Plus: **The surprising history of Markdown** ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

January 12, 2026 | Read online
# X and Grok bans, Instagram's 17.5m user 'breach', Sendle goes under Plus: **The surprising history of Markdown**
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Edition 2478
Courtesy of the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren, VA., 1988., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Mentioned in today's edition: Grok, Instagram, free TV, Tesla, Reddit, BYD, Steam, John Gruber. Plus, deals on Bose earbuds, Samsung monitors and free Optus data for Victorians.
# The News
### X and Grok are finally facing heat for being a global deepfake image-based abuse generator
Elon Musk's xAI is officially feeling the pressure over Grok's role in making sexualised, sometimes criminal, AI deepfakes of women and children as countries are blocking its use. Indonesia and Malaysia have cut off access (Mashable) while the UK has threatened to do so (Guardian). After eSafety announced it was stepping up its pressure (Sizzle), Anthony Albanese criticised X (PM.gov.au) but then literally tweeted on the platform minutes later (X). X — which is now owned by xAI — has limited the creation of deepfakes via tagging Grok... but it's still very available to free and paid users (Verge). Meanwhile, Musk has responded by calling the UK 'fascist' (Yahoo News) because apparently asking to stop mass producing image-based abuse and CSEM = literally 1984.
The Sizzle: When it comes to technology capabilities, there are two things that matter: what does it do, and how easy does it make it? Deepfakes have been around since 2017. At first they were hard to make, then anyone could make them easily on a computer, then on a phone. Then, Musk plugged it into a social media platform with hundreds of millions of users.
I don’t think this is making a mountain out of a molehill, this isn't people who hate Elon Musk hating on him as usual. This is the deployment of egregious mass image-based abuse machine that allows anyone to abuse with just a few keystrokes! We'll never defeat deepfakes or nudify apps but we can’t accept that global communications platform — used by world leaders and ordinary people alike — has featurised image-based abuse into a subscriber perk.
Related reading: The Verge's Elizabeth Lopatto asks why Apple and Google aren't threatening to kick X or Grok out of their app stores despite its use being blatantly against their rules. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney says banning X for producing deepfake abuse is censorship.
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
### Instagram is being a bit tricky about 17.5m of its users’ data being posted on the dark web
Meta is trying to hose down Malwarebytes’ claim that someone is selling the sensitive data of 17.5 million Instagram users (Engadget). Malwarebytes said that someone was selling data including phone numbers and even partial physical addresses that were scraped via an "instagram API leak" in 2024 (Cyber Insider). Meta says there's "no breach of their systems" (X) but notably hasn't said if the data is real — which makes me think it is real, and they're just splitting hairs with a "breach" vs "exploit".
Have I Been Pwned has the data if you want to check if you're caught up in the breach
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
### Sendle gets returned to sender
Sendle customers received an email out of the blue last night saying the Australian courier and parcel service was "halting all bookings" (OzBargain). Sendle, founded in 2014, got a lot of hype during the pandemic for taking on AusPost and became pretty popular with small business but has struggled since then. Mid-last year, it merged with two other US companies (AFR, $) but then there were some "concerns" raised in the post-merger due diligence that seem relevant (AFR, $).
eep
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
#### Leftovers
Australia:
From today, television manufacturers in Australia must pre-install and make prominent links to Australian free-to-air television apps (ACMA) Linux Australia council elections are happening now (Linux Australia) Teen social media ban updates: Australia u16 social media ban: Meta blocked half a million accounts (The Guardian) Update on Meta’s compliance with social media age ban law (Meta Australia Policy Blog) Reddit has good case against Australia’s social media ban (Financial Review, $) from just before Christmas Looks like the UK might get a teen social media ban as PM Keir Starmer's Tory and Labour rivals announce their support (Financial Times, $) New details emerge on New Zealand health record hack (Cyber Daily) Tesla ups warranty to 5 year unlimited km in Australia – a world first (The Driven) BYD’s cheapest electric cars to have LiDAR self-driving tech (The Driven)
Rest of the world:
Anthropic chases OpenAI in AI health push with Claude (Business Insider, $) Google launched an "agentic" shopping standard today and will start putting deals in Gemini answers (Engadget) Meta announces a bunch of new nuclear projects (Meta) Google gets rid of AI Overviews on some health searches after a Guardian investigation (The Guardian) Industry insiders seek to poison data sets to thwart AI scrapers (The Register) Starlink access in Iran blocked by jammers during their protests (IranWire) 'No verified evidence': Woman says AI-generated deepfake text sent her to jail (6abc Philadelphia) Steam hits a record 42 million concurrent users (Notebookcheck)
Discuss these links in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
# Oh, Also
### The surprising history of Markdown
Maybe this is one of those things that everyone but me knows but I loved reading this history of the lightweight text formatting language Markdown by Anil Dash. I had no idea that it was founded by Apple super-blogger Daring Fireball's John Gruber! Markdown is a great example of one of those things that is so simple and elegant that you almost can't believe there was a time that it didn't exist.
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
# Bargains
Electrical & Electronics
Philips LED 800 Lumen 7.5W Tri-Colour Down Light - $12.95 at Bunnings (Down from $24.95) Samsung Galaxy SmartTag2 (4 Pack) - $87.60 at Amazon AU (Down from $169) UGREEN MagFlow Qi2 25W Certified 30W USB PD 10000mAh Powerbank - $75.99 at Amazon AU (Down from $99) JBL Live PRO 2 TWS Earbuds - $78 at Harvey Norman (Down from $199) Bose QuietComfort Ultra Wireless Noise Cancelling Bluetooth Earbuds - $249 at Amazon AU (Down from $449.95) TP-LINK TAPO RV50 Pro Omni Robot Vacuum - $788 at JB HiFi (Down from $1,788)
Computing
NetComm CF40MESH AX1800 Wi-Fi 6 Router - $35 at Amazon AU (Down from $89) Mercusys H30 Mesh 3 Pack - $119 at ALDI Samsung M7 32" 4K UHD USB-C 65W PD Smart Monitor M70F - $379 at Amazon AU (Down from $597)
Mobile
Victorians on pre-paid Optus get 75 GB free data because of the extreme weather
# The End
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