Plus: Do not read this on the toilet ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

September 04, 2025 | Read online
# AI safety features, Australia ignores blockbuster game and Chinese VPNs Plus: Do not read this on the toilet
Edition 2411
"Computer '87 at the Orchard Convention Centre, 22 May 1987" (Image: State Library of Western Australia)
# The News
### AI companies are only now designing their products not to tell teens to kill themselves
Leading AI companies are scrambling to put safety features into the products they rolled out to billions of users, after it was revealed their AI chatbots were encouraging kids to kill themselves. In the past few days, both Meta (BBC) and OpenAI (TechRadar) have are both adding new guardrails, with OpenAI also adding some parental control features. This hasn’t gone perfectly with ChatGPT users saying they’re being directed towards suicide help lines for unrelated queries (r/ChatGPT).
The Sizzle: As funny as it is to see OpenAI speedrun content moderation, it boggles the mind that these companies are somehow making the same mistakes as social media companies before them. These are ENORMOUS companies worth more than a trillion dollars putting out products that do this? Can you imagine the reaction if any normal product were killing kids like this? Aren’t these people supposedly obsessed with “AI safety?” This FT article makes the interesting point that LLMs’ technical constraint of limited memory can make enforcing guardrail instructions difficult (but I trust the Silicon Valley nerds can figure it out).
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
### Why is no one in Australia talking about this local blockbuster game?
One of the most anticipated sequels in the gaming world comes out today, and it’s Australian-made (Bloomberg, $). Hollow Knight: Silksong is the sequel to the 2017 surprise smash hit 2D action scroller Hollow Knight from Adelaide-based independent studio Team Cherry. The original title sold a whopping 15 million copies — not bad for a three man studio. Silksong is currently the most wish-listed title on Steam and its fans were so keen for its release that they created a bizarre role-playing game involving pretending to find copies of the unreleased game in real life (WIRED, $).
Hollow Knight: Silksong - Release Trailer
The Sizzle: Australian gaming journalist (and Sizzler) Harrison Polites published an interesting newsletter asking why this game, the sequel to one of Australia’s greatest cultural hits of the last decade, has received no buzz in Australian media (Infinite Lives). He mentions the lack of gaming journalism, opaque gaming sales data and Team Cherry’s lack of self-promotion. I’m going to be a bit more cynical and add to that list: there’s no one making space in Australian mainstream culture for our own gaming. Sad.
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
### Popular VPNs appear to be secretly run by Chinese company
Several popular VPNs appear to linked to a Chinese company sanctioned by the US for its military involvement (Open Tech Fund). New research shows that there are two clusters of free VPNs on the Google Play Store with more than 700 million downloads that are linked to Qihoo 360 and, as a result, the China’s People’s Liberation Army. It also raises security and privacy concerns about these VPN, including “extraction of user location information, despite claiming that this is not collected”.
The Sizzle: CC’ing all your browsing history to Xi Jingping is an extreme example, but I do have broader concerns about VPNs. There are clearly some top level providers but, even still, it’s essentially impossible to know from the outside what a VPN provider is doing to your data. And that’s before we get into the scourge of “free” VPNs. With the teen social media ban imminent, I’m worried that people assume that VPNs are inherently safe when actually they can be incredibly risky.
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
#### Leftovers
eSafety Commissioner gives first instruction to social media companies for teen ban (Crikey, $) Labor Says AI Is Breaking the FOI System. Its Opponents Want AI to Fix It. (Capital Brief, $) Michele Bullock reveals RBA testing bespoke AI chatbot to inform policy decisions (The Australian, $) Lawyer caught using AI-generated false citations in court case penalised in Australian first (The Guardian) Gov offers another $47.5m compensation for Robodebt victims (iTnews) Chinese car brands claim four of top 10 spots in Australian monthly sales as Tesla records slump (Guardian) Apple Plans AI-Powered Search Engine to Rival Google, OpenAI (Bloomberg, $) xAI CFO Steps Down, the Latest in a String of Executive Departures (The Wall Street Journal, $) Pornhub settles charges it deceived users over child sex abuse material, US FTC says (Reuters) Fake celebrity chatbots sent risqué messages to teens on top AI app (The Washington Post, $) Microsoft says recent Windows update didn't kill your SSD Threat actors abuse X's Grok AI to spread malicious links (BleepingComputer) URGENT - my girlfriend used chatGPT for her work. Now her boss wants her to explain the calculations. I think the calculations were a hallucination. What to do? (Reddit)
| Pop Crave @PopCrave |
Shein’s website appears to use Luigi Mangione’s face to model a spring/summer shirt.
1:18 AM • Sep 3, 2025
165K Likes 5.1K Retweets
1.54K Replies
Discuss these links in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
# Oh, Also
### Do not read this on the toilet
People who take their phone to the toilet are more likely to get haemorrhoids because of the additional time on the loo, research suggests (Guardian). A UK study found that “toilet scrollers” were nearly 50% more likely to get the swollen veins in their rectums or anus.
So what should the 2/3rds of us who take their phone to the toilet do if they can’t bear leaving it behind? “Set a two TikTok limit,” one doctor said. I’m going further and telling you that you shouldn’t read more than one Sizzle edition on the toilet, thank you very much.
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
# Bargains
Electronic & electrical
Apple AirTag 1-Pack - $40 at Amazon AU Questyle M15C Portable DAC - $96.60 at Questyle Shop Audio-Technica ATH-M50XBT2 Wireless Over-Ear Headphones (Black) - $139 at JB Hi-Fi JBL Tour Pro 3 at Amazon Business for $213 at Amazon AU for $248 Samsung Galaxy Watch7 Bluetooth 44mm & Logitech M185 Wireless Mouse - $270 at JB Hi-Fi
Computing
Free 12 Months AI Perplexity Pro for PayPal HP 435 Multi-Device Wireless Mouse (Bluetooth & USB) - $19 at Australian Computer Traders Corsair K68 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard, Cherry MX Red Switch - $69
Mobile
Lyca Mobile Sim Starter Kit 28 Day 200GB - $12 at Coles (Down from $40) 1/2 Price 30-Day Mobile Starter Packs at Everyday Mobile 4G 22GB for $12.50 30GB + 30GB Bonus for $15 50GB + 50GB for $17.50 Vodafone Prepaid Starter Packs plus 30-50% cashback $45 Plan for $16 $160 Plan for $135 $320 Plan for $199 Prepaid Mobile 100GB 12-Month Plan with Unlimited Talk & Text in Oz - $99 at Ezysim (Down from $175) Google Pixel 9 Pro 128GB - $897 at Officeworks
# The End
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