a thing historians will marvel about when they study this era is the extent to which the "war is a thing that happens to poorer, browner people" class went about systematically dismantling every aspect of the global political order that confined the costs of war to poorer and browner people

I guess fuelling war rhetoric is good business for conflict monitors. How do you justify your six-figure salary if the situation de-escalates?

ACLED (a methodologically flawed ‘conflict monitor’ that has severely under-counted causalities in some of the world’s deadliest conflicts) says Ethiopia’s increasingly authoritarian government will be justified in killing its own citizens & Eritreans in pursuit of an ill-defined goal of “change”.

Gig-work giant Appen recruits people from around the world, telling them little about the purpose of their work It has also held numerous US military contracts, including one mentioning a high-tech spy plane

In July 2018, shortly after #Abiy became PM, #Epstein texts #Bannon: "Note, I spoke with the president of #Ethiopia and #Eritrea , they have agreed not to do any more work with the Chinese. ! as they now understand the trick. In fact there is a possiblitiy of the two countries becoming one". 🫠

I don't know how I missed this incredible investigative reporting by @clairelwilmot.bsky.social and Ashenafi Endale, illicit mining in Tigray-->funding for another looming war, pollution, and, surprise surprise, foreign investment from Canada + China🧵 www.theglobeandmail.com/world/articl...

New from me, feat. Prince of Darkness and his “best pal”

💜

And the current moment, where the right are revealed as what they are - fascists, thugs, criminals, grasping swine who would loot the fillings from your teeth - means the death of Sensible Centrism. Because if your opponents are Nazi sex offenders, then who are you supposed to compromise with?

Big tech has gutted ad revenue and monopolized distribution, billionaires have exerted a corrosive control over the platforms, and both squeezed the industry away. We have to organize. We have to get systematic, and think and act collectively.

I know everyone means well with their 'scoop this reporter up immediately' endorsement posts but christ — who's doing the scooping? What's left? Thinking about our industry this way, like this is a momentary setback and there are ample open roles, obscures the truth about the rot at its core.

always bears repeating that this is NOT a financial decision. jeff bezos is worth over 250 billion dollars. he can afford to lose many millions and never even notice it. this is, at its core, a political and personal decision by bezos to destroy the post

ohhh ‘democracy dies in darkness’ was aspirational

I hadn’t known this. Two men who were accused of sexual abuse on the Shitty Media Men document that I created back in 2017 reached out to Michael Wolff for help as they looked to sue me, and Wolf forwarded their concerns to Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein offered to help. www.jmail.world/thread/EFTA0...

Brilliant investigation

I do not regret to inform you that we are going to win.

This really is the revolt of the degenerates, the freaks, the guys who follow teenage girls around shopping malls, the guys who talk about 'virtue signalling' because they hate virtue, against normal people who are just trying to live their lives.

Great to see our investigation in the Guardian! Portland declined to comment on our findings. They told the Guardian they didn't have a relationship with the subcontractor we linked them to, claimed to follow guidelines for all "social media platforms". (Wikipedia is not a social media platform)

Prominent PR firm accused of employing an intermediary to favourably edit client Wikipedia pages. It's Portland, founded by Tim Allan, now Keir Starmer's comms chief. No suggestion Allan involved. Great work by @tbij.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

A London UK 🇬🇧 private contractor rewrites Wikipedia entries for billionaire oligarchs and corrupt governments (w/ comments from @citizenlab.ca's @fittarelli.com ) www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2026...

v good article from the TBIJ www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2026...

Wikipedia was created 25 years ago, today – since then it’s become the largest collection of relatively reliable knowledge in history But how vulnerable is it to those willing to pay top dollar to polish their reputations? And how do British PR firms help them do it?

Great investigation by Claire Wilmot at The Bureau of Investigative Journalism on Portland, a firm specializing in “reputation management”… by hiding negative stories through surreptitious editing of Wikipedia articles. Glad to have contributed with a couple of quotes on this one.

Happy 25th to @wikipedia.org, one of the great wonders of the digital world! While #Wikipedia's volunteers are good at disrupting influence ops, PR firms still try to manipulate pages for the rich & powerful. My latest, for @tbij.bsky.social 🧵 www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2026...

Shocking but not surprising.

Sabotaging public goods in the service of private interests.

