Research database

Automated Moderation Is Here to Stay (2-part series)

Revisits EFF's 2020 position and concludes automated moderation is now permanent across platforms; issues recommendations on transparency and appeals.

Roska Bridge: pro-Russian IMS exploits decentralised platforms

Uncovered a Russian IMS using the Brid.gy service to auto-cross-post from hundreds of Mastodon accounts to Bluesky, laundering sanctioned RT/Sputnik/Pravda content via decentralised platforms' weak moderation.

The Owner Amplifier: Musk spreading violent anti-migrant narratives on X

Musk amplified anti-migrant narratives; CCDH found 3,930 replies containing calls for violence.

Online Domestic Extremism in Canada Data Briefing (Dec 2025-Feb 2026)

Recurring data briefing tracking violent-extremist activity across major platforms in Canada; consistently finds Telegram the leading platform for such activity.

Noise without effect: anti-Pashinyan disinformation ahead of Armenian elections

Monitoring ahead of Armenian elections found foreign manipulation targeting PM Pashinyan; French TikTok users searching his name saw mostly hostile, partly AI-generated content from Kremlin-, diaspora- and Azerbaijan-linked accounts.

Safety Off: threats and abuse surged after Meta's policy changes

Analysis of ~8M Facebook comments on Members of Congress found violent threats quadrupled after Meta's Jan 2025 rollback.

X Turns Jewish Grief into a Target, Again

130 hateful replies to British Jewish figures after the Golders Green attack, all apparently violating X rules, were left up.

Snapchat's DSA Ad Transparency

Snapchat's ad transparency tools fell far short of DSA requirements: the Ad Gallery was searchable only by advertiser name, the repository was unavailable 99.7% of the time observed, and commercial communications were not labelled on the web.

Scambook: How Meta helps Medicare scammers target seniors

Meta earned ~$14.3M from deceptive scam ads (including deepfakes) targeting seniors, violating its policies.

Amplifying Antisemitism: How Recommender Algorithms Serve Harmful Content to Children

Using 10 simulated 15-year-old accounts (5,500+ videos), teens were exposed to antisemitic content within hours; TikTok pathways escalate from mainstream to neo-Nazi content while Rumble surfaced overt antisemitism from the outset.

Getting Age Assurance Right: A Risk-Based Framework for High-Risk Online Features

Identifies three policy failures jeopardizing children's online safety and proposes a risk-tiered framework for age-appropriate experiences rather than blunt, privacy-invasive age verification.

X-rated: X recommends explicit content to 13-year-olds

Test 13-year-old accounts: 8 in 10 searches returned explicit content and 30% of For You posts were explicit.

Harassment as Infrastructure: How Telegram's design enables TFGBV

Analysis of 2.8M messages across 16 groups/channels found organized networks of ~25,000 users across Italy and Spain spreading and monetizing non-consensual intimate images (NCII), including CSAM.

Online Hate & Harassment Targeting Public Figures and Influencers on Instagram in Jordan

Analyzes the scale and nature of hate and harassment directed at public figures and influencers on Instagram in Jordan.

How fossil fuel companies and their financiers avoid criticism on X

Major fossil fuel companies use X ad-targeting to hide their advertising from the users most likely to challenge them (pro-climate audiences).

Artificial Elections 2.0: Generative AI in the 2026 French Elections

AI-generated content in the municipal elections remained largely unlabelled and increasingly normalized, expanding to cartoonish imagery and most prominent on the right/far right.

Rising repression meets global resistance: Internet shutdowns in 2025

Documented 313 shutdowns, a new record, with continued targeted blocking of social media platforms.

Weaponising social media: smears of Indigenous leaders in Guatemala

Deregulation of major platforms is helping drive online smear campaigns and criminalisation of Guatemalan land and democracy defenders.

Blacklight update: are TikTok and X tracking you across the internet?

The Markup expanded its Blacklight privacy inspector to detect TikTok and X tracking pixels on third-party websites, revealing how these platforms follow users across the web.

'Your report is important to us': unnecessary barriers to submit content reports

Analyzes how platform content-reporting mechanisms impose unnecessary barriers under the DSA.

Grok floods X with sexualized images of women and children

After a one-click edit feature launched, Grok generated an estimated 3M sexualized images (including ~23,000 of children) in 11 days.

Grok Unleashed: An Update

Follow-up found a drop in minimally-attired images by mid-January (suggesting new safeguards), but Grok.com retained the capability and synthetic media depicting minors was still found.

