- ### 🧠 Learning Styles Assessment - **Reading level estimate (Flesch-Kincaid):** Transcript-based conversational content scores approximately Grade 8–10 (FK ~55–65 Flesch Reading Ease). The show is accessible but dense with technical asides. #### 👀 Visual learners - **Present:** Screen share of website (wpbuilds.com), plugin names on screen. - **Improve:** Architecture diagram of the Optin Monster attack chain (Updraft Plus → CDN → site); timeline of Anthropic Fable launch/ban events; CERN multi-site topology diagram. #### 🔊 Aural learners - **Present:** Full audio/video podcast format; conversational delivery. - **Improve:** Chapter markers with descriptive titles in YouTube description; downloadable transcript with timestamps. #### 🗣️ Verbal learners - **Present:** Analogies (Apple G4 export control ad), real-world examples, plain-language explanations. - **Improve:** Glossary of terms used (export control, CDN, supply-chain attack, prefrontal cortex, LLM, sovereign AI); define "Mythos/Fable" distinction explicitly for non-AI audiences. #### 🧩 Kinesthetic learners - **Present:** Implicit call-to-action (check your plugins, look for dodgy users). - **Improve:** Step-by-step remediation checklist for Optin Monster attack; sandbox demo of local-vs-CDN plugin asset loading. #### 🧠 Logical learners - **Present:** Causal chain analysis of attack vector; legislative logic breakdown. - **Improve:** Decision tree for "should I use a closed or open-source AI API?"; risk matrix for plugin CDN dependency. #### 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Social learners - **Present:** Live panel discussion format; real-time audience comments integrated. - **Improve:** Post-episode discussion thread on WP Builds community; structured Q&A segment with audience. #### 🧘‍♀️ Solitary learners - **Present:** Show notes with links for independent follow-up. - **Improve:** Self-assessment quiz ("Is your site vulnerable to CDN supply-chain attacks?"); reflection prompts on AI API dependency. #### 🌿 Naturalistic learners - **Present:** Implicit ecosystem thinking (open-source as resilient ecosystem). - **Improve:** Frame open-source LLM adoption in terms of digital sovereignty and ecosystem health; link to green hosting and sustainable AI compute resources. --- ### 📊 Accessibility Assessment #### Screen reader semantics - **Present:** YouTube auto-captions available. - **Improve:** Ensure show notes page uses proper heading hierarchy; add descriptive alt text to any shared screenshots. #### Keyboard navigation - **Present:** Standard YouTube player controls. - **Improve:** Ensure wpbuilds.com subscription form is fully keyboard-navigable (WS Form should handle this by default). #### Contrast and readability - **Present:** Not assessable from audio; website contrast should meet 4.5:1. - **Improve:** Verify show notes page meets WCAG 2.2 AA contrast thresholds. #### Text resizing and reflow - **Improve:** Confirm show notes page is responsive at 200% zoom without horizontal scroll. #### Media and captions - **Present:** YouTube auto-captions. - **Improve:** Human-reviewed transcript published on show notes page; audio description of any screen-shared visuals. #### Forms and interactions - **Present:** WS Form subscription form. - **Improve:** Ensure inline validation and accessible error messages on subscription form. #### Standards reference - WCAG 2.2 AA: 1.2.2 (captions), 1.4.3 (contrast), 2.1.1 (keyboard), 4.1.2 (name/role/value) — all relevant to podcast website and embedded player. --- ### 🌍 DEIB Assessment #### Cultural breadth - **Present:** UK, US, Australian policy contexts discussed; international scope acknowledged. - **Improve:** Explicit acknowledgment that AI export bans affect Global South researchers and developers disproportionately; CERN as a multi-national institution noted but not explored. #### Inclusive language - **Present:** Generally respectful; "real men" used in a self-aware ironic context with air-quote caveat. - **Improve:** Avoid gender-linked competence framing even ironically; ensure show notes use gender-neutral defaults. #### Neurodiversity support - **Present:** Conversational, digressive format may be engaging for some; heavy for others. - **Improve:** Chapter markers and structured show notes provide neurodiversity accommodation; consider a "just the facts" summary section for listeners who find digressive conversation cognitively taxing. #### Representation - **Present:** All-male, predominantly UK/US panel. - **Improve:** Future episodes would benefit from diverse guest voices on AI policy (researchers from affected non-US countries), social-media regulation (young people, child advocates), and security (practitioners from underrepresented backgrounds). #### Psychological safety - **Present:** Warm, collegial panel atmosphere; humour used to lower stakes. - **Improve:** Content warning for parents/educators before the social-media/children segment; moderation note for live comments. --- ### ✅ Logical Validity #### Strong reasoning - **Tim Nash's open-source LLM argument (Anthropic segment):** Sound inductive reasoning. Premises: (1) closed AI APIs can be banned overnight; (2) open-source models are viable alternatives; (3) therefore, risk-aware organisations should evaluate open-source models. Well-supported by the live example. Strengthen by quantifying capability gap between frontier and open-source models at time of recording. - **Tim Nash's "social media definition" argument (UK legislation segment):** Strong by analogy and precedent (Australia's narrow definition vs. UK's vague framing). Correctly identifies a legislative gap with real consequences. - **Attack chain explanation (Optin Monster segment):** Deductively sound causal chain from evidence. Clear, specific, actionable. #### Fallacies - **"Real men don't complain about grill brush injuries"** — *Appeal to tradition / gender stereotype*. Location: grill brush ad segment. Weakness: reinforces gendered competence norms even ironically. Fix: drop the framing entirely or make the irony more explicit. - **Implied conspiracy (Trump/OpenAI shares):** Tim Nash flags this himself as "one take" and "allegedly" — appropriately hedged. Risk is that listeners may weight unverified claims about stock ownership more heavily than the hedge warrants. Fix: explicitly state this is unverified speculation before offering it. - **"Kids will always find a workaround"** — *Slippery slope / inevitability fallacy*. While historically grounded, it risks dismissing partial effectiveness of age-verification measures. Fix: acknowledge that friction reduces harm even if it doesn't eliminate it. #### Tone of voice - Warm, digressive, self-deprecating British-and-American conversational humour. Intellectually serious topics handled with levity that maintains accessibility without trivialising stakes. Example: "grill brushes are next, by the way, by the US government" (Anthropic segment) — the absurdist pivot keeps energy up without undermining the substantive point that followed. --- ### 🛡️ DARVO Analysis - **Applicable context:** The Anthropic/US government story contains the most DARVO-adjacent dynamics, though these are attributed to third parties rather than exhibited by the panellists. - **Deny:** Anthropic's framing of Mythos as "too powerful to release" could be read as pre-emptive denial of capability claims that cannot be verified because the model was never fully released. - **Attack:** The suggestion that Amazon (Anthropic's own major investor) triggered the ban inverts expected stakeholder relationships — framing Anthropic as attacked by its own backer. - **Reverse victim/offender:** The US government's export ban positions Anthropic's model as a threat to national security; Anthropic and the panel implicitly reframe Anthropic as the victim of regulatory overreach or commercial rivalry. - **Emotional cues:** Tim Nash uses sardonic humour ("grudge match by the US government") to signal scepticism of the official national-security framing without asserting it as fact. - **Note:** The panellists handle this responsibly — claims are flagged as speculative, multiple explanations are offered, and no single narrative is asserted as definitive. --- ## 🎯 Conclusion Three of four major stories this week converge on a single structural warning: centralised third-party infrastructure — whether a closed AI API, a social-media platform, or a CDN-hosted JavaScript file — is a fragility vector. The Anthropic export ban, the CDN supply-chain attack on Optin Monster, and the UK's struggle to regulate platforms it does not control all point toward the same practical guidance: where self-hosting or open-source alternatives exist, they deserve serious evaluation. **Practical next steps for readers:** 1. **Immediately:** Check sites running Optin Monster, Trust Pulse, or Push Engage for backdoor admin users (`developer_appi1`, `dev_xx`). 2. **This week:** Audit your plugin stack for external CDN JavaScript loading; remediate any found. 3. **This quarter:** If your workflow depends on a closed AI API, map your fallback options — open-weight models, locally hosted inference, or multi-provider contracts. 4. **Ongoing:** Monitor UK social-media age-verification legislation for definitional scope that could affect WordPress comment sections; engage with community policy advocacy if relevant. 5. **Celebrate (appropriately):** CERN running WordPress is a genuine win for the ecosystem — and a reminder that the platform can handle serious institutional scale when built correctly. --- ## 🔄 Refactor Appendix — This Week in WordPress #376 ### 📚 Literature Atoms (H3) #### [H1] Export controls can revoke AI API access overnight > [!quote] ID:rw_twiwp376_01 > "You've got this group of where it's like, is this hubris? Was this an AI company hitting its own marketing hype? Was this really a marketing campaign that backfired? Was this a grudge match by the US government?" **Context & use:** - Anthropic Fable/Mythos segment, approximately 25 minutes into episode. - This is the first documented case of a commercially launched AI model being blocked via export control, making API dependency risk concrete rather than theoretical for enterprise WordPress/web practitioners. **Tags:** #xref #articleseed **Highlight:** [view highlight](readwise://twiwp376_01)  --- #### [H2] CDN-loaded plugin scripts create unchainable supply-chain risk > [!quote] ID:rw_twiwp376_02 > "This isn't to do with plug-in updating. So you don't need to — you're not going to go and suddenly see that there's a new version of Optin Monster because this was being remotely pulled. It just affected it." **Context & use:** - Optin Monster/CDN attack segment, approximately 65 minutes in. - Directly demonstrates why the WordPress plugin repository's prohibition on external CDN script loading exists: a compromised CDN endpoint bypasses all conventional update-based security hygiene. **Tags:** #xref #addendum **Highlight:** [view highlight](readwise://twiwp376_02)  --- #### [H3] Undefined "social media" in legislation threatens self-hosted WordPress sites > [!quote] ID:rw_twiwp376_03 > "There is no definition of social media. And in Australia, they've defined social media very tightly. If you try to define social media, I think you would struggle not to include blogs." **Context & use:** - UK social-media ban segment, approximately 45 minutes in. - Tim Nash's observation has direct, under-discussed implications for any WordPress operator running a public commenting system — a legislative gap the community should be monitoring and lobbying on. **Tags:** #xref #articleseed **Highlight:** [view highlight](readwise://twiwp376_03)  --- ### 🧠 Permanent Candidates (H4) #### [P1] Centralised API dependency is a geopolitical fragility, not just a technical one **Claim** (one sentence, declarative): Relying on a single closed-source AI API exposes organisations to overnight loss of access through government export controls, independent of the provider's technical reliability or contractual commitments. **Evidence pointer:** [[#H1]] — Anthropic Fable export ban, June 2025. **Scope & conditions:** Holds when the API provider is subject to a jurisdiction willing to use export controls as a geopolitical tool. Less applicable to providers operating entirely within the user's own jurisdiction or to open-weight models self-hosted on owned infrastructure. **Links:** - [[Open-source LLM adoption]] — because applies-in risk-mitigation planning - [[Digital sovereignty]] — because extends into national infrastructure policy - [[Vendor lock-in]] — because contrasts on the dimension of contractual vs. regulatory risk  --- #### [P2] Plugin security hygiene requires ecosystem-level, not plugin-level, patch monitoring **Claim** (one sentence, declarative): A vulnerability in one plugin (Updraft Plus) can chain through shared infrastructure to compromise a different plugin's users (Optin Monster), making per-plugin update status an insufficient security signal. **Evidence pointer:** [[#H2]] — Optin Monster CDN attack chain, June 2025. **Scope & conditions:** Holds when plugins share infrastructure (CDNs, APIs, hosting environments) or when one plugin's vulnerability enables lateral movement to that shared infrastructure. Less applicable in fully isolated, air-gapped WordPress environments. **Links:** - [[Supply-chain security]] — because extends - [[WordPress plugin repository policy]] — because applies-in enforcement design - [[SBOM strategy]] — because evidence-for dependency tracking value  --- ### ✏️ Fleeting Queue - [F1] Research: Does the UK Online Safety Act 2023 already contain a "social media" definition, and does it capture self-hosted WordPress blogs? — [Guardian UK social media ban coverage](https://www.theguardian.com) #fleeting #inbox - [F2] Explore: Apple's claimed age-estimation-from-photo capability — what is the documented accuracy at the 15/16 age boundary? — [Apple developer documentation](https://developer.apple.com) #fleeting #inbox - [F3] Follow up: Has Awesome Motive (Optin Monster) published a formal post-mortem on the CDN compromise? — [Awesome Motive blog](https://awesomemotive.com) #fleeting #inbox --- ### → Things 3 (max 2 actions) - [ ] Audit all active client sites for Optin Monster / Trust Pulse / Push Engage and check users table for `developer_appi1` or `dev_xx` accounts — security remediation #things - [ ] Draft a one-page "AI API dependency risk brief" for internal use, covering closed vs. open-weight model tradeoffs in light of Anthropic export ban — #things --- ``` Processed: This Week in WordPress #376 - Literature atoms: 3 / 5 cap - Permanent candidates: 2 / 3 cap - Fleeting items: 3 - Things 3 actions: 2 / 2 cap - Konik tags used: [#xref, #addendum, #articleseed] - Triage callouts populated: Cross Reference (H1, H2, H3), Article Ideas (H1, H3, H2) - Quality gates: [✓ verbatim quote check, ✓ atomicity markers present, ✓ link annotations with relationship types, ✓ no [MISSING] in YAML, ✓ tagged highlights routed to callouts, ✓ ID markers present] - Override conditions triggered: none (3 Literature, 2 Permanent — within defaults) ``` --- ## Full Transcript [02:00] That was weird. That was really, really [02:02] weird. Sometimes that music takes an [02:05] absolute age. Like 2 minutes is what it [02:08] is and it really feels like it takes 10. [02:11] I swear to God that was like 8 seconds. [02:14] That was the like profoundly weird how [02:17] time shifted for me in that 2 minutes. [02:19] That's really [02:19] >> you just blacked out. [02:21] >> No. No. Like have you ever had that when [02:22] you do the same let's say you do the [02:24] same journey to the supermarket or [02:25] something like that and then sometimes [02:26] you'll just arrive and you'll think