As one of the top sources of AI training data, the rich and powerful are eager for Wiki pages to cast them in the best light Volunteer editors are great at disrupting this – but demand for 'Wikilaundering' has never been higher And one British PR firm turned it into an exclusive service👇

As we increasingly rely on sources like Wikipedia to feed AI summaries and chatbots, 'Wikilaundering' is ever more concerning. Brilliant reporting by @clairelwilmot.bsky.social ⬇️

Social epistemology in statue form #philsky

💯👇

Anyways, the investigation by Claire and Ashenafi was top notch journalism. It required hundreds of interviews, trekking across a wartorn region where suspicion and distrust of journalists remains high, and scrutiny of greedy Canadian mining executives with zero moral compasses.

East Africa's wars 2020-present: UAE backed factions carrying out mass slaughter, gold being mined & ending up in the UAE, followed by Emirati diplomatic cover to minimize scrutiny by western countries more than willing to turn a blind eye. This has been the reality in Ethiopia &Sudan for years now.

The shameful logic of the Labour/Starmer government: *Human rights are the cause of the far right. Let’s get rid of them. *Immigrants are the cause of rising racism/far right— let’s get rid of them. www.theguardian.com/law/2025/dec...

Tech bros don’t actually understand the sci-fi they claim to love. Thank you Al Jazeera English for having me on.

🧵NEW: 'Into the jaws of death' An Airwars short film visualises the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid process, showing how the system - from design to execution - made deaths and injuries inevitable www.youtube.com/watch?v=drm5... [1/5]

New analysis shows X’s algorithm amplifies right-wing rhetoric in the UK. This week’s Data Journalism Top 10 also highlights investigations into illicit gold mining in Tigray, livestock losses from sheeppox in Greece, and more.

“They all benefit. Except the people of Tigray.” Canadian companies hold foreign mining licences in Tigray, where operations are replicating neighbouring Sudan: armed groups& foreign capital scaling up mining operations that help sustain devastating war. www.theglobeandmail.com/world/articl...

A groundbreaking, eye-opening, and much needed investigation into Tigray's postwar goldrush: one of the most overlooked causes of the region's calamitous law and order breakdown—and its slide back to war. www.theglobeandmail.com/world/articl...

Our reporters travelled across the country to some of Tigray’s most remote corners, conducting more than 200 interviews But the stakes have been high: journalists investigating this subject have been detained and threatened with violence 📸 Claire Wilmot for TBIJ

As gold prices skyrocket, Chinese and western companies are working side by side to exploit a region ravaged by civil war Welcome to the illegal gold rush tearing Ethiopia apart 📸 Erberto Zani via Alamy

Important investigative work outlining the pillaging of the Horn of Africa - not just in Sudan: How gold tarnished Tigray www.theglobeandmail.com/world/articl...

"Many of the deals OpenAI has struck — with chipmakers, cloud computing companies and others — are strangely circular. OpenAI receives billions from tech companies before sending those billions back to the same companies to pay for computing power and other services." www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Combine the explosion of generative AI with shaky moderation on social media and you get ‘content creators’ posting hateful videos – and sometimes even profiting from it

I think this is the weirdest story I've ever reported. www.londoncentric.media/p/terry-ball...

NEW @citizenlab.ca report (10/02/25) We uncovered a network of more than 50 inauthentic X profiles conducting an AI-enabled IO whose aim was to foment revolt in Iran We assess the Israeli gov, or a private contractor under its direction, is likely responsible citizenlab.ca/2025/10/ai-e...

A highly motivated and well networked informed elite can absolutely steamroll a largely disinterested and thus passive democratic majority. Right now that's basically what's happening, the transphobes are getting their way and there's not enough will to stop them.

Patients are being left to suffer as a painkiller crisis hits Gaza’s hospitals More than 167,000 people have been reported injured in Gaza since 7 October 2023, according to the Gaza Health Ministry Read the full story: www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2025...

Over the last couple of days I find myself coming back to this LRB piece, about the emotional value of fakes to people who share them knowingly. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/se...

Ezra Klein's flavour of liberalism makes more sense when you pay attention to how he says "we lost power", which reveals his seemingly unshakable belief that power was held/felt/wielded more or less equitably in the 2010's.

“Part of the misunderstanding of the deepfake threat stems from the idea that it is a problem of bad information, rather than a problem of desire (or the material conditions that shape desire)” Claire Wilmot @lrb.co.uk www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/se...