The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is wasting workers’ time and taxpayer dollars on “a witch hunt to find any content deemed ‘bad,’” according to a source familiar with the work and internal communications viewed by 404 Media. Specifically, people who work on HHS websites are spending days scanning those sites and any documents they share in search of a list terms like “gay,” “sexuality,” “non-binary,” “inclusion,” “queer,” and “gender,” potentially so they could be later removed to comply with Trump’s executive orders attacking diversity, equity, and inclusion in the federal government.

“The most obvious issue to me about this list is that it’s being done in the name of ‘efficiency and saving money.’ It is not efficient to take engineers off their work to scan old content for any keywords this new administration hates. The bigotry is astounding,” the source who is familiar with the work and who asked to be anonymous because they were not permitted to speak to the press, told me. “If they were being true to the concept, sure, they could say that moving forward, we will no longer support creation of new data about these topics. But to go backward decades, scrubbing for stuff they hate, that’s not a savings of time and money, that’s a huge expenditure. It's hypocritical on top of it all.”

The source said that part of what makes the work so time consuming is that the current HHS administration doesn’t just want to know about every page on its sites that include these terms, but also pages that link out to .PDF files that include those terms. For example, last week we reported that the Trump administration added a note rejecting “gender ideology” on a Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s website page that shared a .PDF of a study about substance abuse among gay, lesbian, bisexual, or other nonheterosexual adolescents. According to the source, HHS administrators want that page added to a spreadsheet of pages and documents that include the terms it's looking for because of the content of the study. 

Since HHS websites share thousands of .PDFs, the source said, “very expensive” engineers spent multiple days scanning the files for the list of terms instead of doing their regular tasks. 

Other terms on the list include “they/them” pronouns, “pregnant ‘people,’” “Biden,” and “intersex,” according to a copy of the list seen by 404 Media.

The fact that the government is wasting resources finding every instance of a term it finds objectionable directly contradicts Trump’s and Musk’s stated goal of “government efficiency.” Finding these terms in thousands of studies and papers and potentially removing them is not saving any taxpayer dollars, but just purging government sites with a perspective it disagrees with. Other agencies have also scrambled to find similar terms. Axios reported that DOGE representatives at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are searching for “DEI content” and Stat News has reported that a number of federal health agencies are searching grants for “taboo words” like “trans” and “diversity.” 

“The spitefulness is such a waste of time and money. It's infuriating,” the source said. “Sure, they might argue not to do anything inclusive or helpful in the future, but to burn so much time and money trying to scrub out any content he [Trump] hates from past decades is ... I'm kinda at a loss for words.”

At the moment, it appears that HHS is not removing pages that contain the terms it’s looking for because a federal judge ordered it and other agencies to restore several webpages they removed as a result of Trump’s executive order. The court ordered the administration to restore the webpages to their versions as of January 30, 2025, meaning they were supposed to revert the webpages to what they looked like on January 30 with no changes. The versions that have been restored now have this additional disclaimer about “gender ideology” we reported on last week.

EQL runs promotions such as launches of new sneakers. Some of these, like this year’s NBA All-Star Weekend launch of the Michael Jordan AJ 1, are in huge demand! So EQL runs these as a lottery.

Reports came in from entrants that they’d received an email with the heading ”you’ve been selected” — but the email itself was “sorry, you were not selected.” Other headings included “selected to purchase JORDAN AJ1” or “selected for the JORDAN AJ1”. [EQL]

The odd bit is that none of EQL’s emails had any of these as subject lines.

Any Pivot to AI regular can guess what happened here — their email provider, in this case Yahoo Mail, was listing incorrect LLM “summaries” of the emails instead of the actual subject lines. Yahoo did not flag these to users as bot summaries.

Yahoo launched a beta of the AI subject line mangler in June 2024, with a full launch in November, for a “A Cleaner, Smarter And Simpler Experience” — and never mind the system was doing extra work to be wrong. We’re surprised it took this long to fail so clearly. [Yahoo!; Yahoo!]

“The new features we’re launching are aimed at making life that much easier for anyone that relies on email,” said Kyle Miller, VP of Product for Yahoo Mail, who evidently has no use for mere factual accuracy in his work. [CIO]

You can disable the AI summaries in your settings. [Reddit]

Ziff Davis, the $2 billion media conglomerate that owns dozens of sites including PCMag, Lifehacker, IGN and CNET, is quietly taking diversity, equity, and inclusion information off of its website, 404 Media has learned. 

