Every Met Gala has some sort of controversy, whether it’s about the dress code and theme, the guest list, or a now-infamous brawl in an elevator at an afterparty. Because this is 2024, it’s only fitting that the outrage began this year because of a TikTok audio track.

In a now-deleted video, an influencer named Haley Kalil shows off her elaborate floral dress and headpiece as she prepares to host a pre-Met Gala red carpet event. Her misstep was using an audio snippet in the background taken from the 2006 film Marie Antoinette, in which the titular character smirks and delivers one of the most famous (and spurious) one-liners of history: “Let them eat cake.” The sound has been circulating on TikTok for months, mostly used in makeup tutorials, fashion videos, and things of that nature.

The backlash was swift and brutal. Audiences compared the event to The Hunger Games, a dystopia where the wealthy sit back as everyone else fights to the death. TikTok users flooded Kalil’s comments saying she was clueless, callous, or purposefully trying to manufacture outrage. Kalil insisted it was an honest mistake, but the optics were bad: as thousands die, starve, and are displaced in Gaza, reveling in opulence will inevitably rub some the wrong way.

For seven months, social media audiences have watched violence rain down on Palestinians in Gaza following Hamas’ October 7th attack in Israel. Instagram feeds have been inundated with infographics, charts, and gruesome images of death and destruction. TikTok — once an app primarily known for goofy dances — has become a battleground for shaping the public narrative around the long-standing Israel-Palestine conflict. For many — especially younger people — their entire exposure to the conflict has been on social media, as opposed to learning of it on a college campus, through family, or via traditional media. It only makes sense, then, that these same platforms have become an outlet for their responses, whether in the form of frustration, activism, or some combination thereof.

At the same time that Kalil’s video was being debated and discussed, a seemingly unplanned grassroots movement dubbed “Blockout 2024” was picking up steam. Last week, a TikTok user shared a video about blocking celebrities on social media platforms in order to stymie their reach and, by extension, their earnings from ads or sponsored content. The video was in response to clips from the Met Gala interspersed with news footage of Gaza, and the intended message was clear: celebrities don’t care about what happens to everyone else. The least normal people could do is try to cut the powerful off however they can.

Since then, a litany of “block lists” have circulated, created by different people and for different reasons. The targets vary, but Kim Kardashian, Tom Brady, Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, and Selena Gomez are frequently listed, along with many others. (Kalil, unsurprisingly, has also been mentioned.) It’s a diffuse movement with no established leadership or stated goals, but it’s clearly resonated: tens of thousands of posts have been made on TikTok and Instagram using related hashtags, and comment sections are filled with “#blockout” and pro-Palestine messages.

The Blockout is coinciding with more direct forms of mutual aid, with pressure directed at celebrities and influencers to promote these efforts. Sending funds and other resources to Gaza has been difficult over the past several months due to the legal system, the collapse of infrastructure, and Israel’s physical blocking of aid going into Gaza. Some content creators have publicly called on celebrities to support organizations like Operation Olive Branch, a grassroots effort to directly fundraise for Palestinian families. Artists and creators like Lizzo and Hank Green have posted in support of the organizations, spurred in part by comedian Erin Hattamer’s call for fundraising.

Social media-based activism can be fleeting: followers lose interest; momentum dies down; and the reach of movements is limited by algorithms. To be fair, the Blockout is still in its early days, and it’s unclear if it will have a measurable impact. But for a conflict that’s unfolding via shortform videos, live selfie-style updates, and Instagram posts, this will likely not be the last we hear of it.

This is not a joke: Google will now let you perform a “web” search. It’s rolling out “web” searches now, and in my early tests on desktop, it’s looking like it could be an incredibly popular change to Google’s search engine.

The optional setting filters out almost all the other blocks of content that Google crams into a search results page, leaving you with links and text — and Google confirms to The Verge that it will block the company’s new AI Overviews as well.

“Isn’t every search a web search? What is Google Search if not the web?” you might rightfully ask.

But independent websites like HouseFresh and Retro Dodo have pointed out how their businesses have gotten “buried deep beneath sponsored posts, Quora advice from 2016, best-of lists from big media sites, and no less than 64 Google Shopping product listings,” in the words of HouseFresh managing editor Gisele Navarro.

Now, with one click, a bunch of those blockers seemingly disappear.

Search for “best home arcade cabinets,” one of Retro Dodo’s bread-and-butter queries, and it’s no longer buried — it appears on page 1. (Drag our image slider to see the difference.)

HouseFresh still doesn’t get page 1 billing for “best budget air purifiers” — but it’s higher up, and you’re no longer assaulted by an eye-popping number of Google Shopping results as you scroll:

If you search for Wyze cameras, you’ll now get a hint about their lax security practices on page 2 instead of page 3:

I’m not sure it’s an improvement for every search, partly because Google’s modules can be useful, and partly because the company isn’t giving up on self-promotion just because you press the “web” button. Here, you can see Google still gives itself top billing for “Google AR glasses” either way, and its “Top stories” box is arguably a helpful addition:

Which of these results helps you better learn about the Maui wildfires? I’m genuinely not sure:

And when you ask Google who wrote The Lord of the Rings, is there any reason you wouldn’t want Google’s full knowledge graph at your disposal?

Admittedly, it’s an answer that Google isn’t likely to get wrong.

As far as I can tell, the order of Google’s search results seem to be the same regardless of whether you pick “web” or “all.” It doesn’t block links to YouTube videos or Reddit posts or SEO factories… and I still saw (smaller!) sponsored ads from Amazon and Verkada and Wyze push down my search results:

“Web” is just a filter that removes Google’s knowledge panels and featured snippets and Shopping modules — and Google’s new AI Overviews as well, Google spokesperson Ned Adriance confirms to The Verge. “AI Overviews are a feature in Search, just like a knowledge panel or a featured snippet, so they will not appear when someone uses the web filter for a search.”

It doesn’t magically fix some of the issues facing Google’s search engine. But it is a giant opt-out button for people who’ve been aggravated by some of the company’s seemingly self-serving moves, and a way to preserve the spirit of the 10 blue links even as Google’s AI efforts try to leave them behind.

Danny Sullivan, Google’s Public Liaison for Search, says he’s been asking for something like this for years:

As a next step, I’d like to see Google promote the button to make it more visible. Right now, the company warns that it may not always appear in the primary carousel on desktop at all — you may need to click “More” first and then select “Web.”

Here’s hoping this all works well on mobile, too; I’m not seeing it on my phone yet.