Government by mafia.

"it is especially forbidden [...] to declare that no quarter will be given" --Hague Convention of 1907

For this week's newsletter, I reviewed Grammarly's AI "Expert Review" feature, which stole the identities of famous writers and editors - including Anna Wintour, George Saunders and Tina Brown - without permission, to give "expert" editing advice that is, well, terrible substack.com/home/post/p-...

Chef's kiss from @henrymance.ft.com www.ft.com/content/3aca...

The whole "AI" industry is just based on the hope that they can deskill people fast enough that they'll have to rent back cognitive support systems. Forever. It's like Uber. Just that they don't try to break existing transportation infrastructures but your brain.

Superhuman (aka Grammarly) responded to my Substack about its now paused "Expert Review", and the class action lawsuit from @juliaangwin.com, which it says is "without merit" and it will "strongly defend against them". oliverfranklinwallis.substack.com/p/why-is-gra...

Great to see someone doing this. I reached out to Tina Brown, Susan Orlean, and an editor at the New York Times, none of whom knew that their identity had been used without their consent. Looks like hundreds of potential claimants.

For all the people saying that Grammarly should be sued over its "expert review" feature, here is the Grammarly class action lawsuit, alleging violation of the right to privacy and the right of publicity: prf-law.com/current-case...

A little offended Grammarly didn't make a sloppelganger of me

Grammarly is using the identities of famous authors, editors, and academics - including Anna Wintour, Tina Brown, Stephen King, George Saunders, and more - for its AI "Expert Review" feature, without their permission. Worse? Its advice sucks. oliverfranklinwallis.substack.com/p/why-is-gra...

[Gestures to people hiring]

Any smart editor right now would be calling up a writer like @rosegeorge.bsky.social, who wrote a tremendous book about life on container ships, to write about what's going on with shipping and Hormuz.

The perfect headline doesn’t exi…

New from 404 Media: CBP tapped into the online advertising ecosystem to track peoples' movements, according to an internal DHS document. Shows for the first time DHS tracked phones via process for putting ads in ordinary apps—video games, fitness apps, many more www.404media.co/cbp-tapped-i...

It's all grift all the way down, isn't it

Wrote about the adolescent self-loathing at the heart of 'maxxing' culture. substack.com/home/post/p-...

Currently have 21,000 words of potential quotes for a 3,300 word story. (Those are cut down, not full transcripts.) Really need to stop doing this to myself.

Hell of a chart, this, from @financialtimes.com. Spot the JCPOA. on.ft.com/4kSuQYO

As Nigel Farage is now so concerned about the influence of "foreign-born voters" can he finally explain why a Kazakhstan-born billionaire appears to be bankrolling his own political party?

Wait, so did Claude tell them to bomb a girl’s school?!

Can’t shake my creeping suspicion that the US keeps launching foreign wars on the basis of “would it make for a cool headline”.

For my newletter series "How'd You Do That?" I talked to Shaad D'Souza, music critic and profile writer, about interviewing celebrities in 2026 open.substack.com/pub/oliverfr...

please…my stolen data…it’s been stolen www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Honestly forgot how much of freelancing is asking to be paid for work you did months ago

The most wholesome thing you'll see today is Ethan Hawke's reaction to Robert Aramayo thanking him his BAFTA speech: "that's better than winning." youtu.be/nTaophRrGlE?...

Wrote about the quiet death of Britain’s buses, and why data sometimes leads to bad decisions. open.substack.com/pub/oliverfr...

As Nigel Farage makes Robert Jenrick his Shadow Chancellor, here's a quick reminder of the sort of man Reform wants to put in charge of the nation's finances

Meta is putting a "Name Tag" feature in Ray-Bans - facial recognition through the glasses' camera. You look at someone, AI tells you who they are. In an internal document, the company wrote that the timing is good because civil society groups are busy with politics and won't cause problems.

Second great political interview in a week (the other being Zack Polanski) from the legend @shattenstone.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

Curious to see if coconuts are also affected, or whether that would be milking it

Can anyone recommend a pub on the Victoria line for a mid-sized social event?

Given the Industrial Revolution was largely powered by children working in what we could consider prison camps, policed by oligarchs using private militias, and funded by slave-picked cotton, yeah it would probably be illegal. But that isn’t what is stupid about this article!

The absolute brass neck to ask for PRs to decorate your flat for free, and then be rude about it. (from Response Source)

If everyone apart from the person who appointed them all leaves then that will sort it.

Having to give daily updates is not usually a good sign

Keir Starmer's spokesman won't say why his Comms Director Tim Allan resigned, when Starmer first knew he was resigning, or whether he asked him to step down. Also won't say whether evidence has been found suggesting an ongoing relationship between Allan and Mandelson

It's still insane to me that Keir Starmer appointed Dinsmore, a man once awarded "sexist of the year" by a domestic violence charity, as the head of government communications

Apparently neither Mandelson nor hiring PIs to spy on journalist was enough for Starmer to sack him.

on we go

Trying to call Angela Rayner "sordid" while defending your relationship with Peter Mandelson really is projection of the most hilarious degree

This is what Harvey Weinstein did, when he hired Black Cube to investigate Ronan Farrow. It is catastrophically bad for anyone involved in politics to be doing the same thing. It is also: very fucking stupid indeed.

While reporting this, I had something happen that's never happened. A comms rep for one of the co's disputed my reporting and said what I was telling them was untrue because it was not in Grok, xAI's chatbot. I was looking directly at the files. And this person was using AI to challenge the truth.

News jobs in New Orleans. veritenews.org/careers/

I must interrupt your day with an urgent report from the Winter Olympics: ski jumpers are allegedly injecting their own penises with candlewax to fly further www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/f...

I'd love to go through the Epstein files and cross reference them with the Panama and Pandora papers. But it would be a massive endeavour. This is the kind of thing newsrooms are for.

Keir Starmer can blame the security vetting for the reason he appointed Mandelson as US Ambassador. He cannot blame the security visit for using him as his and McSweeney's close personal advisor, or having him around for pasta.

really wild and heartbreaking to see the layoffs of so many amazing reporters at WaPo

Today I had a lot of plans, so I started early and hit the gym. Unfortunately I then most likely slipped a disk at said gym, and have spent the entire of the rest of the day at hospital waiting to get an MRI which I’ve just been told I can’t have. Fun!

This email between Epstein and JD Vance’s tech oligarch benefactor Peter Thiel where they plan to “collapse” society to create investment opportunities for themselves seems… not great (They also met with the UN ambassador to Russia together)