In the past month, the company removed information about diversity-focused employee resource groups, inclusion-based hiring goals, and diversity training for its workers and managers from its corporate website. 

The changes were first spotted by a Ziff Davis employee. 404 Media granted the employee anonymity to speak candidly. 

An archived version of Ziff Davis’s DEI webpage saved on January 19 states, “Ziff Davis is proud to offer Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), voluntary employee-led groups mentored by executive sponsors and overseen by our Global DEI and HR Programs team. They represent s​even identity groups​: Asian, Black, 2SLGBTQIA+, Latinx/Hispanic, family of all kinds, women and gender minorities​, and interfaith.”

On the same page at time of writing, and as early as February 12, the description of employee resource groups had been changed to remove specific mentions of those groups. It now says, “All employees are welcome to create or join Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), which are voluntary employee-led groups mentored by executive sponsors.”

“Internal HR reps assure us all is well, that DEI programs and employee resource groups will remain unchanged,” the employee told 404 Media. But they’re still concerned about the changes to the website. “The internal reassurances, public silence, and website changes leaves me feeling gaslighted about our company’s commitment to DEI.”

Other sections have been removed from the website entirely. On the archived version of the page from January, the company stated that it gave senior leadership bonuses depending on how well they met its diversity goals. 

“In 2023, we activated 100% of the $1 million committed to hiring POC freelancers by year-end,” the January webpage said. Another “ongoing action” listed included “adding non-financial DEI targets, based on internal talent goals, to the annual compensation plans of executives with substantial hiring oversight. The bonus plans of certain senior executives include a hiring, retention, and leadership component based on the achievement of Ziff Davis’ diversity and inclusion objectives.”

On the current version of the page, this paragraph is completely gone. 

A short section of the page dedicated to employee training has also lost any mention of “Diversity and Inclusion” training since January. 

On another page detailing its “Five Pillars of Purpose,” Ziff Davis lists “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” as one of these pillars. An archived version of this page from January describes this pillar as the company’s intent to “reinforce our diverse workforce, reflect our diverse audiences, and expand upon our inclusive culture.”

According to the current description, the company must “​​ensure we avail ourselves of the best talent in the marketplace, to hire top employees and address the needs of a large and diverse customer base.”

Ziff Davis has also made changes to its “Community” page, which talks about volunteering and donations to non-profit organizations. Since January, the company has fully removed paragraphs about its partnership with the Black Game Developer Fund, as well as its “pro bono ad campaigns for NAACP and Sandy Hook Promise.” (Sandy Hook Promise is still mentioned as one of the recipients for “approximately $1.3 million in ad space via our Employee Resource Groups.”) 

The company has also removed mention of the $10 million it has deposited in Black-owned banks, “to help the institutions originate loans that foster economic opportunity within underserved Black communities,” according to the archived version of the page. 

The current community page also no longer lists Ziff Davis CEO Vivek Shah as a part of CEOs for Gun Safety, which the archived page describes as “a coalition of CEOs who believe gun violence in the U.S. is not inevitable and are urging elected officials to help prevent it.” CEOs for Gun Safety’s list of signatories still lists Shah as of February.

Internal messages in a company-wide group chat about diversity obtained by 404 Media, however, show the company claiming no change to its commitment to DEI. 

One message, for example, encouraged employees to “Celebrate Black History Month with [employee resource group] Black@ZD,” and invited them to “a series of enriching events that celebrate our achievements, honor our history, and strengthen our community at Ziff Davis, as we explore this year's theme of ‘African Americans and Labor.’” 

Another message from a member of the company’s DEI council said, “DEI isn’t just a statement at ZD, it’s part of who we are and how we operate…the impact of our work speaks louder than any headline or inclusion on a list could. In my humble opinion, I don’t believe that we need to shout it from the rooftops because our actions consistently reflect our values.”

Multiple employees in the group chat asked whether Ziff Davis’s approach to DEI was changing based on President Trump’s executive orders about it. On Wednesday morning, the company’s CEO Vivek Shah posted a video about DEI and environmental sustainability to a company Facebook group. 

“Our commitment to both is not changing,” Shah says in the video, which 404 Media viewed. “Simply put, DEI at Ziff Davis helps us drive the best possible business outcomes…We must ensure that everyone understands what DEI and ESG [environmental, social, and governance] mean at our company. I’ve asked our teams to ensure that we’re clear in our language.” 

Ziff Davis did not respond to 404 Media's request for comment.