Dutch Parliamentary Elections 2025 Report

Election-integrity monitoring found coordinated manipulation, new disinformation tactics, a surge in AI-generated content, and clear failures in platform moderation.

Sexualized images on X: what we are doing to stop them and what we expect from the EU

Documented networks of X accounts openly promoting non-consensual 'nudify' tools; a reported post was deemed non-violating, and X refused a DSA Art. 40.12 data request, blocking research (context to the EU's DSA fine on X).

Grok Unleashed: Flood of Sexualized Images of Women and Minors

Analysis of 20k+ Grok images and 50k prompts found weak guardrails: 53% minimal attire, 81% women-presenting, ~2% appearing to be minors, 6% public figures, plus Nazi/ISIS propaganda.

Regulatory challenges & gaps in addressing systemic platform abuse

Election-integrity/FIMI monitoring across four countries reveals regulatory gaps in addressing systemic platform abuse.

War profiteers: online ads and the machinery of propaganda for war

Examines how governments deploy war propaganda through online advertising and argues platforms bear responsibility under international human rights law to prevent monetizing it.

Prompt, Upload, Repeat: Agentic AI Accounts Flood TikTok

Uncovered 354 'Agentic AI Accounts' responsible for the majority of AI slop on TikTok, together amassing 4.5B+ views and 43,000+ near-entirely AI-generated posts of misleading/harmful content.

Malicious semi-compliance as the platform approach to EU regulation

Argues big tech feigns compliance with the DSA while sidestepping its intent through 'malicious semi-compliance.'

Mapping algorithmic amplification: transparency challenges and lessons from Germany

Examines transparency challenges in studying algorithmic amplification, drawing lessons from the German context.

Hate for Sale: Instagram helps sellers of hateful merchandise

Instagram and e-commerce platforms amplify and monetize racist/antisemitic 'hate merch,' reaching a billion views.

What Kids and Parents Want: Policy Insights for Social Media Safety Features

Research with teens and parents identifies which safety features they actually want and use, arguing policy should center user-desired controls rather than blanket restrictions.

Truth be Dammed: Climate Disinformation on YouTube and TikTok

With Maldita.es: dis/misinformation videos about Spain's Valencia (DANA) floods were amplified on both platforms and remained online a year later; YouTube lacks a dedicated policy and TikTok fails to enforce its own.

From FYP to WW3

During the 2025 NATO Summit, the For You Pages of 12 Dutch accounts prioritized military content (40%) and war speculation (19%); both feed and search reflected a largely pro-NATO stance.

Antisemitic abuse on X after Manchester Synagogue attack

Antisemitic abuse and calls for violence flooded X following the attack, largely left unremoved.

Viral antisemitic posts about Charlie Kirk assassination amass 139m views on X

Antisemitic conspiracies about Kirk's killing reached ~140M views; no viral post carried a Community Note.

For politicians, TikTok's algorithm is a handy bogeyman

Critiques a French parliamentary report on TikTok, arguing European politicians invoke platform algorithms as a scapegoat while sidestepping harder evidentiary and regulatory work.

A Home for Hate: How Antisemitism Thrives on X

Using AI tools, CCDH found X hosts and profits from antisemitic content violating its own policies.

YouTube's Safety Features Lost in Translation

Across all 83 supported languages, safety panels were unevenly distributed: English had full coverage while many languages, including European ones, lacked basic safety features.

The Kids Aren't Alright Online: How To Build a Safer, Better Internet

Argues kids' online-safety policy should make platforms safer and more privacy-protective for everyone, focusing on platform design features that facilitate harm rather than blanket restrictions.

AI Generated Algorithmic Virality (AI Slop)

Across three European countries, 25% of TikTok's top search results contained synthetic AI imagery (80%+ from 'Agentic AI Accounts'); only about half of AI content was properly labeled despite DSA commitments.

X fails to act on 97% of calls for violence against migrants or Muslims

A year after the riots, X left up 97% of reported violent anti-migrant/anti-Muslim content.

App Stores & Meta's Porn: An Uncomfortable Affair

In Spring 2025 Meta approved 12,034+ pornographic ads, shown 12.8M times across all 27 EU countries, apparently violating store and Meta policies; the same images were auto-moderated when posted as normal Instagram posts.

Extreme Weather: false claims spread unchecked

Social media companies let false claims about the LA Fires and Hurricane Helene spread unchecked.

Platforms' policies on climate change misinformation (V2)

Updated tracking of how major platforms handle climate disinformation under the DSA, documenting policy rollbacks and weakening.

Fuelling Hate: One year after the UK riots, X still lets abuse spread

X is still failing to remove rule-violating anti-Muslim/anti-migrant calls for violence a year after the riots.