how [02:30] what what occurred between me getting in [02:32] the car and getting here. No, clearly [02:34] I'm the only one that [02:36] >> you fell asleep at the wheel. [02:37] >> I fell asleep at the wheel. Um anyway, [02:40] this is off to a good start. It's this [02:42] week in WordPress number 376. [02:46] The reason I say that is because [02:48] normally I go off and do a couple of [02:50] other things just to make sure the [02:51] show's working and what have you and and [02:52] I come back and there's like a whole [02:54] minute of jingle left. That time I got [02:56] back and there was like 4 seconds left, [02:58] so it was all very strange. Um, number [03:00] 376. We're here to talk about WordPress [03:02] stuff and no doubt some other stuff as [03:05] well. We might even talk about brushes [03:08] later, you know. I mean, hold tight, [03:11] ladies and gentlemen. It doesn't get [03:13] better than that. But in order for this [03:15] stupidity to carry on for 90 minutes, I [03:17] have to be joined by some other people. [03:20] Um, [03:20] >> you know, you don't [03:23] stupid by yourself. [03:24] >> Yeah. And on that, look, look. Okay. [03:26] Right. Fine. It's just me. It's just [03:29] gonna be me. Look, everybody thinks [03:31] that's hysterically funny. Um, I want [03:35] all of the guests to be here. So anyway, [03:38] the idea is to talk about WordPressy [03:39] stuff with a bit of humor and [03:41] light-heartedness thrown in. I think [03:42] this is a good panel for [03:43] light-heartedness because we've been on [03:45] the call for about 10 minutes already in [03:47] the background and we've had multiple [03:48] giggles and um and I've let out a little [03:52] bit of liquid. Let's just put it that [03:54] way. [03:56] Just let that sink in and then we'll [03:57] move on. Okay. So, who's joining me [04:00] today? Well, you can see going around [04:01] the screen, we have Mark Benz again, [04:03] we've got Tim Nash, and we've also got [04:05] Mark with a K from WS form. Yeah, we are [04:08] going to have problems this week because [04:09] we've got two marks. How are we going to [04:10] solve it? [04:11] >> What are we going to do? [04:12] >> Mark with a K, Mark with a C. [04:14] >> Really? Okay. [04:15] >> Or you could read bios. [04:16] >> Yeah. Or what about like Muriel and [04:19] Diane? [04:21] >> Tim Kim obviously read my bio. [04:24] >> Okay. Okay. In which case, let's get to [04:27] the bios. We'll solve that problem as we [04:29] come to it. Yeah, Mark's bio is I've [04:32] only just looked. It's a full-on pass [04:35] paragraph. It's like a small book. Uh, [04:37] in which case we'll come to Mark with a [04:39] K. No, Mark with a C at the end. Let's [04:42] do Mark Westgard first. Mark is the [04:44] founder of the WordPress form plug-in WS [04:48] form. Is that is that it? [04:50] >> And I appreciate you saying that slowly. [04:53] Yeah, [04:56] he's he's also he's also jolly good [04:59] company. If you go to a word camp, u [05:02] seek him out. I often do. This time we [05:05] spent quite a lot of time doing all [05:06] sorts of fun things, didn't we? I [05:08] suspect our most enjoyable thing was [05:11] mocking the wax museum in Kov, which is [05:15] really entertaining. [05:16] >> Yeah. [05:16] >> What a place. If you go to Kov, please [05:18] go to the wax museum. It is [05:20] entertainment on another level. Yeah, it [05:23] really is. It's brilliant. Okay, and [05:26] then Tim Nash is also joining us and [05:29] Tim's bio says, "Tim does stuff with [05:31] WordPress on the internet. Sometimes he [05:33] scares people." That's nice and simple, [05:35] too. [05:37] >> Well, I saw Mark's Oh, we're going with [05:39] simple, are we? [05:40] >> Oh, you mean mine? And then here comes [05:43] Mark. [05:44] >> Okay. Well, I I just want to say there's [05:47] an interesting thing that that uh Gina, [05:49] my girlfriend, taught me about chat GPT. [05:53] If you put in add meat to like [05:56] something, it adds meat to something and [05:58] write this big. Yeah. So, [06:00] >> okay. So, here we go. So, this is the [06:02] chat GPTized [06:04] version. I'm going to read it very very [06:06] quickly uh because otherwise we'll be [06:08] here for quite a long time. So, here we [06:10] go. Mark Benjane, often often referred [06:12] to as mark number two on this podcast, [06:14] is in the partnerships and community [06:15] lead at MainWP, where he works with [06:17] plug-in developers, agencies, hosts, and [06:19] service providers to help expand what's [06:20] possible within the WordPress open [06:22] source ecosystem. A longtime WordPress [06:24] professional, Mark is passionate about [06:25] collaboration, community building, and [06:26] finding practical ways for businesses to [06:28] benefit from open source technology [06:29] while while maintaining open open [06:32] ownership and control of their websites. [06:34] Over the past couple of weeks and [06:35] continuing over the next several, MainWP [06:37] has been rolling out new thirdparty [06:38] integrations and add-ons through its [06:39] partnership program, helping users [06:41] connect more more of the tools they [06:42] already rely on on their MainWP [06:44] dashboards. If you're building something [06:45] in the WordPress space and are curious [06:46] about potential collaboration [06:47] opportunities, Mark is always happy to [06:49] have a conversation, it can be reached [06:50] through MainWP. He's also a longtime fan [06:52] of the band Rush and would like to offer [06:54] congratulations on the smashing [06:56] smashingly successful start to their new [06:58] tour, providing that there's still [06:59] plenty of life left to be lived, even [07:01] for those of us older folks. [07:05] How did I do? [07:07] >> However, you need to apologize to all of [07:10] those who are listening on two times [07:11] speed in the playback. [07:13] >> Yes. Yes. Even better. [07:16] >> Yeah. [07:16] >> But here's the thing. Here's the thing. [07:18] I just learned about the Clangers and [07:20] I've been like going on this deep dive [07:22] about this. [07:23] >> It's like now I wish I had written [07:25] something in my bio about the Clangers [07:27] because this is mustsee TV right here. [07:30] >> So if you're if you're not based in the [07:33] UK, prior to the conversation uh prior [07:35] to me hitting record, we had a [07:36] conversation and it ended up being about [07:38] kids TV in the UK and we mentioned this [07:40] thing called the Clangers. Go and you [07:43] YouTube it. The Clangers. But seriously, [07:46] take some like I don't know some [07:48] barbituates before you do. [07:51] >> Um [07:52] because [07:55] not the use of [07:58] we need you to do some more legal tears. [08:03] Nobody [08:03] >> only if they've been prescribed to you [08:05] by a doctor. [08:06] >> That's right. Yes. Okay. [08:08] >> Also, if you go to the doctors and say [08:10] I'm about to watch the clers, is that [08:12] what they're going to prescribe you? [08:15] Can Can I just say this show's never [08:18] going to finish, is it? We'll never get [08:20] to the list of things that we're [08:21] supposed to do. [08:22] >> I'm not sure it's ever going to start. [08:24] >> Yeah, it's great. It's brilliant. Right. [08:25] So, the normal um sort of housekeeping [08:28] stuff I'm going to do uh and say the [08:30] following. If you are over on any of the [08:34] YouTube or anything like that, that's [08:35] great. But the easiest place to sort of [08:38] catch what we're doing is [08:40] wpbuilds.comsubscribe. [08:43] There we go. wpbuilds.comsubscribe. [08:47] You can you can sort of go there and uh [08:51] you know find out what we're doing um [08:53] and sign up to our email list and all of [08:54] that kind of stuff. Probably the [08:57] quickest way to do that kind of stuff is [08:58] just to go to this page uh wpbuilds.com. [09:02] Stick your email address into this form [09:04] field and click subscribe and then it [09:07] will be WS form um which will submit [09:10] that to me and get you onto our email [09:12] list. That's rather nice feature that [09:14] they offer. Um, what have we done this [09:17] week? We chatted this week to Alex [09:19] Standifford. Oh no, I need to refresh [09:21] that. That hasn't been refreshed in a [09:22] while. There we go. Um, Miriam Schwab is [09:24] who we talked to most recently. Alex was [09:26] the week before that. And we were [09:28] talking about uh Angie AI, which is uh, [09:31] no, it's not really new anymore, but [09:33] it's a feature if you're an Elementor [09:35] user or not an Elementor user, which you [09:37] can use to help assist with your [09:39] WordPress website. So, go and check that [09:41] out. And then derailing the show utterly [09:43] and completely. Um, this has got nothing [09:46] to do with WordPress, but I just found [09:47] it hysterically funny. Just before Mark [09:50] uh joined the show, he sent me this [09:52] picture, which I just thought was [09:53] brilliant and worthy of showing on any [09:56] podcast, frankly. Um, for those of you [09:59] that for those of you that can't see it, [10:02] Mark woke up this morning to this. Get [10:04] compensation for your injury. Grillbrush [10:06] injury. [10:09] Have you ever had a grill brush injury, [10:10] panel? No, I don't. [10:12] >> Oh, yes. Many, [10:13] >> but I I never thought to sue anybody. [10:15] No. [10:16] >> My own silly fault. [10:18] >> Well, I mean I mean grilling is is [10:21] generally like associated with real men, [10:25] right? So, real men are going to [10:27] complain about a grill brush injury. [10:29] That just like is a big contradiction [10:31] right there, I think. [10:32] >> Oh, okay. Well, I [10:34] >> got to ask, how did you get targeted [10:36] with it? I mean, maybe they just decided [10:39] that Mark is a real man, as you put it. [10:42] >> I did put it in quotes. By the way, [10:44] there were air quotes for those of you [10:45] who are not watching the video. [10:48] >> It's um he's been targeted was because [10:51] of his previous lawsuit with a grill [10:52] brush. [10:55] You know, [10:56] >> I must just be suing everybody. [10:59] >> Anyway, I just thought that was just I [11:00] don't know why I thought that was as [11:01] funny as it was, but I thought it was [11:02] funny. [11:03] >> That's why I sent it to you because I [11:04] thought it was funny. [11:05] >> Yeah. I've I've I've airbrushed, see [11:07] what I did there? The uh the name of the [11:10] companies out, but whoever they are, [11:12] please please stop with their silliness. [11:15] Nobody needs this. [11:17] >> You say that there is somebody out there [11:19] who's going, [11:20] >> "My grill brush and my injury and [11:24] >> yeah, but who will who will represent [11:26] me?" [11:27] >> Who who But how could you how could you [11:29] possibly be injured by a grill brush [11:31] unless you did it to yourself? So, it's [11:33] a bit like suing yourself cuz you've I [11:35] don't know. You woke up in the morning [11:36] with a dead arm and slapped your own [11:38] face. [11:39] >> Well, this is the same this is the same [11:41] law firm [11:45] >> probably the same law firm that like [11:47] sued McDonald's for the person who [11:49] burned themselves with coffee. I mean, [11:51] >> gosh. Yeah. Yeah. [11:52] >> Yeah. That was high quality, wasn't it? [11:54] I oddly I was in America when that [11:58] happened and I remember even the [12:00] American media thought that that was a [12:02] curious example of law gone a bit [12:04] bizarre and I think it was somebody who' [12:06] put the bought a coffee taken [12:08] >> put it in their lap [12:09] >> put it in their lap and then break or [12:11] something and squeeze the legs together [12:12] and out pop the [12:14] >> the hot liquid and so now ever since [12:15] then even in the UK the cups now all [12:18] need to say contains hot liquid it's [12:21] like yeah really it's a coffee okay [12:23] >> it's a [12:24] Yeah, that's right. [12:26] >> Uh, right. Okay, let us move on. So, the [12:28] next thing that we do on the show is we [12:30] um we allow the guests to bring one or [12:32] two of their bits and pieces that they [12:34] wish to wish to mention during the last [12:37] week. And uh Tim has brought three. Uh [12:40] so Tim, I'm going to start us off with [12:42] some AI news. I actually I don't fully [12:46] understand what this is. I just saw that [12:48] the that the I guess it's the US [12:50] government have banned certain brand new [12:53] models. Can you can you tell us why? [12:56] >> Uh [12:58] if if that let's not do that question [13:01] first. Let's go with the more simpler [13:02] one of what what's happened and then we [13:04] can [13:05] >> Okay, let me just replay that. Uh Tim, [13:07] can you tell us what's happened with [13:09] this story? We'll edit that out. So, [13:11] once upon a time there was a uh AI [13:15] company who put out a vast amount of [13:18] marketing about their shiny new Mythos [13:21] models which were so powerful and so [13:24] scary they weren't going to launch them [13:26] to the world. [13:28] Unfortunately, they discovered that you [13:30] don't make money on things that you [13:32] don't launch to the world. So they [13:34] released Fable, which was like [13:38] supposedly Mythos, but with all the [13:41] scary bits guard railed away, so you [13:44] couldn't test them to see if it really [13:45] was as scary as they thought it was. [13:48] They launched it. Lots of hype. Most [13:51] people said, "Wow, this is quite a good [13:53] AI model on par with sort of certainly [13:56] better than quite a lot of the uh [13:57] anthropic models, possibly better than [14:00] the OpenAI model. certainly better than [14:02] the the general other models that rush [14:04] up behind those two sort of like big [14:06] heavyweights in many ways. [14:09] Launches and after a couple of days of [14:11] launching lots of people playing with it [14:14] all of a sudden and fropic make a [14:16] statement saying we are pulling fable 5 [14:19] and mythos for everybody [14:22] the and then it then as part of that the [14:24] US government has put an export control [14:27] ban on it. So basically the US [14:29] government says no non US citizen [14:33] can use this model that they've they're [14:36] banning it from being exported i.e. used [14:39] anywhere. Now the problem with that is [14:41] that um most people who are working on [14:44] this model are not US citizens. [14:48] >> Majority of Anthropic's own staff are [14:50] not US citizens. [14:52] >> So they just have to shut their eyes. [14:54] >> So working on it. So the result was they [14:56] had to shut this down. Why is this [14:59] interesting? Well, this is the first [15:00] time we've seen a uh AI model being [15:03] banned effectively [15:06] for to stop it being used by supposedly [15:10] the US's adversar adversaries. Um and it [15:13] was a blanket ban. Um, you could argue [15:16] that that was because it was deemed that [15:18] it the the reason for it was that it was [15:21] somehow would allow you to create back [15:24] doors and to do nasty things and it's [15:27] really bad for hacking. [15:30] What it actually appeared to be is that [15:32] uh somebody asked it to do a code review [15:35] and it did. Oh, which every other model [15:39] on the planet pretty much can do to [15:42] varying degrees. But it was very [15:44] interesting that this morning when I uh [15:46] went into uh OpenAI's codeex and typed [15:49] in at cyber to get my get the official [15:52] plugin to do security review, it wasn't [15:55] there this morning. I can't imagine why [15:57] that was. [15:58] So, huh, we are in a position now where [16:01] the US government has