Mashable

There's hardly ever such a thing as truly free money. We pay for everything, in some way: with labor, with time, with suffering.

So getting a payment from a tech or social media settlement isn't exactly free — it's likely the company messed up in some way and it legitimately owes you that cash — but it certainly can feel like getting free money. And if you're already using the tech or platform, then you might as well get paid for the issue.

Here are four major settlements you might want to look into — just to see if you're owed money.

AT&T

AT&T this summer settled data breach lawsuits between 2019 and 2024. If you are an AT&T customer, you might be entitled to some of the $177 million agreement. The company said it would be contacting customers between August and October. If you haven't been contacted, it might be worth reaching out to check. You can also check out a website devoted to the settlement, which has the proper forms, deadlines, and information you need to claim a settlement.

Facebook

Pretty much everyone used Facebook at some point, which means you could be due for a payment. Settlement payouts related to the Cambridge Analytica scandal actually began to roll out last month and could go on for several more weeks. There was a deadline in 2023 to submit a claim — to be honest, who could remember if they filed something two years ago — but those who will get a payout should get an email alerting them to the fact that a payment is forthcoming.

Amazon

The retail and tech giant agreed last month to pay $1.5 billion to an estimated 35 million customers over alleged deceptive practices regarding Prime membership. You could be eligible for a payment if you signed up to be a Prime member between 2019-2025 and did so using one of the so-called "challenged enrollment flows." Certain customers will automatically get paid while others may be sent a claims form by Amazon, depending on their eligibility.

For more information on the Amazon settlement payments, check out Mashable's coverage.

Anthropic

AI company Anthropic agreed last month to pay authors $1.5 billion over allegations that it used their work to train its model. So yes, you'd have to be one of the authors in the case to get paid by this settlement, but the Books3 dataset at issue in the case contains tens of thousands of works. The judge in the case, however, has expressed reservations about that settlement — so it remains to see what will actually result from it.

In the meantime, more class-action suits against AI companies are likely to come soon, including a recent case involving Apple and allegedly pirated books. You can check to see if your work was included in the notorious Books3 library at The Atlantic's searchable database.

It's that beautiful time when Netflix viewers worldwide tune into Love is Blind and wonder, "How is everyone missing all these red flags?"

Season 9 of Netflix's blockbuster dating show, in which couples pair up after getting to know each other sight unseen, kicked off Oct. 1. And just like with prior seasons, Season 9 is not skimping on the drama. From Patrick and Kacie's bizarre breakup to Anna and Blake ghosting their potential connections in the pods, there is a ton of juicy awkwardness to unpack.

Luckily, viewers will have the chance to further unpack all of Love is Blind Season 9's shenanigans at the upcoming reunion, coming to Netflix Oct. 29. In the reunion announcement video, hosts Nick and Vanessa Lachey get in their obligatory ghosting joke, telling fans, "the only thing scarier than [ghosting] would be missing the reunion."

You heard them! Something tells me it's going to get messy.

Love is Blind Season 9: The Reunion premieres Oct. 29 at 9 p.m. ET on Netflix.

TikTok seems to be abnormally focused on what the lion does or does not concern itself with these days.

It's become a meme to post about the lion or lioness — meaning yourself — and what does or does not concern them. Most of the time, in the TikTok trend, the lion's (or lioness') concerns are either relatively trivial or outside what you might expect from a so-called grindset online figure who'd actually post this sort of thing in earnest. So the lion may not be concerned with the effects of energy drinks, or it may be concerned with their anxious thoughts.

Here's what you need to know about the trend.

What is the meme, and where did it start?

The meme generally references a now-famous quote from Game of Thrones that you probably recognize offhand. It's a callback to when master manipulator Tywin Lannister tells his son, "The lion doesn't concern himself with the opinions of the sheep."

Now, how did it become a meme? That's a more complicated answer. The GOT quote is famous, and people have posted it earnestly for years, so much so that it has become cringey. The New York Times noted in May that the meme began with "manosphere" or "grindset" folks promoting a particular form of masculinity before being co-opted and morphed by people making absurd or edgy jokes.

Months later, the meme has shifted again, this time on TikTok. It's become more normie, for lack of a better word. It's more silly, less edgy, and certainly not sincerely referencing oneself as a "lion." In fact, it's directly mocking that sort of person. The TikTok posts often feel like a direct send-up of men who constantly post about their weird versions of what it means to be a man.

As best I can tell — at least as it presented itself on my timeline — this version of the meme was popularized by a user on TikTok with the handle @ckwon117 (now jokingly donning the username The Lion). Starting over the summer, he posted joking things the so-called lion wasn't concerned with, such as screen time or washing his water bottle.

The formula was pretty straightforward: The lion was not concerned with something pretty silly, and it was always delivered in a serious, monotone manner. The most popular of these TikToks really took off, racking up millions of views. It seemed the world was concerned with the lion's concerns.

How the lion meme went viral

As with any meme, the lion's and lioness' concerns went viral because people saw it worked. That's literally how a meme forms — it's online word-of-mouth and people playing with the format to put their spin on it.

Soon enough, the lion was concerned about not seeing his friends for a long time.

Or the lion was not concerned with finding love until, actually, late at night, he was.

Or the lioness is not concerned with curbs and whether or not she's driving over them.

Or the lion might just not be thinking very quickly today.

As things go with memes, soon enough, the lion's concerns could really be anything you wanted them to be. Any clever, funny, or silly thought could be converted to the format.

So if you see posts about the lion on your FYP, just know that person is almost certainly not sincerely calling themselves The Lion. But The Lion wouldn't really care what you think, anyway.

ChatGPT might soon get a lot "friendlier" with users — literally and figuratively. According to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, the company plans to introduce age-gating to the LLM, marking a clear distinction between how minors and adults will interact with the chatbot.