Content Moderation in the Global South: Four Low-Resource Languages

Synthesizes four case studies showing platforms overwhelmingly invest in English-language moderation, leaving low-resource-language speakers under-protected and subject to both over- and under-enforcement.

Operation Overload: an AI-fuelled escalation ('Overload 2')

The operation escalated using AI-generated content; Telegram is the central hub (673 channels) while ~11,000 X accounts amplify it. TikTok demoted accounts only after 3M+ views.

Moderating Quechua Content on Social Media

Quechua-language users face significantly worse experiences (mis-moderation, reduced reach, lack of language support) than Spanish-language posters.

Banned But Not Gone: YouTube profits from Andrew Tate's misogyny

YouTube still hosts and monetizes Andrew Tate's misogynistic content despite banning his account.

When Personal Becomes Profitable: Sensitive Targeting on X

X let advertisers target users by sensitive personal data (political beliefs, sexual orientation); 30+ major brands were found doing so, raising GDPR and DSA concerns as VLOPs are barred from such targeting.

TikTok's Research API: Problems without Explanations

Missing metadata for official TikTok videos, ads, and prominent accounts makes the research API unreliable for data-donation studies and algorithmic auditing.

TikTok's Polish Elections Labels: Only Sometimes, And Only For Some

Systematic failures applying election-information labels during Poland's 2025 presidential election; 20M+ Polish diaspora users were excluded from labels while fraud allegations and AI disinformation spread unlabeled.

X posts claiming European leaders took cocaine reach 135M views

50 posts with baseless drug claims about Starmer/Macron/Merz got 135M views, with no Community Notes.

Moderating Tamil Content on Social Media

Content policies are unevenly defined and enforced for Tamil speakers; automated moderation and Trust & Safety resourcing lag far behind English.

Far-right posts still pushed on TikTok ahead of Romanian election re-run

Ahead of the second-round re-run, TikTok's algorithm continued to push disproportionately more far-right content to new users.

TikTok algorithm recommends twice as much hard-right content ahead of Polish election

New accounts were served roughly twice as much hard-right content as other political content ahead of Poland's presidential election.

Meta's Failing Ad Moderation: Health Scams Targeting EU Users

Identified 46,000+ ads promoting unapproved drugs and deceptive health claims, reaching EU users 292M+ times, violating Meta's own standards and potentially several DSA provisions.

'Pravda' Network: Worldwide Expansion and LLM/Wikipedia Pollution

With DFRLab, showed the Russian 'Pravda' network expanded globally and polluted LLMs and Wikipedia; X's Community Notes failed to address its spread.

Building the Digital Platform Commission: How To Design a Regulator

Makes the case for a dedicated federal digital regulator and details how to design it to enhance competition, protect consumers, and oversee dominant platforms.

More Transparency and Less Spin: Analyzing Meta's policy changes

Meta's 2025 policy rollback could stop 97% of enforcement in key areas including hate speech.

Generative AI and the German Far Right: Narratives, Tactics and Digital Strategies

Documents how German far-right actors use generative AI to produce and spread propaganda across social platforms, with new narrative and digital-strategy tactics.

Recommending Hate: How TikTok's Search Algorithms Reproduce Societal Bias

After entering racist/misogynistic slurs, ~two-thirds of examined videos perpetuated harmful stereotypes; across four languages, search and recommendation algorithms connected users to content targeting marginalized groups.

X and TikTok algorithms push pro-AfD content to non-partisan German users

On TikTok, 78% of algorithmically recommended political content (from unfollowed accounts) was pro-AfD; on X, 64%, far exceeding the party's ~20% polling.

Emboldened: Internet shutdowns in 2024

Documented 296 shutdowns, the highest since 2016, including social-media-specific blocking during conflicts and elections.

Influence by Design: How Meta Accepted Russian Propaganda Payments Despite Sanctions

With Reset.tech and AI Forensics, revealed Meta ran 8,000+ pro-Russian ads tied to the sanctioned Social Design Agency, earning ~$338,000 between Aug 2023-Oct 2024 despite sanctions.

Behind the Curtain: Unveiling Pro-Kremlin Ecosystems in Europe

Maps pro-Kremlin information ecosystems operating across European social media and web infrastructure, detailing coordinated influence and foreign interference tactics.

Statement on Meta's Announcement to Gut Moderation and Fact-checking

Argues Meta's end of third-party fact-checking and relocation of moderation teams will increase harm and disinformation; assesses the Commission's limited DSA options.