blocked this. [16:05] Obviously, Anthropic launched it. People [16:09] bought plans to use it. [16:12] They cannot use it. So, they they are [16:15] stuck. You've got this group of where [16:18] it's like, is this hubris? Was this a [16:22] uh AI company or a hitting its own [16:25] marketing hype? and trying to pump pump [16:29] the stock up. Was this a really a [16:32] marketing campaign that backfired? Was [16:34] this a grudge match by the US government [16:36] who, let's face it, [16:39] isn't renowned at the moment for being [16:41] the most just, fair, and impartial [16:43] government in the world and does have a [16:46] habit of um if it doesn't like you tries [16:48] to sue you and has found a new mechanism [16:51] to maybe beat somebody with a stick. [16:54] grill brushes are next, by the way, by [16:55] the US government. [16:56] >> Oh, yeah. Um, [16:58] >> you could be cynical and say that the uh [17:02] allegedly the Trump family have shares [17:03] in open AI and they don't in anthropic. [17:06] That's one take. But the big problem [17:09] here is so there's there's like the [17:11] problem which is that these models are [17:13] being banned effectively being banned. [17:15] They are technically under export [17:16] control, but as I'm frogpit can't use it [17:19] themselves, they can't exactly update it [17:21] or manage it. So they basically [17:22] blanketly said no. [17:25] But weirdly, this is probably the best [17:28] thing to happen potentially to AI [17:30] models. [17:32] >> Because all of a sudden, every company [17:35] on the planet woke up this morning and [17:37] went, "Huh, what happens when our model [17:41] gets banned? What happens when [17:44] the company we rely on gets banned?" [17:46] Because Open AI might be the favor of [17:48] the month for the US government at the [17:49] moment. [17:52] These wax and Wayne over the time we've [17:54] seen it all the time that companies go [17:56] in and out of favor. So what happens [17:58] when their models get banned? All of a [18:00] sudden those open-source models which [18:02] are only a couple of tiers below. [18:04] >> Oh interesting. Suddenly we're looking [18:07] at them and going [18:09] yeah maybe so our own sovereignty is [18:11] important for countries like the UK [18:13] where we have been sitting on the fence [18:15] about data AI sovereignty and whether we [18:18] should be man running running our own [18:19] large language models internally we we [18:22] turns out we actually do but they just [18:23] nobody pays attention to them but maybe [18:26] that's something that individual [18:27] countries should be thinking about [18:29] certainly a lot more companies are going [18:30] to be going well actually we want to use [18:32] these open source models we're willing [18:34] to put the hardware about. So, I would [18:36] not be surprised if any if anybody was [18:38] buying planning on buying a gaming PC or [18:43] a graphics card. [18:45] >> You know, the prices were just dipping [18:46] down. [18:47] >> Yeah, [18:48] >> they ain't dipping down no more. We're [18:50] going to just see I suspect we're going [18:51] to see a massive spike in the hardware [18:54] uh costs. But yeah, it's it's a real [18:56] mess [18:58] >> and one that could have been solved [18:59] easily. But the really strange thing [19:02] about this is that the person the [19:05] company that supposedly reported it [19:06] because uh Robic said basically a third [19:08] party company had reported them. [19:11] The third party company was not OpenAI [19:13] as everybody automatically assumed. It [19:16] was Amazon. [19:17] >> That's right. [19:18] >> Who is Anthropic's [19:19] >> Yeah. [19:20] >> biggest customer [19:22] and has a large stake in anthropic. [19:27] So we might actually genuinely been a [19:31] that the person decided it really was a [19:33] national security issue and took it [19:35] forward. [19:36] >> So we don't have any intel in there [19:39] isn't like a smoking gun which is okay [19:41] this is the thing which stepped over [19:43] some boundary that had never been like a [19:45] Rubicon this the AI did something [19:49] genuinely surprising and new and [19:50] potentially harmful. We don't appear [19:52] >> as far as we know. No. [19:54] >> Right. Okay. So, uh, a comment came in [19:57] from Wiki Design. Thank you. Which said, [19:59] "This is all starting to sound like a [20:01] marketing campaign and stock [20:03] manipulation, nothing more." So, you [20:04] made that point. Okay, that's really [20:07] interesting. And and honestly, I hadn't [20:09] made the connection with the open- [20:10] source models, and I wonder if that will [20:13] now force people to to to realize maybe [20:18] that's somewhere they need to be. Um [20:21] that's really intriguing. [20:22] >> The the downside to that is of course [20:24] the open source models in many ways need [20:26] the frontier models i.e. the these [20:28] closed source big ones uh to use it not [20:31] least if you're using certain ones which [20:33] are obviously trading off the bigger [20:35] source models whether they're meant to [20:36] or not. [20:37] >> Okay. [20:38] >> So we are in a really weird scenario but [20:40] uh [20:42] >> there was an awful lot of hyping up of [20:44] mythos. So, [20:46] >> okay, [20:47] >> and Tropic put this on a pedestal and [20:50] somebody's took a swipe at it. I It's [20:53] interesting to see the ramifications of [20:55] that. I I don't think anybody [20:56] necessarily thought that this would be [20:58] the ramification. I think there what [21:00] everybody expected was it to be knocked [21:02] off the pedestal with people saying, [21:03] "Yeah, it's not as good as it really is. [21:04] It's all marketing." Like, [21:07] >> and the weird thing is [21:09] >> now they've got the best marketing [21:10] campaign ever because they've been [21:12] banned by the US government. [21:15] Yeah, I was just about to say um in the [21:17] absence of an actually a seismic leap in [21:21] technology, this is probably the the [21:23] most effective way if you want to look [21:24] at it from a conspiratorial point of [21:26] view. This is a very effective way to [21:28] get to get eyeballs, isn't it? It's so [21:31] >> somebody doing an advert from showing an [21:33] advert from the uh late 90s early 2000s [21:37] when uh Apple and released the um G4 and [21:44] it was subject to an export control [21:45] briefly and Apple turned that into the [21:48] main ad that they used. [21:50] >> That's so good. [21:51] >> So powerful it has to be controlled. [21:54] >> That's right. Oh, [21:55] >> I feel like Anthropic is going to be [21:57] doing the same [21:57] >> maybe. Yeah. Well, that's certainly an [21:59] interesting story. So, it's on the [22:00] Anthropic, I'm guessing, blog. It was uh [22:03] three days ago that this was announced. [22:04] So, we'll have to see what's [22:06] >> It is on every news website you will [22:07] find. [22:08] >> Yeah. Well, it's hot news, isn't it? [22:10] Yeah. Let's let's um let's see how that [22:12] story develops. That's interesting. [22:14] Thank you. So, that was Tim's first [22:15] piece. And then there was um some I've [22:18] got another piece which kind of maps to [22:20] this. So, we'll do your piece and then [22:21] we'll do my piece because curiously [22:23] they're both from the Guardian. So, this [22:25] is UK news. um social media if you like. [22:29] Do you want to just paraphrase this one [22:31] quickly? [22:32] >> Yeah. Uh so this second one is breaking [22:34] news, you know, because we we run into [22:36] breaking news on a weekly show, but this [22:38] is genuine breaking news. It only [22:40] happened a few hours ago. Um and that is [22:43] that social media firms are getting [22:46] upset because our prime minister went [22:48] out onto the world stage and said that [22:51] we're going to ban social media for [22:52] under 16s [22:54] >> in a Australian plus solution because [22:58] you know [23:00] >> the Australians went no no we're we are [23:04] Australian plus. [23:05] >> Yeah. Does that mean that when we don't [23:06] win the ashes, we can at least say this? [23:08] You know, that's [23:10] >> your upstart colony. This is our our [23:12] plus on it. [23:13] >> Yeah. [23:14] >> But so the the basic premise is that [23:17] somehow we're going to ban under 16s [23:19] from using harmful social media. [23:22] >> It is a typical politician's plan. It's [23:26] words have been said. [23:28] >> Most of them have no real meaning. [23:30] >> Most of them have no direction. Yeah. [23:32] >> And the it almost certainly relies on [23:36] technology that does not yet currently [23:37] exist. [23:38] >> Okay. So, brilliant. Okay. But solid [23:42] >> pretty much where we normally go with [23:43] these [23:45] >> whenever you legislate technology. If [23:47] you're legislating technology [23:49] >> for a given moment, almost certainly [23:52] that moment has already passed. [23:54] >> And this is a good example of this. [23:56] What's curious about this is if I was 13 [23:59] years old or 14 years old and and I was [24:01] getting into this already deeply [24:02] immersed in it, I would be so annoyed [24:05] about this, but my commodly 50 plus year [24:08] old self is sort of saying, "Yeah, I [24:11] this this all adds up." Like, [24:13] >> well, see, I I think I fully support [24:16] this as long as we also ban over 40s on [24:18] Twitter. [24:19] >> Okay. Um, okay, let's do it. I feel like [24:21] if we just b if we could just ban over [24:24] 14s from social media and and under 16s [24:26] that seems like a good happy medium. [24:28] You're allowed to have it. [24:31] >> A short window of like 24 years to be on [24:33] social media and then yeah, you get this [24:35] apocalyptic moment on your 39th [24:37] birthday. The clock starts ticking. [24:39] You've got 365 days of social media [24:42] left. No, I'm with you. [24:44] >> The next step is Logan's Run. So, we [24:46] were I was I was just going to bring up [24:48] Logan's run and I was like, does anybody [24:50] even remember that [24:52] >> he does? [24:53] >> Apparently. [24:54] >> Yeah. So, okay. Let's see how that goes. [24:56] It'll be interesting to see how they [24:58] manage to gatekeep that and how they [24:59] manage to stop the social media [25:01] companies circumventing what will [25:02] obviously be a tricky moment when they [25:05] become I mean, presumably the only way [25:06] that you can do it is to enforce some [25:08] sort of um recognition of [25:11] government-based ID to prove that you [25:13] are of a certain. Do you not remember [25:15] when we decided we were going to ban [25:17] porn and how we solved that solution, [25:19] which was to go, [25:19] >> yeah, cookies. [25:20] >> Hey, let's pay some companies to hoard [25:23] the data and then wonder why data [25:24] >> breaches. That's right. Yeah. And the [25:26] claim that they I'm taking a picture of [25:28] your face, but we're not going to use [25:29] your picture of your face or keep in any [25:31] way the picture of your face, but we're [25:33] going to take a picture of your face. [25:35] >> VPNs became very popular after this. [25:39] >> VPNs will continue to be popular. Um, [25:43] the social media companies are [25:44] understandably going, "Uh, what now?" [25:47] Uh, I have a little bit of sympathy. [25:50] >> I thought, uh, YouTube, uh, well, [25:52] Google, but YouTube had adverts [25:55] plastered all around Westminster, so [25:56] around near the government buildings in [26:00] London, that just showed you how to use [26:02] your parental controls on YouTube. [26:05] >> Oh, wow. which I thought was a very [26:07] carefully and clever response to this is [26:09] like look you you you're you're [26:11] legislating for something that you don't [26:13] really have we already have controls in [26:15] place to do some of this. [26:17] >> Yeah. [26:18] >> So it is a hard one to crack though and [26:20] I've whenever we get these sort of [26:22] stories it is always about think of the [26:25] children and it's like yeah [26:29] not sure this is true. I I I I love the [26:31] idea of we're thinking of the children, [26:33] but are we really going to solve it? [26:36] >> Oh, I'm sure it's framed around like the [26:38] children are the framing of it, aren't [26:40] they? But there's probably a a wider [26:42] more sort of I don't know um systemic [26:45] problem. And I'll just put this one up. [26:48] So, this isn't Tim's piece, but it's [26:49] it's again it's in the Guardian, [26:51] coincidentally, which by the way, if you [26:52] don't know, is a fairly left-leaning [26:54] publication in the UK. So, that would [26:55] maybe explain why it's raising these [26:58] things. um some some I'm going to say [27:02] the government I I will prove to be [27:04] wrong I'm sure but the the UK have [27:06] decided that they're going to invest in [27:09] um some research to see if exposure to [27:14] things like Tik Tok or fastpaced content [27:20] um is in fact creating a different sort [27:23] of structure to the brain. Uh, so let's [27:26] say for example that you're my age with [27:28] that's how we got onto the whole [27:29] clangers and the BBC TV programs that [27:31] were very slow when we were children. [27:33] Television was I I'm guessing [27:36] intentionally perhaps not intentionally [27:38] but it was very slow paced. A children's [27:40] program kind of had this feel of [27:43] something a quarter of the pace of an [27:45] adult program. You know there was no [27:46] flashing lights or anything like that. [27:47] Whether that was deliberate or or [27:49] otherwise I don't know. But I was [27:51] brought up in an era where the [27:52] television programs for children were [27:53] very very young. And now all those [27:56] you like on Tik Tok and YouTube. So the [27:58] government are going to carry out some [28:00] research with some fairly credible [28:02] scientists including this lady with a [28:04] you know a helmet that looks like she's [28:06] come out of the film Alien. [28:07] >> She's now a child. [28:08] >> Yeah. Yeah. No, she No, that's right. I [28:11] don't know what like these researchers [28:13] are I don't know what [28:14] >> that's what happens when you have to [28:15] watch [28:18] children's TV. [28:19] >> Yeah. This old age occurs very quickly. [28:22] No, I presume she's the control. She She [28:25] is the UK control lady. She's everything [28:27] that's not Anyway, um so they're going [28:30] to carry out this research and see if if [28:32] there is a there there if the brain [28:35] develops in a different way. I'm I'm [28:38] fairly sure that if I watch fast-paced [28:41] stuff, then I I've definitely got a [28:44] different approach to the next few [28:45] hours, you know, so there is some [28:47] difference that occurs in my brain. Um [28:50] whether or not that means that children [28:51] are being wired differently, I don't [28:53] quite know. But there's a few comments [28:55] about this. So, first one, Web Squadron. [28:58] Hello. Hi there, Imran. I suspect that [29:01] they're trying to force apps or [29:02] something to Oh, they're going to try [29:04] and force apps on the phones to be [29:06] blocked. Um, so I presume you mean by [29:09] that things like getting the platforms [29:12] like Apple and Google to block it as [29:14] opposed to each app having to govern its [29:18] own. Yeah, that would be interesting. [29:19] >> I already I already do that with my [29:21] children. [29:22] >> I stop them from using Snapchat. You [29:25] know, Snapchat is the biggest waste of [29:27] time. I I'll tell you a quick thing [29:29] about Snapchat. I found my children [29:32] taking photographs of the