Sian Norris, The Silicon Valley-style start-up targeting rape survivors at UK universities Hannah Summers and Louise Tickle, Psychologist’s ‘alarming’ views on domestic abuse throw spotlight on family court experts Lydia Morrish, Why are ‘deepfake porn’ tutorials still showing up in search engines? Cahal Milmo and Mark Wilding, Rape victims could have health data and sexual history trawled by police AI tool

✏️ BEST INVESTIGATION

Congratulations to the writers of our shortlisted pieces:
@sianushka.bsky.social @hansummers.bsky.social @louisetickle.bsky.social @lydmorrish.bsky.social
@cahalmilmo.bsky.social and Mark Wilding

This story will no doubt embolden the "The conspiracy theorists were right!!" folk, but I really hope the stellar, nuanced reporting on the files (WSJ, WIRED, others!) is also remembered when the mainstream backlash part of the saga no doubt starts

@brianstelter.bsky.social addressing a big elephant in the (news)room: the rise of independent creator & influencer space, newsletters, podcasts, etc

“News professionals need to claim that space and do more of the meaning making” 💡

100%

Very happy to be at the @sirharrysummit.bsky.social with some of the best in investigative journalism.

@anandwrites.bsky.social hits the nail on the head in first panel on trust-fraught Trump 2.0 era: Journalism is doing some of its best work but failing audiences… as trusted as political parties

We’re proud to bring back #SirHarrySummit — made possible thanks to our generous supporters:
People's Postcode Lottery, Sigrid Rausing Trust, @fordfoundation.org BBC Verify, @observeruk.bsky.social + Joan Ganz and Holly Peterson Foundation

🎥 Watch the livestream: sirharrysummit.org/watch/

News outlets reject Trump accusations of USAID media 'payoff' Several major news outlets including Politico and the Associated Press have rejected unsubstantiated accusations by President Donald Trump and right-wing influencers that the U.S. Agency for International Development paid millions of taxpayer dollars to newsrooms in exchange for coverage favoring the Democratic Party.

NEW on the 'USAID is funding the media' narrative.

News outlets reject accusations peddled by Trump, Musk & co. of a 'payoff'

For @reuters.com

www.reuters.com/world/us/new...

GitHub’s Deepfake Porn Crackdown Still Isn’t Working Over a dozen programs used by creators of nonconsensual explicit images have evaded detection on the developer platform, WIRED has found.

GitHub’s crackdown on deepfakes doesn’t seem to be working.

Projects based on models referenced by deepfake porn creators persist on the platform, despite its removals of popular deepfake repos under a new policy introduced last year.

New investigation @wired.com

www.wired.com/story/github...

A library stretching into oblivion

This was a great read from @lydmorrish.bsky.social about all the work that goes into archiving our internet digitalfrontier.com/articles/way... with a beautiful illustration by Karina Cao!

Thank you Alys! I love the illustrations

A $30M plan to take back social media from billionaires + Pervert winter, robot accessories, Snoop Dogg's LinkedIn, buzzcuts to break the internet, and Elon Musk gamer stolen valor

I wrote about FreeOurFeeds, a new $30M plan to take back social media from billionaires www.usermag.co/p/freeourfee...

New around here? Interested in tech? I've compiled a list of 50 or so UK technology journo accounts. Let me know if you'd like to be added!
go.bsky.app/5s9g2Rn

Amazing, cheers! And thanks for making a great list 💫

I'd love to be added please! 👩‍💻

At least one item on his wishlist has been granted: Bluesky has decided to quadruple the size of its contract workforce of content moderators from 25 to 100, the company told Platformer. The move comes in response to Bluesky’s rapid growth since this month’s US presidential election, which triggered a fresh exodus of users away from Elon Musk’s X and over the weekend took the platform past 22 million total users.

Some news: amid rapid growth and some over-enforcement of its community guidelines, Bluesky trust and safety chief @aaron.bsky.team tells me the company will quadruple the size of its content moderation team www.platformer.news/bluesky-grow...

Enslaved on OnlyFans: Women describe lives of isolation and torture OnlyFans gives women the chance to earn money by making porn. Sex traffickers also use the platform to abuse and exploit them, say police and prosecutors.

Sex traffickers rely on threats, violence or false assurances of love to press women into porn on OnlyFans and keep them producing, say victims and prosecutors. The latest Reuters story in our OnlyFans Exposed series by @lindasoreports.bsky.social @jasonszep.bsky.social & Luiza Ilie reut.rs/3ZeYtuN

1/ We're experiencing a huge influx of users, and with that, a predictable uptick in harmful content posted to the network.

As a result, for some very high-severity policy areas like child safety, we recently made some short-term moderation choices to prioritize recall over precision.

Why are ‘deepfake porn’ tutorials still showing up in search engines? A GLAMOUR investigation has found that the UK's most-used search engines are funnelling users towards explicit AI software and how-to guides.

New investigation from me 👩‍💻

Google, Microsoft's Bing and Yahoo are listing websites, tutorials and software to make and view deepfake "porn", highlighting gaps in solutions to combat the abuse.

www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/article/deep...

MPs to summon Elon Musk to testify about X’s role in UK summer riots Commons inquiry into rise of harmful content on social media also expected to call Meta and TikTok executives

UK Parliamentarians will summon Elon Musk to testify about X’s role in spreading disinformation about the UK riots earlier this year and the rise of false/harmful AI content.
Senior executives from Meta and TikTok are also expected to be called for questioning.
www.theguardian.com/media/2024/n...

What did I miss???

Catching The Butterfly YouTube video by The Verve - Topic

Thanks to John Lewis resurrecting my Verve obsession, I've had this song flapping around my head since the Great Bluesky Pivot of 2024 🦋

Anyway, I'm here now. Hi!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PU0J...