Jeff Bezos Met Gala; Sarah Paulson Protest Look; OpenAI Stalking Lawsuit; My Handbook App's Fake AI Black Woman Scam - NEWS ROUNDUP
May 8, 2026
AI Summary
5 min readThis week's news roundup covers a mix of AI-driven deceptions and scams, Met Gala reactions tied to Jeff Bezos's involvement, biases in educational AI tools, and emerging legal and harassment issues around AI misuse.
My Handbook App's AI Fakery
A Threads post from My Handbook App went viral, featuring an AI-generated image of a Black woman named "Miracle" claiming she left Penguin Random House to build a sanctuary for book lovers, free of algorithms and AI content. The post tapped into Black online communities' support for Black women founders, boosting the app to #16 in Apple's book apps. Suspicion arose when users linked it to white women (later disproven) and noted only a Black man, Victor Olianobi, on LinkedIn.
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What you'll learn
- 1 (02:24) **Podcast Intro** - Hosts introduce weekly news roundup on tech, power, and exclusions
- 2 (03:24) **My Handbook App Scam Exposed** - Threads post promotes app as Black woman-led sanctuary from algorithms, goes viral with community support
- 3 (05:12) **AI Image Deception Revealed** - Post uses AI-generated Black woman image; founders admit to it in explanation, claim Black couple-led but Random House story fabricated
- 4 (09:23) **Racial Manipulation Critique** - Hosts decry using AI for fake Black founder story to exploit community support
- 5 (14:00) **AI Drop-Ship Scam Parallels** - Compares to AI-generated sob stories for mass-produced goods like Michael Jackson lamps
- 6 (19:24) **StoryGraph Alternative** - Recommends real Black woman-founded app as Goodreads rival
- 7 (20:15) **Met Gala Low Buzz** - Event feels muted; Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez spend $10M as chairs
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Show Notes
There Are No Girls on the Internet is a weekly podcast hosted by Bridget Todd covering tech, power, and the people who get left out of both. Every week we find the stories about technology and the internet that deserve more attention — especially when they're about gender, race, and who actually gets harmed when things go wrong online.
This is what we do every week. If you like what you see here, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts — and follow Bridget on Instagram | TikTok | YouTube | Bluesky
Here's everything we covered this week with links to the original reporting:
🔗 This week's big culture story was about money, labor, and who gets to claim the spotlight. Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez spent at least $10 million to sponsor the Met Gala — and on the same night, Amazon workers staged their own fashion show outside. Labor unions dubbed it the "Ball Without Billionaires," with SEIU President April Verrett declaring: "Labor is art." Democracy Now coverage here.
🔗 Also at the Met Gala: Sarah Paulson wore a dollar bill mask and called her look "The One Percent." Some called it out of touch.
🔗 This week's AI scam story involves a fake Black woman and a book app. A book app called My Handbook used AI-generated images of a Black woman to falsely claim legitimacy — including a fake story about working at Random House. When people pushed back, they posted another AI video doubling down. More on how it unraveled here. And the original post that started it all.
🔗 AI bias in education is getting worse — and we're moving faster than the research. A Stanford study found AI writing feedback tools treat students differently based on race, gender, and disability status. Black students got more praise. White students got more substantive feedback. And we're pushing this into classrooms faster than we can verify it works. More from this podcast