Your inside scoop on the week’s biggest stories
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From far-right influencers on social media platforms to sensationalist newspaper headlines, the hate economy is on the rise. We’re fundraising for our project to expose who is profiting from the spread of hate, and who is being targeted the most. Any donation you can spare, no matter how big or small, will go towards this vital work.
Frankie Goodway,
Saturday Editor
"Hi there. Welcome to the one newsletter this weekend that won’t be about the football (unless it’s our investigation into how the organiser of the office sweepstake somehow landed Argentina. Deeply suspicious).
“Instead, I’ve got good news from Peru and more worrying noises from Silicon Valley, where the rise of chatbot addiction has had deadly consequences.”
We’ve cleared bad drugs off pharmacy shelves
A few weeks ago, I mentioned we’d had good news from Peru. Our investigation there earlier this year revealed the country had been forced to destroy more than 100,000 vials of vital chemo drugs after they failed tests. Five pharmaceutical companies had failed tests and had no valid certification, but were still allowed to sell to the health system. But, thanks to that investigation, Peru sent out inspectors – and within three months, all five were blacklisted.
The chatbot that impersonated a dead child
While we’re talking about chatbots, he second episode of our tech team’s documentary series on the sinister side of AI was released this week, featuring one of the darkest stories I’ve seen.
Effie Webb covered Character.AI’s dubious approach to child protection last year, but concerns had first been raised after the death of Sewell Setzer. He was just 14 when he killed himself, believing he was in love with a chatbot on the platform that encouraged him to “be with her” her minutes before his death. It was widely covered at the time, but what I didn’t know until watching this episode was that after Sewell’s death, bots sprung up on Character.AI impersonating him – by imitating his voice.
Why we’re crowdfunding our next investigation
Regular readers will remember our recent reporting on the hate economy – the people, organisations and networks spreading racist misinformation for profit. It’s something we’ve taken on across our traditional teams, because it’s urgent and it’s everywhere.
That’s why we launched a crowdfunder this week – so more of our resources can be spent separating fact from fiction, reporting on the far-right influencers making money from anti-migrant slop, and investigating who is funding the spread of hate. If you’ve already donated, thank you. If not, now’s the perfect opportunity.
⚡ Impact this week
This week our deputy editor Chrissie Giles was at Parliament with our newest recruit, Nathaniel Peutherer, to talk all things SLAPPs with the Foreign Policy Centre. The guests included Sir John Whittingdale and Baroness Tina Stowell, who have put forward simultaneous private members’ bills in the Commons and the Lords to end these time- and money-wasting lawsuits against journalists and whistleblowers.
Their bills would introduce an early mechanism to decide whether a particular lawsuit is a SLAPP, and end it right there if so. This is something that exists in other legal processes – libel cases, for example, can end very quickly if the ‘meaning’ of an article is found not to be defamatory – but not for SLAPPs, in part because they come in many shapes and forms. The bills are still only at the start of their journeys through Parliament, but it’s hope on the horizon for a freer press in the UK.
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In memoriam
Last month the Bureau lost one of its founders, David Potter. An academic, tech entrepreneur and philanthropist, David co-founded the Bureau with his wife Elaine, the celebrated Sunday Times Insight journalist. He is survived by Elaine, their three children and eight grandchildren, all of whom have our deepest sympathies. You can read David’s obituary here.
David with his wife Elaine
What we’ve been reading
🔴 Big Chicken is planning to build at least 600 new sheds to comply with new supermarket standards that demand more space per bird – but the plans also add millions more chickens grilledmedia.substack.com
🔴 A single tweet from an anonymous X user, “Max Tempers”, about a hotel housing asylum seekers led to a media storm, far-right protests, a government crackdown and an arson attack vashtimedia.com
🔴 A site where users traded leaked naked photos of women without their consent or knowledge appears to have been owned and run by a crypto entrepreneur in New Zealand bellingcat.com
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