The update stems from a post Altman shared on X Tuesday, where he addressed growing frustration over the GPT-5 update over the summer, which resulted in ChatGPT "losing" its "personality," according to many user complaints.

In the post, Altman said he believes OpenAI has "mitigated serious mental health issues" associated with AI chatbot use, and that the company is now exploring ways to ease some of its tighter content limits. OpenAI recently introduced new safety tools as well, including new parental controls.

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Altman announced that OpenAI will roll out a new version of ChatGPT in the coming weeks that "behaves more like what people liked about [previous GPT version] 4o." Then, starting in December, as OpenAI introduces "age-gating" features, restrictions around erotic or sexually explicit conversations will be lifted "for verified adult users," Altman wrote. It's unclear how OpenAI will prove users' ages.

SEE ALSO: I tested OpenAI Sora 2 vs Google Veo 3 for AI video, and there’s a very clear winner

This is a notable shift for OpenAI, especially given that the company intentionally designed GPT-5 to make the chatbot less "sycophantic" and help prevent potential mental health crises among users. Now, Altman says he wants to "treat adult users like adults" and seems more open to allowing erotica or sexual expression within the chatbot experience for those who want it.

Altman's post quickly drew mixed reactions. Some users expressed frustration that instead of simply bringing back the beloved GPT-4o, OpenAI was releasing an update that would merely "behave like 4o."

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Others mocked the CEO for seemingly walking back his August comments, when he said he was proud that OpenAI "hasn’t put an AI sex bot into ChatGPT yet." And then there were those who pointed out the irony of Altman's newfound openness to erotic chat, given his recent prediction that ChatGPT could "cure cancer one day."

Mashable reached out to OpenAI for comment but didn't receive a response before publication.

Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.

Months of private Telegram conversations between Young Republican leaders across several states depict a startling culture of racist, fascist strategizing, according to an exclusive investigation by Politico.

More than 2,900 pages of Telegram chats obtained by the publication show repeated uses of violent, anti-Black, and antisemitic terminology, including the phrase "I love Hitler." Members of the group chat praised violent sexual assault and repeatedly used racist, ableist, and sexist slurs. Some evoked Holocaust imagery when discussing political opponents and casually used white supremacist dogwhistles. Many of them parroted talking points by conservative figureheads while doing so, including Tucker Carlson and Charlie Kirk.

SEE ALSO: For Trump officials, social media is war

Leaders implicated in the leak include Kansas Young Republican vice chair William Hendrix and New York State Young Republican leaders Bobby Walker and Peter Giunta, as well as one Trump administration employee, Michael Bartels. Guinta said in a statement that the leaks were part of a targeted character assassination, but did not categorically refute the contents. Other Young Republican leaders have denounced the chat, while the White House denied any affiliation with the Young Republican splinter group. All together, the group is a segment of a new wave of GOP activists, many of whom led the charge to get President Donald Trump back into office in 2025.

The Trump administration and its vocal Republican allies haven't refrained from using social media in increasingly controversial ways, including sharing racist and xenophobic posts, applauding anti-LGBTQ actions, and targeting individual dissenters directly. Groupchats, at large, have posed a different set of problems for conservative leaders, including the controversial exposed Signal chats between the nation's top defense leaders, Vice President JD Vance, and the editor in chief of the Atlantic. Behind the scenes, a robust network of Signal conversations between private industry leaders and political figures formed the basis of Trump's re-election campaign and rapid shift in political support, documented in a sprawling investigation by Semafor.

Last week, leaked Signal messages between top White House advisors showed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth was considering deploying the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne infantry to Portland, the current hot spot for Trump's crackdown on so-called ANTIFA organizers. First reported by the Minnesota Star Tribune, the chats appear to show the Trump administration is still relying on the third-party encrypted messaging platform to discuss sensitive government operations — despite ongoing privacy (and reputational) concerns.

UPDATE: Oct. 15, 2025, 10:21 a.m. An earlier version of this story listed former New York State Young Republican vice chair as "Bobby Hendrix." It has been corrected.

TL;DR: Get Microsoft Office for life on sale for only $39.97 (reg. $229). Sale ends Oct. 19 at 11:59 p.m. PT.

Opens in a new window Credit: Microsoft Microsoft Office Home & Business 2019 for Mac $39.97
$229 Save $189.03   Get Deal

Have you seen how much Microsoft 365 costs now? And who can say when the next price hike will come.

Software subscriptions are a subtle way of massively overpaying for apps you used to be able to own. If you don’t want to pay $99.99 per year, every year just to use basic Microsoft Office apps, it might be time to switch to a more budget-friendly option, even if it costs a little more up-front. Right now, it’s only $39.97 to get Microsoft Office 2019 for life. That’s marked down from $229, but that price won’t last much longer.

SEE ALSO: Unlock eight Adobe and Microsoft apps for just $90

This version of Microsoft Office comes with:

• Word

• Excel

• PowerPoint

• Outlook

• OneNote

• Teams Classic

You can install each of these apps on one computer for life. After that, there are no subscription fees or hidden payments to worry about. You also don’t have to deal with a sudden update from Microsoft completely changing how you work (or those frustrating AI tools constantly interrupting you).

This version of Microsoft Office is a little older than the apps you get from Microsoft 365, but they still work great for everything from school to the office, and you don’t need internet to use them.

This license is for 1 Mac, but Windows licenses are also still available for now.

If you want to stop paying for Microsoft apps every month, then get a Microsoft Office 2019 lifetime license while it’s on sale for only $39.97.

Sale ends Oct. 19 at 11:59 p.m. PT. No coupon needed.

StackSocial prices subject to change.