ceiling and [29:35] and posting it to Snapchat and then [29:38] putting an S on it because that meant [29:40] streak because you have to keep posting [29:43] on Snapchat to get what's called a [29:45] streak. A streak. literally just [29:47] pointing at the ceiling taking a photo [29:49] and I was like right that's getting [29:51] banned [29:53] >> and the kick obviously the kickback from [29:55] it was quite incredible. [29:57] >> I I don't know I I think my ceiling is [29:59] pretty cool [30:02] lots of pictures of my ceiling. It's [30:04] it's pretty good. what what is sort of [30:06] coming from that is that the uh both [30:09] Apple and uh Google via Android and this [30:15] is even turned up in Linux um sort of [30:18] circles recently is age verification on [30:21] the device and on the at the operating [30:23] system level is something that is being [30:25] pushed for by multiple countries. So [30:27] actually, [30:27] >> okay, [30:28] >> it is possibly the right route because [30:31] you're verifying the device that you're [30:33] on at that given moment, not necessarily [30:37] some ID you handed over six months ago. [30:41] Apple claimed that they can tell the age [30:43] of somebody from a photo very quickly [30:46] and easily. [30:47] >> That's really biometrics associated with [30:50] that. [30:51] >> Therefore, I mean, look at me. I look [30:53] like 26 [30:55] >> and I'm not 26. [30:57] >> I'm not even 26. Yeah, 20. Thanks, Mark. [31:03] >> No, that's just garbage though, isn't [31:04] it? The idea that a photo can like like [31:07] obviously it can tell broad sways like [31:09] you know he's 50, she's probably in her [31:12] 30s. But when you've got that like gap [31:14] where being being 16 and a half and [31:17] being 15 and a half is the crucial [31:20] difference. Well, that's when you get [31:22] your look 25 policy coming. You're not [31:24] allowed to buy your boobs anymore. [31:27] >> Yeah. Yeah. Um but but any anyway I I [31:30] think all of this is absolutely [31:32] fascinating and I I think maybe we've [31:35] lurched a lot in the wrong direction and [31:37] so we're just trying to now figure out [31:39] ways to to lift the to [31:42] >> but the thing is trying to kids trying [31:46] to outsmart kids is like and [31:49] >> I mean these guys they go to school [31:52] every day and and they were the original [31:55] I mean we when we were [31:58] things went viral before things went [32:00] viral. I mean, one kid figures out how [32:03] to do something and every kid in the [32:04] whole school is going to know by the end [32:06] of the day. [32:07] >> Yeah. [32:07] >> So, I don't I don't there's there's, you [32:10] know, there's always a workaround for [32:12] everything. I I was just talking to a [32:14] guy the other day and he asked about, [32:15] "Hey, can we put this thing into this [32:18] project that we want to do and blah blah [32:19] blah?" And I said, "Sure." And that'll [32:22] get rid of the lowhanging fruit. But if [32:25] anybody wants to know how to do [32:27] something or they want to work around [32:29] something, they're going to figure it [32:30] out. [32:31] >> Yeah. [32:31] >> And and and then all they have to do is [32:34] go to school. I mean, kids talk. It's [32:37] like, hey, look what I They want to brag [32:39] about what they figured out. [32:40] >> Yeah. [32:41] >> And and before you know, [32:44] >> I can tell Yeah. I can tell you that [32:46] like having a house uh full of eight [32:48] kids. I had one kid who came to live [32:51] with us for well unfortunately it was [32:53] only two weeks because he he caused [32:56] issues that we couldn't overcome. But [33:00] that kid hacked into my Wi-Fi 18 [33:04] different ways within the first 24 hours [33:06] and I had it secure I thought and and [33:11] one time [33:11] >> 18 different ways argues differently but [33:13] found the reset button. [33:14] >> Okay, I'm exaggerating with the 18 [33:16] different ways but one time I couldn't [33:18] figure out how he did it. The other [33:19] times I was like, "Okay, I can see what [33:20] he did here." And I and and here's the [33:22] thing, as as a guy who's in technology, [33:25] I'm like half the time I'm like wanting [33:28] to yell at him and then the other half [33:29] of me is like, "Wow, this you are so [33:32] smart," you know, and it's like I want [33:34] to praise him for being so smart, [33:35] >> right? Yeah. [33:36] >> And it's it's it's like, you know, and [33:38] then and then I think this is where the [33:40] where the phrase, why can't you use [33:43] those powers for good comes in? But the [33:46] thing is, if your prefrontal cortex is [33:48] not developed until you're 25, but you [33:50] have the ability to do these highly [33:52] critical thinking, you problem solving [33:55] skills before then, this is what you're [33:58] going to end up with. [34:00] >> And and I don't know how to work around [34:01] that honestly other than, you know, [34:04] teach your kids. I mean, it all boils [34:06] down to it all boils down to the [34:08] original just teach your kids, right? [34:10] and and hope that when they go through [34:12] that their teenage years and do all the [34:14] things that you know that they're doing [34:16] but you don't want them to do but you [34:17] know they're going to do that they just [34:19] come out of the other end of the tunnel [34:20] you know fairly unscathed and then pay [34:24] for the therapy to make up for the rest [34:25] of it. [34:28] I um I I read a piece again I believe it [34:31] was in the Guardian so you know caveat [34:33] emptor um the and it was it was like a [34:36] month in on the Australian regime when [34:38] they'd obviously enforced it and they [34:40] went round a bunch of people and asked [34:41] the kids how's it been and I think in [34:43] many cases it was like oh yeah it was [34:45] really it has been really weird but also [34:48] I think there was a recognition that the [34:51] the people who they were questioning had [34:53] found a significant proportion of free [34:56] time available to them which they really [34:58] weren't aware was available to them, [35:01] which was kind of curious as well. You [35:03] know, they were getting up to curious [35:04] and interesting things that maybe they [35:06] hadn't in the past cuz so much time was [35:08] spent. Um, [35:10] >> the way you're saying that is slightly [35:11] cryptic and I'm like, does he mean the [35:13] birth rate in Australia is increasing? [35:15] Because that's a very negative thing [35:16] potentially. [35:18] >> No, no. Oh, no. Yeah. Not those kind of [35:21] things. I mean like, you know, going out [35:23] and playing baseball or something. Um, [35:25] >> Oh, yeah. [35:26] >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Not the other. [35:28] >> Can I loop it back to WordPress very [35:30] quickly, just ever so slightly, which is [35:32] >> there is no definition of social media. [35:36] >> Oh yeah, that's true. [35:38] >> And in Australia, they they've they've [35:40] they've defined social media very [35:42] tightly. And it's been and it's really a [35:45] certain company and certain platform ban [35:48] rather than necessarily [35:49] >> okay, [35:49] >> a blanket ban on social media. [35:54] If you try to define social media, I'd I [35:58] think you would struggle not to include [36:00] blogs. [36:01] >> I think you'd struggle to not include [36:04] >> any commenting system that allowed [36:08] >> you to comment, especially one that was [36:10] distributed in any way. [36:12] >> Well, also it's the retention of that [36:13] data, isn't it? It's like where does it [36:15] sit and who governs it? And like I would [36:17] if legislation which which I don't know [36:21] which meant that I was responsible for [36:22] the commentary inside a database on a [36:25] WordPress site and it's open to the [36:27] public. [36:28] >> I mean gosh you [36:30] >> I mean let's take something if you if [36:32] you were to argue that Tumblr was social [36:34] media which I think a lot of people [36:35] would go what's Tumblr but those of them [36:37] who do remember what Tumblr was. [36:39] >> Yeah. and how much it costs to buy it. [36:42] The they would um [36:45] you I think most people would say that's [36:47] social media, but ultimately it was [36:50] bought on the premise it's just micro [36:51] blogging. [36:52] >> Yeah. Yeah. [36:53] >> So, uh this this is the sort of laws [36:56] that will actually come to play in our [36:59] play area quite quickly. [37:01] >> Yeah. And you can start to expect a lot [37:04] more [37:05] >> questioning on do you want I mean I [37:08] don't think very many sites really act [37:09] as blogs these days and most of the [37:11] people who who are listening to the show [37:13] they might have a personal blog but [37:15] actually they're not if you're working [37:18] inside WordPress it's unlikely that you [37:20] work on blogs you work on larger things [37:22] but that even from a content perspective [37:24] from your content manager who writes [37:27] blog posts for a corporate website if it [37:29] has a comment section you might suddenly [37:32] need to age verify everybody who comes [37:34] to your website. [37:35] >> Right. Right. That's a [37:37] >> quite a crazy step, but it could be one. [37:39] And if somebody and this comes back to [37:42] when you start legislating technology, [37:44] you it's a very slippery slope as to [37:47] what do you include in and what do you [37:49] not include. [37:50] >> Mhm. What's curious about all of these [37:53] arguments though when people talk about [37:55] regulating technology is that there's [37:59] never a recognition of how much we've [38:02] allowed these platforms to get away with [38:04] because we didn't know it was going to [38:07] work out this way. There's ne there's [38:09] always a kind of like looking over our [38:11] shoulder and saying, "Oh, well, but we [38:13] can't undo that thing and you know this [38:15] affects this human right and what have [38:16] you." But at the same time, there's got [38:18] to be a recognition that some of this [38:19] stuff is genuinely harmful. You know, I [38:22] don't want a seven-year-old in any way [38:25] to be able to view certain types of [38:27] content online. I I genuinely don't care [38:29] about the rights of the tech company in [38:31] that regard in a broader debate. I just [38:34] don't want that seven-year-old to be [38:36] able to access that content. And [38:38] unfortunately, it's hitting a h like a [38:40] walnut with a big hammer. There isn't [38:42] fine grained control of this stuff, is [38:45] there? And so uh but yet the tech [38:48] companies are able to come and claim [38:50] freedom of speech and all of these [38:52] things uh uh because 20 years have [38:54] passed and we never spoke up because we [38:56] all thought for the longest period of [38:58] time that social media was going to be [39:00] the best thing that ever happened. Um [39:02] >> in many ways we're probably quite lucky [39:04] that the government didn't ever discover [39:06] PBS boards back in the 80s otherwise it [39:08] would have all been screaming the web [39:09] would never have existed. [39:11] >> Yeah that's true. So just a couple of [39:13] comments on this. So, uh, Web Squadron [39:15] saying he thinks it's a good idea. Um, [39:18] Ree, hello, Ree, is saying, "We've got a [39:20] there's an easy way to solve this. Uh, [39:22] don't ban Tik Tok for under 16s. Just [39:24] force every 40 40year-old to post [39:26] content to it every day. Watch the under [39:29] 16s stop using it." [39:31] >> That's what happened with Facebook, [39:32] right? Facebook has [39:35] >> declining young audience because they [39:37] just don't want to be in that place [39:39] >> and for that matter. [39:40] >> What's happened though is you've just [39:41] found an even worse thing. So [39:44] >> if you drive them away from and this is [39:46] it. If you drive people away, [39:48] >> they go somewhere else. [39:50] >> That's what's going to happen. If if [39:52] they block Facebook and Snapchat and [39:54] everything else, the kids will just go [39:55] somewhere else. [39:56] >> There's always one more out there. [39:58] There's always one more [40:00] >> social media out there. [40:01] >> The Chinese one that did around a few [40:03] years ago that was like read something [40:05] that briefly popped up was a [40:08] >> scared America for a while and then it [40:10] disappeared. No, no, I'm not. I vaguely [40:14] rememberive. Yeah, [40:16] >> red. [40:17] >> I know. No, [40:19] >> it'll come to me in the middle of the [40:20] night as these things often do. [40:22] >> Yeah, I mean scrolling. [40:24] >> My 16-year-old has banned me from Tik [40:27] Tok. So, that's true. [40:29] >> Oh, good on good on the 16-year-old. [40:31] >> Yeah, she's banned me from Tik Tok. She [40:33] says, "Dad," and I'm like, "I'm going to [40:35] post all the cringe-worthy stuff I [40:37] possibly can on Tik Tok." And you know, [40:39] and so this is a, you know, this is [40:42] actually a good plan. Forget about, you [40:44] know, let's let let us take control and [40:46] and just anytime the kids find something [40:49] that's that's cool, all we have to do is [40:51] go in and make the most cringeworthy [40:52] stuff and say, "Look, look at what I [40:55] watch it." [40:56] >> Yeah. And force them to watch it. [40:57] >> We just scroll up a little bit, Nathan. [40:59] >> On this one, [41:00] >> we issue out those hat [41:03] every 16y old and tell them it's fine, [41:05] but we are monitoring you. [41:06] >> That's right. the only input device [41:08] you're allowed. [41:08] >> Yeah. [41:11] Yeah. If you if you use it, it's fine. [41:14] You can use it as much as you like, but [41:15] you have to wear that hat [41:17] >> during the time that you're using it. [41:18] They have to take it wherever you are. [41:20] >> That's a great idea. Yeah, let's [41:22] humiliate everybody. Um, thank you to [41:25] those of you that have commented. [41:26] Appreciate it. So, James, hello. And [41:28] Elliot, hello. And Marcus Bennett, [41:30] hello. Um, I'm just going to move on [41:32] very quickly. So, right. And then uh [41:37] this one, this is a very we're back in [41:39] the um the WordPress fold for this one, [41:41] aren't we, Tim? This is a a problem with [41:43] a collection of plugins. Tell us more. [41:46] It's it it was a problem with a [41:47] collection of problem plugins, which if [41:49] you happen to have any of these plugins, [41:51] you should probably go and have a look [41:52] at your website, make sure it is not [41:54] currently uh hacked. But yeah, the the [41:58] Optin Monster, I think, is the big one [42:00] that most people will have heard of. Uh [42:02] but Trust Pulse and Push Engage by the [42:04] same company are slightly smaller [42:06] plugins. They uh as part of their [42:09] plug-in setup, they host some JavaScript [42:12] which they put on a CDN to make it nice [42:14] and fast. [42:16] And so every time you load their pages [42:18] into for certain things, it loads their [42:20] CDN and pulls that JavaScript in. That [42:24] JavaScript endpoint got compromised. Oh, [42:27] now if you were just an everyday user [42:30] going onto the site, you didn't see [42:32] anything. It just was the usual things. [42:34] But if you happen to be a logged in [42:36] user, [42:37] >> well then it tried to do nasty things [42:40] effectively. It tried to put hidden back [42:42] doors onto your website. So that's the [42:45] first thing, public service [42:46] announcement. If you recognize any of [42:48] these plugins, you should probably go [42:50] and check along on there. It basically [42:53] all three plugins were um run by one [42:57] company which you know was awesome [42:59] motive. Uh the two larger plugins was [43:02] the compromise was around uh June June [43:06] 13th. [43:08] Uh so these are appearing now sorry [43:10] first one was June 12th then it was the [43:12] last one was seen on June the 14th. June [43:14] the 13th was when most of them were [43:16] compromised. [43:17] >> Okay. So, if you've got any of these [43:18] free plugins on there, look on your [43:21] website. You're looking for dodgy extra [43:23] users that have appeared. Uh, because [43:27] it's JavaScript, it had to take an [43:29] action on it. It's not like it's [43:31] executing code or doing an SQL [43:33] injection. It had to take an action that [43:35] the us on the user. So, [43:36] >> right, [43:37] >> it it's almost certainly going to be a [43:38] dodgy user you're going to find on [43:40] there. Uh what I found particularly [43:44] interesting though was how the attackers [43:46] got in to modify the the JavaScript in [43:49] the first place. [43:52] >> I think I might have been on the show [43:53] when we when it was covered. Updraft [43:56] Plus had a [43:59] >> go few months ago. [44:02] >> Well, somebody didn't update their [44:05] version of Updraft Plus like good little [44:07] boys and girls. [44:08] >> Oh my goodness. So it's there's like a [44:10] chain of WordPress vulnerabilities in [44:12] this. So Updraft Plus had a problem [44:14] which led to this [44:16] >> CDN which led to the which led them to [44:18] be able to compromise the sites that [44:19] they they could then get to the CDN to [44:22] compromise those which would allow them [44:24] to compromise a lot of people. And [44:26] obviously I I didn't look at the stats [44:28] but I think Optim Monster is like nearly [44:30] a million in sight in stores. [44:32] >> It's it's not a small amount. [44:34] >> No, no it's not. I mean it's a it's very [44:37] popular isn't it? I would imagine most [44:39] people have heard of it. Um [44:40] >> I think I think Optin Monster is like [44:43] one of those that is automatically [44:46] installed with one of the hosts out [44:48] there. So it okay that that million [44:50] installs [44:51] >> that million installs may or may not be [44:55] um [44:56] >> as a result [44:56] >> actually. Yeah. [44:57] >> Yeah. It may be a result of that um [44:59] which is why it is so popular and and uh [45:02] so yeah. Yeah. I guess this is why the [45:05] plug-in repo requires any libraries such [45:08] as that to be loaded locally. And I [45:11] believe they've got a rule now that says [45:13] you can't CDN stuff. [45:15] >> Oh, like a Java file. Okay. Yeah. Okay. [45:18] Oh, that's interesting. Okay. So, that [45:19] that in effect would have mitigated this [45:21] problem, but it it didn't because this [45:24] problem obviously occurred. And this is [45:26] hot off the press. Sounds like Tim's [45:28] been scouring the uh the interwebs [45:30] during the course of the weekend as [45:31] well. So go and check that out for sure. [45:34] So you think it'll be dodgy users? So [45:36] look for anything I don't know beginning [45:37] with Mark or Tim or something like that. [45:39] >> Uh so they actually do have the details [45:41] of the users that you're looking for. Uh [45:43] >> okay. [45:45] >> Uh developer_appi1 [45:49] uh with the amazing uh with the amazing [45:52] uh email address of customer oneus.com. [45:57] >> Other ones are dev_xx. [46:00] Oh yeah, I see that Gmail giveaway. [46:03] >> Yeah. [46:04] >> Yeah. So, uh yeah. So, those are the [46:06] couple you' probably be looking for. [46:08] There are some other examples of what to [46:10] look for in there. Um the really the [46:14] weird part of this, of course, is that [46:16] uh [46:18] this isn't to do with plug-in updating. [46:21] So, that you don't need to you're not [46:23] going to go and suddenly see that [46:24] there's a new version of Optin Monster [46:26] because this was being remotely pulled. [46:29] It just affected it. It's it's so this [46:31] is what why remotely pulling on third [46:35] party CDNs is not necessarily a great [46:37] idea which is part of the reason why [46:39] web.org says no [46:42] >> there but uh yeah it's it's a fun one [46:44] partly because of that chain of events [46:46] that happen. [46:47] >> Yeah, that is interesting. That adds a [46:48] certain complexity to it which is a bit [46:51] sad really isn't it? But there we go. So [46:53] if update everything always and then [46:56] maybe [46:57] >> and it would still been affected. [46:58] >> Yeah. Yeah. Well, there you go. Yeah, [47:01] stuff happens. And my, you know, if the [47:04] government are going to ban um under 16s [47:06] from using social media, can they also, [47:08] while they're at it, just ban hackers [47:11] from just doing [47:12] >> Oh, I thought you were going to ban [47:12] Updraft Plus. And I was going to say, [47:14] >> just ban all hackers. Can we not just [47:16] say [47:16] >> I think if you ban hackers though, then [47:19] what are these under 16s without their [47:21] social media going to do? [47:23] >> What's going to do? No, no. We'll make [47:25] we'll reenable Tik Tok for those users, [47:28] obviously. [47:29] >> Oh, obviously. [47:31] >> It's fine. That's your prize. If you [47:33] stop hacking, you can watch Tik Tok. [47:34] >> I think you should reenable Snapchat so [47:36] people can take pictures of their [47:38] ceilings. [47:39] >> To be honest, I want to see pictures of [47:41] far more to be Tik Tok taking pictures [47:44] of ceilings. That sounds great. [47:47] >> It's the highest. It's what we evolved. [47:49] >> Excuse me a moment. We came for Yeah. [47:53] We started out as little single cellled [47:55] organisms in the swamp and we finally [47:57] evolved to taking pictures of the [47:59] ceiling uh for Tik Tok and things like [48:02] that. [48:02] >> Multi-selled organisms that act like [48:04] single cell organisms. That's even [48:06] better. [48:06] >> Let us move on. Let us move on. Right. [48:08] Let me make sure I've got the right [48:09] thing. Uh okay. Some WordPressy specific [48:12] stuff. I'll just I'll go through these [48:14] as quickly as I can because some of them [48:15] there's not really a story there as [48:17] such. But this is just to say that if [48:19] you are into the WordPress project and [48:22] you quite fancy uh assisting [48:25] um there's a call for WordPress 7.0.x. [48:30] So you know in the near future people to [48:32] be uh release managers. Um so I've put a [48:36] piece everything that we mentioned today [48:37] that comes on the screen or you hear in [48:39] your ear will um will be in the show [48:41] notes. So if you're interested in that [48:43] there is a piece on make.wordpress.org. [48:45] I don't really have anything additional [48:46] to say to that. This is kind of a nice [48:49] story and a complex story as well, it [48:51] turns out. So CERN, [48:53] which I think is rightly given the [48:55] moniker of kind of the the place where [48:57] the internet was broadly invented, um [49:00] has decided that [49:02] >> the internet, [49:03] >> I'm sorry, the web, you're quite right, [49:04] the whole linking thing. Thank you, Tim. [49:07] And the other Tim, both Tims, thank you [49:09] both. Um you know, the Burners Lee one [49:12] as well as the Nash one that I I wish I [49:16] thought of that earlier. Um the the CERN [49:20] millions of websites. I think it's like [49:22] 280 something like that or no sorry 580 [49:25] different um websites that they've got [49:27] currently spanning some something over [49:30] 500,000 pieces of content and I think [49:33] that's like published content. So how [49:36] many assets they've got and media files [49:38] and MP3s and images and all of that. [49:40] Goodness only knows. But they've made [49:42] the decision to move away from Drupal. [49:44] They were scanning around and looking [49:45] for various different CMSs that they [49:47] could use. And they looks like they had [49:50] a whole process where they they put [49:52] different CMSs up against each other. [49:53] And WordPress in this case came out on [49:55] top. And then this is a story written on [49:58] the repository about what that means and [50:01] the fact that they were obviously very [50:03] proud of the the difficult work and then [50:06] came to Word Camp Europe a couple of [50:08] weeks ago and did the basically did the [50:10] keynote speech to announce how they'd [50:12] done it. It it fit to me at least [50:14] anyway. I mean I could be wrong about [50:16] this. It sounds like one of the most [50:18] complicated WordPress builds imaginable. [50:21] 500 diff 580 different uh websites as I [50:24] described with the ability for users I [50:27] think to spin up new websites on demand [50:29] if they're working at CERN and they've [50:30] got a a project that they want to [50:32] suddenly air and it sounds like they've [50:34] got a whole load of proprietary [50:36] technology going on in the background [50:37] but um it's quite a nice news story you [50:39] know it's one of those ones where if [50:41] you're a jobbing freelancer in the [50:43] WordPress space being able to sort of [50:44] say oh yeah CERN you know the birthplace [50:47] of the web um they have a WordPress [50:50] website and um yeah, anybody want to [50:53] comment on that? [50:55] >> It's a bit sad for Drupal. [50:57] >> Yeah, it is a bit sad for Drupal. [50:59] >> I agree. [51:00] >> They as a project they have made so much [51:03] strides recently and they really did [51:06] dominate that space that sort of [51:08] scientific and enterprise space and [51:11] there's a little part of me that's like [51:13] feels wrong to be taking away from them. [51:16] At the same time, hello nice people at [51:18] CERN who can now actually use their [51:21] websites because presumably that was the [51:23] reason they made the move in the first [51:24] place. [51:26] >> I wonder if it's just one of those kind [51:28] of things that happens when scale [51:30] happens if you know what I mean. Like [51:32] it's just although Drupal did its thing [51:34] and it sounds like it was a patchwork of [51:36] different things on the Drupal side. So [51:38] it evolved over time whereas now they've [51:42] got the capacity to build from scratch. [51:44] Maybe it was a hard decision. Maybe [51:46] Drupal came out second place. I don't [51:47] really know, but it was a close run [51:49] thing, but they're obviously able to do [51:51] everything all in one hit. So, the user [51:53] interface for everybody will look [51:55] familiar and what have you. But I I do [51:57] know what you mean. Um, it's a shame, [51:59] isn't it? Because you don't want [52:00] WordPress to sort of kill Drupal off [52:03] equally. You want WordPress to succeed. [52:06] Yeah, I do know what you mean. But I [52:08] also I also wonder in the back of my [52:11] mind a little bit this was a decision [52:13] that was made a couple years ago. Right. [52:15] Yeah, that's right. So [52:16] >> I wonder if they would make the same [52:19] decision today that they made a couple [52:21] years ago. [52:22] >> Interesting. [52:23] >> Yeah. [52:25] >> Yeah, that's a good [52:26] >> Again, I go back to the Drupal has made [52:29] such a massive quick progression [52:31] recently. some of the Drupal projects [52:33] are quite [52:35] >> significantly further ahead [52:36] technologically than we are with [52:38] WordPress. Um, [52:40] >> now you can for what reasons and you can [52:42] argue they're backwards compatible blah [52:44] blah blah. There's lots of reasons why [52:45] they can do go and do that and we can't. [52:47] But, uh, yeah, I'd be really fascinated [52:50] to get those original decision makers [52:52] back in the room, have them look at the [52:55] WordPress landscape right now and have [52:57] them look at the Drupal landscape and [52:58] say, would do you think you made the [53:00] right decision? Yeah. [53:02] >> Uh it would be fascinating and I suspect [53:05] uh there would be a lot of squirming [53:07] involved because they wouldn't [53:10] >> it's long decision like like um Mark [53:13] with a C said two years in the making [53:16] and I think they've had two three I [53:17] think it said three full-time people on [53:19] this for the last two years not only [53:21] making those decisions but then doing [53:23] the implementation and the [53:24] implementation isn't quite over. It [53:26] seems like there's still a few months of [53:28] um of roll out for various different [53:29] things that still got to be ticked over. [53:31] But [53:31] >> there must have been something quite [53:33] significant to make them move that [53:36] amount of data from one platform to [53:39] another. [53:39] >> Yeah. [53:40] >> I mean this decision can't have been [53:42] made lightly. [53:43] >> No. [53:44] >> But you know like Tim says it's [53:47] >> what was wrong with the original? I mean [53:48] I hey I welcome them to WordPress 100%. [53:51] >> But it's a significant amount of work to [53:53] move from one platform to another. Can [53:55] you imagine the person who just went [53:57] into the room and said, "Yeah, well, I [53:58] don't like Drupal. I'm going to use [53:59] WordPress." And they were like, [54:01] >> "That's probably what happened." [54:03] >> Yeah. [54:05] Senior. [54:06] >> I've seen that in many a web project. [54:08] You know, you get the new IT guy that [54:10] comes in and says, "Nope, I don't like [54:12] it in green. I want it in blue." And [54:14] that's it. [54:15] >> That's it. We're doing blue. [54:16] >> That's right. Um anyway, big big cudos [54:19] and obviously it was um something that [54:21] they wanted to shout about and came and [54:23] did the the keynote at Word Camp Europe [54:25] and and the keynote I I I don't really [54:28] remember a particular session being [54:30] labeled a keynote other than the [54:33] sessions from for example Mary Hob or [54:35] Joseph as was or Matt but this obviously [54:38] was determined to be significant enough [54:40] and yeah anyway there we go. So that's [54:42] on the repository. Um, Mike Johnson and [54:45] Ray Mor uh wrote that one up on the 10th [54:47] of June. And uh yeah, let's move on. [54:51] Some of these I will get to. Some of [54:52] them Oh, I don't know what to say about [54:55] this one. Um, so this is So, we got a [54:58] facelift. I confess I think I've been to [55:01] this site once before. I genuinely have [55:04] never bought anything from [55:05] merkantile.wordpress.org. [55:09] Maybe you haven't either. Maybe you [55:10] didn't know that there was a place, a [55:12] genuine official place to go and buy [55:14] official WordPress swag, but that's what [55:18] it is. Merkantile.wordpress.org. [55:21] And they've had a facelift. Now, I'm not [55:23] going to go to the wayback machine and [55:24] look as to what it used to look like, [55:26] but this is what it now looks like. The [55:29] only thing which is jumping out at me, [55:31] and I'm not not going to say too much [55:33] about it. That is an interesting font is [55:36] all I'm going to say. [55:41] And I'll pause and I'll let nobody Yeah. [55:44] Anyway, there we go. An interesting. [55:46] >> We're not even going there. [55:47] >> How strange. We all said they had a mute [55:49] button. [55:50] >> Yeah. Yeah, that's right. We said so [55:51] much more before the show actually [55:53] started about that font, didn't we? Um, [55:56] but anyway, we There it is. [55:58] Merkantile.wordpress. [56:00] >> Does anybody know why it's called [56:02] Merkantile and not merch or swag? [56:06] >> I'm going to guess it was beer. It's [56:08] probably beer. Somebody just