"I own this TV, and Claude said no": users turn to Codex and DeepSeek, as a 'Samsung TV spying' claim spreads

"I wanted to fix the TV I bought, and Claude refused. DeepSeek did it cleanly." That post by developer @theBuoyantMan on Oct 24 captures a wave sweeping X: people stripping bloat and trackers from their own smart TVs with AI to make them faster. One user said Codex made his Samsung TV 3x faster and noted "Claude refused to root the TV" — a post past 13,000 likes.

The story gained an edge when security researcher @log4j said he had examined his own Samsung TV and found an "always-on mic" feature and telemetry paths that count sounds like dog barks and baby cries, with mic-less models reportedly borrowing a soundbar or Bluetooth device to ship audio to Bixby. Those posts drew millions of views. Samsung has not confirmed any of it, and there is no independent verification.

Log4j also said his OpenAI account was suspended over the work: "I never used OpenAI to exploit or find vulnerabilities, only local reverse engineering." Investor @yacineMTB amplified the case to 560,000 views. One reply summed up the backlash: "banning people for local reverse engineering is how you push the exact people who'd find your bugs toward local models."