In the last year—and increasingly since Trump’s election and executive order demanding federal agencies scrub their websites of mentions of diversity, equity and inclusion—multiple organizations and companies including Meta, Target, Google, and the Smithsonian Institution have rolled back or ended their diversity targets and programs. The Department of Health and Human Services, Center for Disease Control, and Food and Drug Administration all removed webpages and data related to adolescent health and HIV. Some of those pages are now back online after a judge ordered that they return to their previous state—but now, a note at the top of the pages says, “Any information on this page promoting gender ideology is extremely inaccurate, and disconnected from the immutable biological reality that there are two sexes, male and female.”

“It’s scary enough when a Walmart or Hobby Lobby caters to the right, but when a massive media company starts complying in advance with Orwellian Newspeak the potential ripple effects feel extra scary,” the employee who spoke to 404 Media said. 

I played a bunch of CS2 last night!

One of my biggest takeaways from the first Citizen Sleeper was that it was a little too easy to become stable in that game. You started off weak but rapidly became stronger through the power of your local friend network. It seemed to me to be less a simulation of hardscrabble suffering, and more like a mechanical proof that having a lot of friends will keep you alive. By the end of the game you have so many options which you can understand so deeply that there is very little risk associated with most of the opportunities available to you.

CS2 Goes in a different direction. I think the resource economy is actually a lot tougher, and there are a lot more things to juggle, and multiple additional pals to manage in your little adventurer party, and the high-stress moments feel a lot more high-stress because of it.

There's also some mechanics I will not spoil which cause you to feel significantly more "disabled" over time by long-term debuffs that affect your dice and overall strength and flexibility. It's hitting the goals of the first game a lot more directly, I think.

This really is a game that starts off with the player being unaware of how strong and hale and hearty they are, and just undermining them repeatedly with resource spirals that make them feel weaker over time, which is... a rare decision to make, but I do appreciate the way it was made here, and I think it's effective. That's cool!

That said: boy howdy, it's hard to keep all the info in your head about where you can find which fixes for your various problems. I would really appreciate a belt-map-level reminder of what facilities are inside each map node. The worst I ever got fucked up, it was because I went to the wrong place looking for materials to repair my dice with. I would love to suffer only from bad tactical decisions, and not from being confused about where to go.

Otherwise, I do recommend it! It's got the juice. I think it has more juice than the first one and I'm glad I picked it up.

After being forced by a court order to restore certain pages about gender and diversity to government websites, the Trump administration has added a note to the top of those pages saying “Any information on this page promoting gender ideology is extremely inaccurate, and disconnected from the immutable biological reality that there are two sexes, male and female.”

For example, a page on Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s website (SAMHSA) linking to a survey about behavioral health and substance abuse among gay, lesbian, bisexual, or others nonheterosexual adolescents, now includes the note. In full, the note reads: 

The same note now also appears on U.S. Food & Drug Administration’s (FDA) site page for a June 2024 “guidance document” for “Diversity Action Plans to Improve Enrollment of Participants from Underrepresented Populations in Clinical Studies,” as well as an January 2025 guidance document for the “Study of Sex Differences in the Clinical Evaluation of Medical Products.”

The note essentially seems like a way for the current administration to legally comply with a court order while still signaling that it entirely rejects any government funded or endorsed research or policy sympathetic to LGBTQ+ community and diversity, equity, and inclusion, which Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency have been purging from government websites. 

Earlier this week, we reported that a federal judge ordered the Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control, and Food and Drug Administration to restore several webpages they removed as a result of Trump’s executive order attacking diversity, equity, and inclusion. The agencies were given until 11:59 p.m. on February 11 to restore the webpages. 

The court ordered the administration to restore the webpages “to their versions as of January 30, 2025, meaning they were supposed to revert the webpages to what they looked like on January 30 with no changes. The versions that have been restored now have this additional disclaimer.

A joint status update filed Thursday by lawyers for the Department of Justice and the Public Citizen Litigation Group says that the government has provided the court with a list of websites that it has restored, though the list of websites is not available. It also specifically says that the government is refusing to restore the website reproductiverights.gov: “Defendants have objected to restoring the website ‘reproductiverights.gov.’ Plaintiff’s counsel is conferring with their client,” it says.

“Plaintiff’s lists include websites from Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) components other than the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration. The parties disagree about whether such websites properly fall within the scope of the Order. However, given Plaintiff’s forthcoming amended complaint and to avoid further emergency motions practice, Defendants will restore those websites consistent with the Order,” it adds.