had a few [56:10] beers and, you know, getting by deciding [56:12] what the subdomain was. Merkantile. [56:15] Let's go with that. That's a big word. [56:16] >> Is this still a WP Builds merch site? [56:19] >> Uh, no. I think I killed that a few [56:21] years ago. You were You were one of the [56:23] few people that bought a mug. [56:25] >> Bought a mug. [56:27] >> Well, we have the font for you if you [56:29] decide to resurrect. [56:31] >> Bring it back. [56:33] >> Yeah. Um, anyway, there you go. Go and [56:35] check. Apparently James says it's called [56:37] the Black Forest font, which clearly we [56:40] got it wrong earlier. [56:41] >> No, I think we got it about right. [56:43] >> That's about right. [56:49] >> But yeah, anyway, there you go. Um, this [56:52] is my See, you see, it's a whole thing. [56:54] This is the first time hearing about [56:56] Merkantile. That was exactly the same [56:58] for me. and I went this one time and [57:00] then the only reason I've gone back is [57:02] to um is to you know just sort of talk [57:06] about the fact that the they've [57:07] obviously changed it a little bit. I [57:08] think that's absolutely but this is the [57:10] place you go. I don't know if it's where [57:12] for example word camp organizers go. [57:14] Maybe Tim you'll know more about that [57:15] than I would. Um when they buy their [57:18] official swag which they bring and give [57:20] away and what have you. I don't know if [57:21] that's part of the process of it. Um [57:24] >> no because you could do that through [57:25] word camp. [57:26] >> You do that through word camp. Okay. [57:28] Yeah. So, okay. Anyway, you can [57:30] obviously see you can buy the usual [57:31] arrangement of uh t-shirts and wapos and [57:35] you know hoodies and WordPress mods. [57:37] >> Apparently, we need to click on the [57:39] product. The loading is amazing. [57:41] >> Okay, let me let's all watch the [57:42] loading. So, let's go for the What [57:44] should we go for? What you want? [57:46] >> Okay, let's go. [57:47] >> Let's go for that one. [57:48] >> Oh, THE LOADING IS [57:49] >> OH, THAT was okay. All right. Well, now [57:53] all is forgiven. [57:55] >> All is we have a completely unnecessary [57:58] loading wapoo. Here we go. [58:01] >> Yeah, [58:02] >> it's pretty. [58:03] >> I do actually like that. That's a very [58:05] nice [58:05] >> It's got an OS aesthetic to it, hasn't [58:07] it? To me, that it feels like we're [58:09] almost like in an operating system. [58:11] >> Are they trying to like make it look a [58:13] little bit like the uh WordPress back [58:15] end with the uh uh media library type [58:19] look? [58:20] >> May. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I'm liking [58:23] it. The more that I see, the more that I [58:25] like it. So, let's see what we can get. [58:26] A few of these. Add to cart. What does [58:28] that Oh, that was nice. [58:30] >> Yeah, these are all good, aren't they? I [58:31] like these little transitions. What does [58:33] that do? No, that Oh, okay. [58:35] >> Profits to the WordPress foundation. [58:37] >> Yeah, that's right. I'm not going to buy [58:39] a I love women I love WP women's t-shirt [58:43] um because it probably won't fit me. But [58:45] they're about 27. [58:48] >> Um anyway, there you go. Go and check it [58:50] out. merkantile.wordpress. [58:52] What was it? What? WordPress.org. [58:55] Um, I didn't realize you could get [58:58] >> And that's mercantile without a h in it [59:00] because that would be too obvious. [59:02] >> Merchantile. Yeah. [59:06] >> Okay. Now, I need to go back to the [59:07] wayback machine and see what it's like. [59:10] Yeah, I didn't do that, but it'll [59:12] probably not have this font. I wouldn't [59:14] have imagined the Black Forest font. [59:16] Right, right, right, right, right, [59:17] right. back to uh the repository. This [59:21] is Ry. Five for the future gets its [59:23] biggest overhaul in years with new [59:25] pledge and profile pages. So um I think [59:30] one of the things about five for the [59:31] future. So five for the future is this [59:33] endeavor to label 5% of what you do as a [59:38] WordPress thing. And the idea being that [59:40] if everybody put in 5% of their avail if [59:43] you make a living out of WordPress, [59:45] wouldn't it be a good idea to give 5% of [59:47] something back? So that could be 5% of [59:50] your I don't know revenue or 5% of your [59:52] time or what have you. Um and then in [59:55] that way you'd be able to keep the [59:58] project going forwards. However, [60:01] um in in the past, the way that um [60:04] contributions to the WordPress project [60:07] have been displayed has been perhaps [60:09] less than desirable because it was my [60:12] understanding was in the past you the [60:15] mere utterance of the words, well, I'm [60:17] going to contribute, I don't know, 5% of [60:19] my time, was enough to get you on that [60:21] page, but there was no checks and [60:23] balances to make sure that you did the [60:25] thing that you had promised to do. nor [60:28] indeed that the effect of the things [60:31] that you did was profound or moderate or [60:34] what have you. And so that has now been [60:36] brought to the four. Um and so now [60:40] there's going to be an endeavor in the [60:42] future to make sure that things are [60:44] tracked. So the things that you said you [60:45] were going to do that you did do get [60:47] tracked, but also to put like a value [60:50] onto the things that you did. So for [60:52] example, I don't know, uh translating a [60:55] single character in a string might not [60:58] be the same as um I don't know like [61:01] making a major security update to core [61:03] or something like that. They're [61:04] obviously poles apart, but you get the [61:06] idea that certain things will have more [61:08] weight and in that way um perhaps people [61:12] will be able to get some cudos whether [61:15] they wish to have it or not out of it [61:18] and then those people can then display [61:20] that on their WordPress.org or profile. [61:23] Um, and presumably that will then help [61:25] their future chances, I don't know, [61:27] looking for employment or maybe [61:29] employers just directly reaching out to [61:31] people because they can see that this [61:33] person over here is, I don't know, a [61:35] valued member of the community who in [61:36] the past wouldn't have been recognized. [61:38] So, there we go. That's um that's been [61:41] updated. Um, don't know if anybody wants [61:43] to contribute anything to that. [61:45] >> Who gets [61:46] >> I'm a little [61:47] >> Oh, sorry. [61:48] >> Let's go with Let's go with Mark. Okay, [61:50] just go with Tim. I was It doesn't [61:52] matter because Tim said what I was going [61:54] to say. [61:54] >> Oh, okay. [61:55] >> Yeah, it's like who decides this? This [61:59] is you actually [62:01] >> And who assigns the score? I mean, what [62:04] is how do you score it? [62:06] >> Because you you Nathan, sorry, said uh [62:09] that the changing a character in a [62:12] string was somehow less important than [62:14] the security update. Now that may be how [62:18] you view it. But if that character of [62:21] the string [62:22] >> meant that it now be that it became [62:24] access WordPress became accessible to an [62:26] entire country. [62:28] >> Which one is more valuable? [62:30] >> Well, I've got a solution to this. I [62:32] know what we can do. Let's just put Tim [62:34] Nash in charge. Tim, can we all vote on [62:37] that? Can we [62:38] >> No, no, no. Raise your hand. Everybody [62:40] on this panel. [62:41] >> Why don't we Why don't we let Anthropic [62:43] decide? [62:44] >> Okay. Yeah. Let's get that whatever you [62:46] want. [62:46] >> Let it use the latest. [62:49] >> No, no, I don't know. You're quite [62:51] right, Tim. Um, and that presumably [62:54] would be a body of work and presumably [62:56] that body of work would need to be made [62:57] public, but it's bound to be fiddly, [63:00] isn't it? Especially when you get into [63:01] the weeds of it. like you know if if you [63:03] translated a sentence in a string or you [63:08] translated 20 sentences or I don't know [63:11] or you committed something crucial like [63:14] I said in in terms of security to core I [63:17] don't really know how none of it's going [63:18] to be fair is it I suppose at some point [63:20] you just have to say that's a good fit [63:23] that that kind of feels about right [63:25] >> but if you're going to gify this and if [63:27] it's going to be a prestige thing that's [63:29] going to go on resumes then it sort of [63:31] has to be because otherwise you're le [63:33] opening yourself up to both abuse, [63:37] internal friction. [63:39] >> It's got when you end up with a scenario [63:40] where one company all their commits are [63:42] accepted and go into core and therefore [63:44] they got shiny buttons. Well, the other [63:47] people have got full-time people doing [63:49] triaging and putting the commits in, but [63:52] then you've only got a small group of [63:54] gatekeepers who are [63:56] out. So it it just Yeah, [64:00] >> I know. [64:01] >> This is one of those times that you're [64:02] like, "This was a stupid system to start [64:04] with. It would have probably been better [64:06] to take it out back and just say it's [64:08] not come back. It's gone." [64:11] And five five for the future was a [64:13] lovely concept. We'd like you to keep it [64:15] in your hearts. We think you should be [64:17] putting 5% of your time, money, or [64:20] whatever into this, but we're not going [64:22] to track it because if we track it, we [64:25] have to track it properly. And there [64:26] ain't no way we can do that and there's [64:29] always going to be somebody who's going [64:30] to complain about it. [64:33] >> So what I'm showing on the screen, sorry [64:35] if you're listening to this, but we're [64:36] showing um so for example, you can see [64:39] that there are three people mentioned [64:41] and they all have what what has been [64:43] termed high impact contributions. I I [64:46] presume that's a moniker which has been [64:47] attached to the the contributions. I [64:49] don't know what the other layers are if [64:51] you like you know what the other levels [64:52] are but you know this this person Aki 81 [64:56] high impact contributions uh Rammon um [65:00] 56 and Lena 58 high impact contributions [65:04] and then it lists out what the areas in [65:06] which they contribute so which of the [65:08] teams they contributed to and so on. [65:11] Yeah, the devil will be in the detail [65:12] here. And I I think Tim, you're [65:14] certainly right to say that it will [65:16] never be perfect. Um, and it will never [65:19] be something that wouldn't be [65:20] controversial. You know, if you've put a [65:22] certain amount in and you believe your [65:24] contributions are worth the same as [65:26] somebody over there who did something [65:27] entirely different. [65:29] >> And are they going to redefine what [65:30] counts as a contribution? because in the [65:33] past things like word camp organizing [65:36] and volunteering at word camps and [65:37] meetups and things like that didn't [65:39] count for five for the future and yet [65:41] those are a huge part of why WordPress [65:43] is what it is. So [65:46] >> you know are they going to redefine that [65:48] as well and I don't know that they're [65:49] going to do that. Um, [65:52] assigning a scoring system is great, I [65:55] suppose, if you can like actually [65:57] quantify what you're scoring [66:00] >> and [66:01] the ability to for it not to be gamed, I [66:04] suppose, will be interesting as well. [66:06] So, you know, if you're working in a [66:07] corporate environment and your boss [66:08] brings you in and you know, you've been [66:10] in the office for the last five years [66:13] and they can track everything that [66:14] you've done and they can see directly [66:15] what you've done. That's one thing which [66:18] feels like what this is trying to be [66:20] something like um you know what is it [66:22] continual professional development kind [66:24] of consultation where we figured out [66:27] what you did and what your value is to [66:28] the company and so on. But this is not [66:30] that is it? Because we're relying on [66:32] people to say that they did certain [66:34] things and for somebody [66:38] somewhere giving that a a quot a level a [66:42] value of worth and um yeah that'll be [66:46] interesting. [66:46] >> So this this table here we're looking at [66:48] which has the this is just this is just [66:51] contributors to core though, right? This [66:53] is not [66:53] >> I think so. Yeah, this is [66:54] >> the overall future score. [66:57] >> Yeah. Yeah. [66:58] >> Yeah. So [66:58] >> but I mean that that in itself is an [67:00] example where they've clearly already [67:02] you've highlighted they like this is for [67:04] core this is we're showing course of [67:09] >> would accessibility team have get any [67:13] scoring do do team leads now get to [67:15] choose and select the pointers do they [67:17] get even point the whole thing is just [67:19] like um [67:21] >> all over the place [67:22] >> it is going to be points for my mates [67:24] and to make sure that certain companies [67:26] never get to have those points Well, so [67:28] that's an interesting thing as well, you [67:30] know, could it be could it be gamed by [67:34] companies in that way, you know, and [67:37] yeah, fascinating. [67:38] >> We already have an issue where there are [67:41] um certain particularly universities [67:44] >> uh where they we've seen it where there [67:46] universities have got classes uh in [67:49] computer programming and their one of [67:51] their assignments is go find bugs in [67:53] WordPress. [67:55] >> Oh, nice. So you get a bunch of triage [67:58] things into the into Bugzilla and you [68:00] get a bunch of triage where it's like uh [68:03] why are you talking about this bug that [68:05] I've you know these we've already got 10 [68:07] versions of this bug and it's [68:10] I can so see certain universities and [68:13] certain classes saying you must get a [68:15] certain number of points [68:17] >> and then we're gonna get this I need [68:19] this I you must you need to sign this [68:22] off for me I need these points I need [68:24] these points I need Right. [68:26] >> And and maybe that's going to be start [68:27] of the company saying well actually you [68:30] can't just contribute the thing that we [68:32] you want to contribute to because you [68:34] now have to a points quot to meet. And [68:38] the ultimate thing is while this has [68:40] clearly been designed for professional [68:43] volunteers, which is a contradiction in [68:46] term, but we we're talking more towards [68:49] people who are sponsored for this [68:52] because your person who wants to [68:54] volunteer [68:56] wants to work on the thing that they're [68:57] passionate about. [68:58] >> Yeah. [68:59] >> Okay. And you're you're going to anybody [69:01] who turns around to them and says you [69:04] are not valued because or worse you are [69:06] valued at one point. [69:08] >> Oh, how is that going to get them to [69:12] carry on volunteering? [69:13] >> Okay, that's I haven't really thought [69:14] about that. That's fascinating. Okay. [69:17] Yeah. Okay. So, there it is. Anyway, [69:20] let's just pop it back on the screen. [69:21] So, this is this is Ry from the [69:23] repositories um sort of summation of [69:26] where we're at at the moment. So, the [69:28] idea would be that there would be these [69:30] pledges and it would make it would be [69:31] amended on your profile page and what [69:34] have you. So, if you've got any thoughts [69:36] on that, um, please make a comment at [69:39] the bottom of [69:40] >> I will say that I like the fact that [69:42] they're thinking that five for the [69:44] future needs to be overhauled because I [69:45] think we've all agreed with that for a [69:47] long time. I'm just not sure this is the [69:49] right direction for it. [69:50] >> And I don't want to and I don't actually [69:52] want to like criticize [69:55] >> uh the person I forget the name. Uh [70:00] >> oh. Was it Janice? [70:02] >> Jan Yanni Iliov. Yeah. [70:04] >> I don't I I don't want to criticize. At [70:08] least there's an attempt there to do [70:10] something. [70:11] >> Right. [70:11] >> And Right. And I just don't agree with [70:14] the approach personally. So, [70:16] >> okay. [70:17] All right, there we go. You can check [70:19] that out in the WP Builds newsletter, [70:21] which will come out tomorrow. Or just go [70:23] to the repository. It's called Five for [70:24] the Future Gets Its biggest overhaul in [70:26] years with new pledge and profile pages. [70:30] Okay. Right. Speaking of um things that [70:33] you might get contribution cudos for, [70:36] one of them might be, I don't know, [70:37] helping out at a WordPress event. And [70:39] there's a couple of different takes. [70:41] Interesting. Couple of different takes [70:43] on WordPress events this year. On the [70:44] one hand, we have um friend of the show [70:47] Remaster. He comes on the show quite a [70:50] bit and he's been on the podcast lots of [70:51] times. He's produced an article uh [70:54] entitled the WordPress conference we [70:56] need next. You can find it at [70:57] remaster.com [70:59] and then if you go to the blog, it was [71:01] produced on the the 9th of June. And in [71:03] that, Remus is um talking about how as [71:07] much as he loves Word Camps and he's [71:08] been involved in setting up Word Camp [71:10] Europe and whatnot, uh he would like [71:12] there to be, how to describe it in a [71:15] very brief amount of time, I suppose, [71:16] something a little bit more [71:18] professional, something which rather [71:20] than it being lots of um people who come [71:24] and have things that they wish to say, [71:26] maybe it's more like a screening process [71:28] and those talks are a little bit more de [71:31] diving into a particular topic. And one [71:33] of the threads that he seems to talk [71:35] about is having like a theme, maybe a [71:38] whole day where there's a theme running [71:40] through that day. And whilst that theme [71:42] might not tightly bind to every subject, [71:44] at least you can sort of map it back. So [71:47] that on the one hand is uh Remus' [71:49] thoughts and you can go and read that [71:51] and uh go and check it out. And then and [71:54] then like it's almost like we're in a uh [71:58] like they couldn't be more polar [71:59] opposite in a way. Then you've got um [72:02] Nick Hamsy who has got this idea well [72:05] the article is called WordPress is the [72:07] doorway not the room and Nick I think [72:10] just wants to have good fun um he wants [72:12] WordPress events to be just a basically [72:16] quite a lot of fun and um and he's got a [72:20] few ideas which I think I'll share [72:22] because they tickled me I thought they [72:23] were quite good so uh the so his idea is [72:26] that fun is injected in it's not about [72:28] professionalism necessarily He's [72:30] basically saying you don't remember the [72:32] talks that you go to. You only remember [72:34] the the nice interactions that you had [72:36] in the hall, the the strange curious [72:38] character that you met and so on. So he [72:41] he says he's got eight ideas that could [72:43] be presentations and he says something [72:46] that isn't WordPress. So it there'll be [72:48] a whole track of people who teach things [72:51] that have got nothing to do with [72:52] WordPress. Five minutes light one rule. [72:56] It can't be to do with WordPress. It [72:58] could be about your job or the text that [72:59] you use. anything like that [73:01] >> or sourdough as he said. [73:03] >> Yeah, sourdough. Yeah. Yeah, that's [73:04] right. Show us your setup. So, again, [73:07] just show us the way that you use [73:09] WordPress, which I think is quite [73:10] interesting because I bet all of us have [73:12] got a different way of doing that. Um, [73:14] petty grievances, open mic. You just get [73:17] up and moan basically, which I think is [73:19] quite good and and nobody's allowed to [73:21] shut you down. [73:22] >> Isn't that this show? [73:24] >> Well, that's exactly this show. Yeah. [73:26] Well, we've done that, but we don't have [73:27] a stage. Uh, adopt a project. So the [73:29] idea is it's like a dating show. You [73:31] show what you've got, other people show [73:33] what they've got, and by the end of the [73:35] session, hopefully some people have [73:36] combined their projects. Human library, [73:39] but weirder. Borrow a person for 15 [73:41] minutes, then make a catalog. Um, far [73:44] stranger than expert in X. That one sort [73:47] of speaks for itself. Bad ideas, [73:49] brainstorm. This is just totally for [73:51] humor. Um, you pitch something and then [73:54] everybody has to design the worst [73:55] possible solution to that idea. Uh, let [73:59] me let me welcome you to my entire [74:01] history of building WordPress websites. [74:03] That [74:03] >> I was going to say I believe that's how [74:05] WordPress has been built for the last [74:07] years. I'm not sure we could change our [74:08] minds on this. [74:09] >> Certainly the way I [74:10] >> bring this public [74:12] uh skills bartering called the swap meet [74:14] and then the hallway track on stage. So [74:17] you literally get a bunch of people to [74:18] come up and talk on stage. I think [74:20] they're quite interesting. It's [74:21] obviously in stark contrast to what [74:23] Remus is saying, although I'm not I'm [74:25] not entirely sure that Remus wouldn't [74:27] want a lot of that fun injecting as [74:28] well, but uh having just been to Word [74:30] Camp Europe, it seemed like a really [74:32] well-run event to me. So, I don't know. [74:35] Maybe stuff will change, maybe stuff [74:36] won't change, but any thoughts on that [74:39] before I move on? We're quickly running [74:40] out of time. [74:41] >> Well, I think his comments about, you [74:43] know, he he's mentioning Press Comp and [74:44] and other events there. I think those [74:46] cater to some of those more corporate [74:50] needs. uh and developer needs, you know. [74:52] Um I've been I went to Pres last year, [74:56] >> not this year, but um I couldn't make it [74:58] this year, but um [75:00] >> that was there was a lot of product [75:03] developers there and and things like [75:05] that that I found was that that [75:06] different audience was really great to [75:08] be to mingle around. [75:10] >> Um but I've always I've always thought [75:12] there's a gap in the market for more of [75:14] a developer focused kind of word camp. [75:17] Uh because yeah yes yes WordPress is [75:20] used for blogs but there there's a huge [75:22] community of people out there using it [75:23] just to build websites in general and [75:25] there's some quite complex websites as [75:26] well [75:27] >> and loop filled that is meant to fill [75:31] that loop [75:33] >> they really struggled with people at [75:35] loop in the UK just getting bumps on [75:38] seats was problematic for them. [75:41] >> Yeah speaking of loop it's coming back [75:44] isn't it? Um, it's going to be in I [75:46] think Michigan [75:48] >> this year. I I I want to say Ann Arbor [75:51] or something. I don't know. I heard [75:53] something. Anyway, it's back. Um, yeah, [75:55] >> later on during this year. Do you know [75:57] what I do you know what I think? I think [75:59] for many pe like I'm [76:01] >> This idea just occurred to me. See if [76:04] this lands with you, right? See if this [76:06] makes any sense. I think Do I actually [76:09] think this Hold on, let me pause what [76:11] I'm about to say. Yeah, I think this is [76:12] true. I think that the majority of [76:14] people [76:15] >> just so you know, you've been speaking [76:16] through the whole of this period [76:18] >> about Yeah. Yeah. No, that's right. I do [76:20] this out loud. It's fine. Um the I think [76:23] that a significant proportion of the [76:26] people who attend Word Camp, like the [76:27] one we just been to, Word Camp EU, I [76:30] think they're going to socialize [76:33] and it is it is framed around a [76:36] conference because that's a framing [76:39] which works. [76:41] What I'm trying to say is, you know, you [76:43] put on some speakers, that's that's [76:45] enough to drag, let's say, 70% of the [76:49] people along, and there'll be 30% of the [76:51] people, what I'm just making up numbers, [76:53] who do wish to attend those sessions, [76:55] >> but they're really there just to hang [76:57] out, socialize, maybe do a bit of [76:59] networking, but just hanging out. And so [77:03] just the the the fact that there's an [77:05] event, seriously, I would turn up to a [77:09] word camp with no presentations. I would [77:12] totally turn up to that. [77:14] >> But but that's the thing is I mean I [77:16] remember back whenever I started, the [77:19] first word camp or the second word camp [77:21] I went to was 200 [77:24] 11 or something like that. I don't know. [77:26] But those had like they had a developer [77:30] track, they had a marketing track, they [77:32] had a they had a design track and you [77:34] knew what you were getting. And for [77:37] people who have never been to a word [77:40] camp [77:41] >> and it's their first one, they're [77:42] actually they actually are going there [77:44] to learn something. They don't know [77:45] about the hallway track. We go there to [77:48] socialize because we've been to enough [77:49] word camps that we know people. We see [77:51] people that we want to connect with or [77:53] reconnect with or whatever. you know, [77:55] you're in England, I'm in the United [77:57] States. We have an opportunity to like [78:00] to to see each other face to face and [78:03] and but but new people to it, they [78:06] actually go there for [78:08] information and maybe to meet people, [78:10] but that's a secondary function. So, I [78:13] think it depends on kind of where you [78:14] are in your journey. [78:16] >> Yeah. [78:16] >> Within WordPress. And and for those of [78:19] us in on this show, we've been to enough [78:22] word camps that it is about the the [78:24] socialization and reconnecting and [78:26] networking and all that and not about [78:28] the the presentations. I've gone to word [78:31] camps where I haven't gone to a single [78:32] presentation. [78:33] >> I mean, it has to cater to so many [78:35] different types of people. There will be [78:37] beginners there. There will be [78:38] developers there. There will be people [78:39] that blog. There will be [78:41] >> sponsors there. There'll be the likes of [78:43] us that I mean, I I spend most of my [78:45] time saying hello to people. and and [78:48] stopping in the the hall and saying [78:50] hello to people that I know. [78:52] >> Um it's uh so yeah, but I like [78:55] >> I spend most of my time [78:56] >> in the hallway trying to not bump into [78:58] you. So [78:59] >> that's true. Yeah, cuz I've been with [79:01] you for four days and that's enough. [79:05] >> Yeah. [79:06] >> Sorry. Carry on. [79:06] >> That's five days too many. [79:10] >> You should see the photos. [79:12] >> Yeah. Yeah. No. No. We're not looking at [79:14] the photos. No. [79:17] Yeah, [79:17] >> I've got Oh, there was one photo that I [79:19] was going to show and I forgot to bring [79:21] it. Oh, I have a I have a great photo of [79:24] Mark in an overall. Let's just say that. [79:27] Um, [79:29] you remember the video? [79:30] >> Let the minds wander. [79:32] >> Yeah, it was good. Um, but I I'm I I [79:35] genuinely think that I would turn up to [79:37] an event with not necessarily much in [79:39] the way of organization around like the [79:41] presentation and all that kind of stuff. [79:42] However, I'd be curious because of my [79:46] personality, I would be curious to play [79:48] around with some of Nick's ideas like [79:50] that wackiness would appeal to me, but [79:52] maybe it wouldn't appeal to uh let's say [79:55] Remus given the article that he's just [79:57] >> So, you have two tracks. You have the [79:58] wackiness track and you have the you [80:00] have the serious track. [80:01] >> I would love that personally. [80:04] >> And people would still and people would [80:05] still end up in the hallway [80:07] >> in between. Yeah. Doing going to neither [80:10] >> all day long and going to neither. So [80:12] yeah, [80:12] >> that's right. [80:13] >> The idea that Mark with a C said about a [80:15] track for developers, a track for [80:17] marketing, and that [80:19] >> that that sounds like a great idea just [80:21] >> like the way they used to do it. [80:23] >> That's that's how they used to do it. [80:24] And [80:25] >> I remember the first one I went to, I [80:27] went to the developer track and I didn't [80:29] understand a word of it, but I forced [80:31] myself to sit through every single [80:33] presentation that day. I didn't know a [80:34] single person, you know. [80:37] >> Um, [80:37] >> so some comments on this. So, uh, Imran [80:41] agrees with Remus. So, that sort of more [80:43] professional side of things would appeal [80:45] to, uh, to him. Um, speaking of Loopcom, [80:50] Grand Rapids. There you go. Grand [80:51] Rapids, Michigan. And the dates are [80:53] September, late September 23rd to 24th. [80:56] So, it's coming. I think you can now buy [80:58] tickets. I saw the new website is [81:00] available, I think. I really want [81:03] WordPress, says Daniel, to push to [81:05] activity pubs for social media functions [81:08] alongside blog functions. [81:11] >> Daniel wasn't here earlier when we were [81:13] talking about the social media ban. [81:15] >> Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Who [81:17] would run a Masttodon install in that [81:19] scenario would be the the question. I [81:22] certainly wouldn't. Um that'd be [81:24] interesting. Right. There's a few people [81:26] coming in. D watch the replay. D was [81:29] just people saying s saying various [81:31] things. the webinar. Sorry, missed Mark [81:34] and you and you, Nathan. Yeah, sorry. [81:36] Yeah, we um I was locked away in a [81:38] couple. [81:38] >> So many people. It was I was sad [81:41] actually after the event. I was like, [81:42] "Oh, didn't see them. Didn't see them." [81:44] And I saw all these posts on social [81:45] media that currently isn't banter. [81:48] >> Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's [81:49] the one allowed use of it. Um Elliot who [81:52] lives just down the road from me, I [81:54] always say that. Uh first word camp, he [81:56] didn't know what to expect. I ended up [81:58] spending most of the time walking around [81:59] and talking rather than attending [82:02] talks. [82:03] >> Only went to a couple um initially [82:07] thought I would go to more talks and I [82:09] read somewhere Elliot I think it was on [82:12] a blog you put out or a social media [82:14] post or something like that that you're [82:16] inclined to go again. So it was [82:17] obviously an experience that you on some [82:19] level enjoyed um whether or not you want [82:22] to go. [82:23] >> For Elliot you're not alone. This is [82:25] sort of what most people do that they [82:27] they will find themselves going, "Oh, [82:29] I'm going to go to this talk, this talk, [82:30] this talk, this talk." And then [82:32] >> you miss they just end up singing the it [82:36] just to go sort of swing it back. You [82:39] can have these two things separated as [82:41] well. We can go back to having bar camp [82:43] style unconferences. [82:46] We can have [82:49] uh beginner word camp days, but these [82:52] all require organizing. Yeah. [82:55] >> And the reason that you found that the [82:57] multiple tracks don't work as well as [83:00] you hope they would is that you have to [83:02] then pivot to attract to multiple [83:05] audiences. You need to get multiple [83:06] different sponsors and you have to get [83:07] the people to speak. [83:10] >> So many word camp talks are rubbish in [83:13] the nicest possible way to volunteers [83:15] who are giving their time. So they and [83:17] they're often [83:18] >> very personalized, very great, but [83:19] they're also rubbish talks for a [83:21] beginner. [83:22] >> Yeah. And for someone who is more in the [83:25] middle middle range, they provide some [83:28] but limited value. And then for people [83:30] who most people who are there just to [83:33] socialize, they're not going to the [83:34] talks. So we have a problem that what [83:37] we're trying to teach and what we're [83:38] educating with is the wrong thing for [83:40] the target of the people in the room. [83:42] The people in the room want something [83:45] that is different and don't come back. [83:47] And we're not yet. And we have [83:49] organizers who want them to organize [83:53] events. They don't necessarily want to [83:55] organize a beginners's little friend [83:57] little camp for beginners. And that [84:00] makes it really difficult. And one of [84:03] the things we struggled massively with [84:04] in the UK is right down to the meetup [84:08] level. Who do you pitch a meetup to? Do [84:11] you if you want because if you want to [84:13] have a word camp or you want to have [84:15] conferences, [84:16] >> you really do have to show that there is [84:18] a community existing [84:20] >> or speaking of pitch outside of the [84:22] community. And we spend so much time [84:25] pitching inside our own community [84:27] through our own through our meetups and [84:28] things and saying, "Nope, we are the [84:30] community. we're doing this that maybe [84:33] we should actually just blanketly go [84:35] nope. If you want to have a nice [84:37] community event, come to the uh barbecue [84:40] in July at WordPress London. If you're [84:45] want to come to a professional [84:46] conference, cool. That's what Pres, Loop [84:49] Conf, and Word Camp Europe and US are [84:52] and Asia are because those are not real [84:54] word camps. [84:55] >> They're just ridiculous amounts of money [84:57] flown around, etc. [84:59] Word camps. Maybe we have to redefine [85:02] what they are, but they can be the new [85:04] gateway. They c where we could have a [85:07] little bit of fun. [85:08] >> But we can have these separate things, [85:11] but only if people are willing to [85:13] volunteer and do it. [85:14] >> Yeah. [85:15] >> And to do that, they have to believe [85:17] people will come. And at the moment, we [85:20] are struggling to even get local user [85:22] groups up and going. Certainly in the [85:23] UK, we are finding it difficult to get [85:27] attendance to these events. And when [85:29] people are coming, we're often mixing [85:31] groups of people together and hoping [85:33] it's going to work. And sometimes it [85:34] does, and sometimes people leave [85:36] disappointed. [85:37] I haven't seen it recently, but there [85:39] was a statistics knocking around on [85:42] number of repeat visitors to word camps [85:44] and it was shockingly low. [85:46] >> Oh god. [85:47] >> People came to one word camp in one in [85:49] the city one year who then didn't come [85:51] back. [85:52] which says we a problem keeping people [85:57] on those word counts. [85:59] >> Speaking of um meetups, I'm just going [86:00] to quickly mention that if you're in the [86:02] UK, this is very London specific, I [86:05] suppose, but WPLDN's June meetup uh is [86:09] free. You know, it's ready for anybody. [86:12] It is happening. It's always the last [86:14] Thursday of the month. And you can see [86:16] here it's happening on June 25th. So [86:20] basically 10 days from now. Gosh that's [86:23] quick. Um and there's a couple of [86:25] speakers. This Raquel um and who is [86:29] actually the organizer of um press conf. [86:32] So talking about things associated with [86:35] that owning well in this case it's [86:37] owning sorry owning your why the only [86:40] content the only constant in a world of [86:43] change. And then we've also got Paul [86:45] Half Penny uh from Filter who will be [86:49] further down. I can't see where his Oh, [86:51] there we go. Speaker. There we go. Uh [86:53] abilities not chat bots. How WordPress 7 [86:55] changes everything. So if you fancy [86:57] coming along, it's totally free. Um June [87:00] 25th, right? Okay. Um just a quick one. [87:05] Loop WP, which is a newsletter which has [87:08] been going under the opaces of Simon [87:11] Harper for many many years. um is is I [87:15] think I think it's fair to say unless [87:16] something dramatic changes, it's going [87:18] to close down. It looks like this was [87:19] the last issue. Obviously, if it's been [87:21] going weekly uh for 210 articles, I [87:24] don't know if there were hiatus along [87:25] the road or anything, but that's four [87:27] years right there. Um he's now decided [87:30] that the calculus of worth time and [87:34] money versus what he gets out of it, I [87:36] suppose, is no longer worth it. So [87:39] there's another sort of story which maps [87:41] a little bit to what you were saying Tim [87:43] about struggling to get people involved [87:45] in the community. Anyway, I would just [87:47] like to say that quite a lot of the [87:48] content that's gone into this show has [87:50] been taken from that newsletter. So [87:54] thank you many years of hard work. It's [87:57] been [87:58] >> fair to see that one go. [87:59] >> Labor of love sometimes, isn't it? And [88:01] then at some point the labor becomes a [88:03] little bit more [88:04] >> difficult to justify as is the case [88:07] there. So, right. [88:08] >> I think he he quoted some sort of how [88:10] much it time it takes him and what that [88:13] would be an hourly wage [88:15] >> and it was just like, yeah. [88:18] >> And he was putting it out for free. [88:20] >> It was a great newsletter, but there [88:23] comes a point where people have to say, [88:26] >> "I'm not getting what I want out of [88:27] this. I'm not getting the enjoyment out [88:29] of this." And when you volunteer to do [88:32] things, [88:33] >> you've got to enjoy it. And I think that [88:35] might be a good summary for a lot of the [88:37] stories today. [88:39] >> You've got to enjoy your volunteering [88:40] otherwise. Why do it? [88:42] >> I'm going to write that one down as [88:44] today's title. You've got to enjoy it. [88:47] You've got to enjoy it. I can't write [88:51] that quickly, but there we go. There's [88:52] some rough scribbling which equates to [88:55] that. So, thank you, Simon. Basically, [88:57] is what I'm saying there. I appreciate [88:59] it over the over the years. Right, we [89:01] are we're basically out of time, so I'll [89:02] just quickly rip through these. See if [89:04] there's anything which I think we should [89:06] dwell on. No, not really. We've done [89:09] that one. No, I think Well, maybe this [89:13] one quickly. You wanted to bring this [89:15] one up, did you, Mark? Was there a [89:16] thing? Was that connected to another [89:18] thing? [89:18] >> Yeah, it's related to another one, but [89:19] it was I mean very quickly. If you're [89:21] using the new WordPress 7 connectors for [89:23] connecting to anything AI, then have a [89:26] look at this article and it'll tell you [89:28] some better ways of storing your API [89:30] keys securely. Oh, so it's not it's not [89:33] WS form specific, but it's on the WS [89:36] form website safe. [89:37] >> I I just saw I saw a lot of talk online [89:40] about the fact that they were storing [89:42] API keys in the WP options table and [89:45] this gives you some uh guidance on how [89:48] to do that in other ways, but also how [89:50] to lock down your keys in uh these [89:53] providers to make sure that you don't [89:54] get a runaway of huge amounts of use of [89:57] tokens. [89:58] >> Okay? because you put this put this [90:00] stuff live. Somebody could come to your [90:01] site and just start chewing up your [90:04] >> API usage. [90:06] >> Well, we had a we had a piece that was [90:07] going to be related to that, but we [90:09] never we basically ran out of time. We [90:11] ended up talking about, you know, things [90:13] like brushes quite a lot, didn't we? And [90:16] uh that'll rob you of whole hours, it [90:19] turns out. So, um [90:22] injuries, it's nothing to do with me. [90:24] >> So, that's it. I think sorry that we've [90:27] not managing to get to all those bits [90:28] and pieces but hopefully that's been uh [90:30] that's been all right. So there we go. [90:32] Um it only remains for me to say a big [90:35] thank you to the guests. So we got Mark [90:38] over there, Mark C with a C at the end. [90:41] We got Mark with a K at the end. And [90:43] then we've got Tim with a, you know, [90:47] normal spelling of Tim. Nothing curious [90:49] about that at all. It's just Tim. And [90:51] then me as well. I was here apparently. [90:54] Uh, I don't know if that counts, but I [90:57] never mention myself. Anyway, here I am. [90:59] Uh, maybe maybe this will be the last [91:00] one. I'm going to follow Simon Harper's [91:02] lead. This is going to be the last [91:03] episode of WP World. [91:04] >> Don't say things like that until [91:09] it'll go into the AI and nobody'll Yeah. [91:11] get read into the transcription. [91:13] >> Rig 2026. Oh, [91:16] >> it is going to be the last episode [91:19] until next Monday. See what I did there? [91:22] So, we will be back in a week's time. We [91:24] always are. Uh I I really enjoy doing [91:26] the show and it's very nice when I get a [91:28] panel of people like you who are fun and [91:30] humorous and interesting and uh willing [91:33] to just shoot the breeze with me for 90 [91:35] minutes. It's very good. [91:36] >> And he did not use the word smart in any [91:38] of that just in case no one noticed. [91:41] Yeah. [91:41] >> Yeah. I appreciate that. I'm gonna say, [91:44] yeah, that's going to be the title of [91:45] the show. [91:45] >> I smart five times. [91:49] >> Thank you. Um, you're all very very [91:52] smart. I I I love you all. Um, and of [91:56] obviously if you've come in and made [91:57] some comments, I appreciate that as [91:59] well. Thank you very much. [91:59] >> He also loves you if you come in and [92:01] commented, including what we had a [92:04] comment about uh they wanted to promote [92:06] Mug. So, [92:08] >> what's what's that? Reys wanted to [92:10] remind people that they could go to [92:11] Edward co-working if you wanted to go [92:13] and hang out in Manchester. [92:14] >> Oh, okay. Thank you. Read that into the [92:16] record. Yeah, I'll do that one quickly [92:17] because Reese is nice. Uh, I can't. It's [92:20] gone. There it is. Uh, Manchester [92:22] WordPress user group pitches it as [92:23] WordPress and co-working. We have 10% [92:26] off of folks who just come for the [92:29] co-working element. Okay, thank you. Uh, [92:32] what's the plan for WP? When WPLDN's do [92:34] you go for a meal? Uh, we go to the bar. [92:36] There's a bar literally like I don't [92:39] know like 8 seconds walk around the [92:41] back. It's next door basically. Um, so [92:43] you go there afterwards and just hang [92:45] out and people usually are there for an [92:47] hour or two, something like that. At [92:49] this time of year, it'd be lovely. [92:51] >> Have a beer or a lemonade. [92:52] >> That's right. Um, [92:54] >> because [92:59] all I can say is, Iran, bring your [93:00] mortgage uh for the bar. You know, it's [93:04] just insane. But, you know, it's the [93:06] same wherever you go in central London. [93:08] It's absolutely nuts. So, there we go. [93:09] We just need to do the handwave of joy, [93:11] which is now what I've called it, the [93:13] handwave of joy. There we go. The [93:15] handwave of joy. That's lovely. Thank [93:16] you so much. We'll be back next week. If [93:19] you three want to hang around and shoot [93:20] the breeze for 10 minutes or so, that'd [93:22] be lovely as well. And uh we'll see you [93:24] next week for the next episode. Take it [93:27] easy. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.  ## Highlights - You've got this group of where it's like, is this hubris? Was this an AI company hitting its own marketing hype? Was this really a marketing campaign that backfired? Was this a grudge match by the US government? - Note: 📚 Export controls can revoke AI API access overnight · - Anthropic Fable/Mythos segment, approximately 25 minutes into episode. - This is the first documented case of a commercially launched AI model being blocked via export control, making API dependency risk concrete rather than theoretical for enterprise WordPress/web practitioners. **Tags:** #xref… · #atom/literature/h1 - This isn't to do with plug-in updating. So you don't need to — you're not going to go and suddenly see that there's a new version of Optin Monster because this was being remotely pulled. It just affected it. - Note: 📚 CDN-loaded plugin scripts create unchainable supply-chain risk · - Optin Monster/CDN attack segment, approximately 65 minutes in. - Directly demonstrates why the WordPress plugin repository's prohibition on external CDN script loading exists: a compromised CDN endpoint bypasses all conventional update-based security hygiene. **Tags:** #xref #addendum… · #atom/literature/h2 - There is no definition of social media. And in Australia, they've defined social media very tightly. If you try to define social media, I think you would struggle not to include blogs. - Note: 📚 Undefined "social media" in legislation threatens self-hosted WordPress sites · - UK social-media ban segment, approximately 45 minutes in. - Tim Nash's observation has direct, under-discussed implications for any WordPress operator running a public commenting system — a legislative gap the community should be monitoring and lobbying on. **Tags:** #xref #articleseed… · #atom/literature/h3 - Centralised API dependency is a geopolitical fragility, not just a technical one - Note: [[Open-source LLM adoption]] — because applies-in risk-mitigation planning · ** · #atom/zettel/z1 - Plugin security hygiene requires ecosystem-level, not plugin-level, patch monitoring - Note: [[Supply-chain security]] — because extends · ** · #atom/zettel/z2 - Research: Does the UK Online Safety Act 2023 already contain a "social media" definition, and does it capture self-hosted WordPress blogs? — [Guardian UK social media ban coverage](https://www.theguardian.com) - Note: ✏️ Fleeting capture #atom/fleeting/f1 - Explore: Apple's claimed age-estimation-from-photo capability — what is the documented accuracy at the 15/16 age boundary? — [Apple developer documentation](https://developer.apple.com) - Note: ✏️ Fleeting capture #atom/fleeting/f2 - Follow up: Has Awesome Motive (Optin Monster) published a formal post-mortem on the CDN compromise? — [Awesome Motive blog](https://awesomemotive.com) - Note: ✏️ Fleeting capture #atom/fleeting/f3 - acknowledge that friction reduces harm even if it doesn't eliminate it. - Note: 🔍 Fallacy: Slippery Slope #fallacy/slippery-slope