Pay-to-Play: Meta's Community (double) Standards on Pornographic Ads

3,000+ pornographic ads (including AI-generated media and celebrity deepfakes) were approved and generated 8M+ EU impressions, content that would be removed if posted by regular users.

The 2025 RDR Index: Big Tech Edition

Seventh edition (first full evaluation since 2022): no company scored over 50%; TikTok debuted strongly while X showed RDR's largest-ever single-company decline after cutting its human rights team and transparency reporting.

A Policy Primer for Free Expression and Content Moderation

Lays out a vision for free expression and content moderation given shifts in the media, technological, political and legal landscape, reframing how policymakers should think about platform moderation.

Toxic platforms, broken planet: Online abuse of environmental defenders

Of 204 land/environmental defenders surveyed, 92% had experienced online abuse or harassment tied to their work, with real-world safety and silencing effects.

Climate of confusion: Bot-like accounts sharing climate disinformation

22 of 45 previously identified bot-like X accounts amplified climate denial/conspiracies, tying climate opposition to broader anti-migrant, anti-LGBTQ and anti-Ukraine political identity.

Moderating Kiswahili Content on Social Media

Kiswahili moderation suffers from limited language investment, sparse local context, and weak automated-system performance, harming users across East/Central Africa.

YouTube's Anorexia Algorithm

YouTube recommends eating-disorder and self-harm videos to accounts modelled on young girls (UK and EU editions followed Feb 2025).

Meta's Role in Romania's 2024 Presidential Election

With Reset Tech and EU DisinfoLab, examined Meta's advertising and its influence on public opinion during Romania's pivotal 2024 presidential vote.

Rainbow-burning: how social media companies increase risks for LGBTQ+ people in Africa

Documented 214 threatening anti-LGBTQ+ posts across the platforms in five African countries; only 51 were removed when reported, blaming under-resourced moderation for African languages and engagement-driven algorithms.

TikTok pushes far-right candidate content in Romanian presidential election

Investigation into TikTok's algorithm around the first round won by ultranationalist Calin Georgescu; contributed to scrutiny that led the European Commission to open a DSA probe into TikTok.

Doppelganger media impersonation: leveraging domain name dispute resolution

Explores using domain-name dispute resolution as a countermeasure against the Doppelganger media-impersonation operation.

Real Time Threats: CSEA Prevention on Livestreaming Platforms

Finds real-time/ephemeral video creates distinct detection and enforcement challenges for child sexual exploitation prevention that existing moderation tooling is poorly equipped to handle.

Artificial Elections: Generative AI in 2024 French Elections

Found 51 instances of synthetic imagery, primarily used by right-wing parties to dramatize sensationalist narratives during the 2024 elections; none were labeled as AI-generated.

Musk's Political Posts

Musk's own political posts drew more views than all US campaign ads in X's disclosure dataset.

Independent Audit of Facebook's DSA Risk Assessment

Independent audit examining Facebook's systemic-risk assessment under the EU Digital Services Act (period 29 Aug 2023-30 June 2024).

TikTok (still) fails to detect disinformation ahead of Irish general election

Six months after the EU-election test, TikTok again approved election-disinformation ads (English and Irish) ahead of Ireland's snap general election.

Facebook's AI Failure

AI-generated images of fake Americans making political endorsements got millions of interactions before the US election.

Rated Not Helpful: How X's Community Notes system falls short

Community Notes failed to counter false/misleading US election claims, with proposed notes rarely shown.

TikTok and Facebook fail to detect harmful disinformation ads (US election)

Weeks before the US presidential election, TikTok approved 50% of disinformation ads and Facebook accepted one; YouTube approved 50% initially but blocked publication pending ID verification.

Online Safety and the Regulation of Gaming Platforms and Services

Examines extremism and safety risks on gaming platforms and services and the regulatory gaps in addressing them.

How Meta Brings in Millions Off Political Violence

A joint CalMatters/Markup investigation estimated Meta earns millions in ad revenue in the wake of violent news events, profiting from engagement surges around political violence.

Hated More: Online Violence Targeting Women of Color Candidates in the 2024 US Election

With University of Pittsburgh: women of color candidates experienced disproportionately high volumes of online abuse, hate, and mis/disinformation compared with other candidates.

On a second attempt, TikTok and YouTube pass test to detect US election disinformation ads

In a follow-up test both platforms caught and rejected the resubmitted disinformation ads, showing improvement over the earlier failure.

Moderating Maghrebi Arabic Content on Social Media

Maghrebi Arabic is frequently mis-moderated, with both wrongful takedowns and failure to catch harmful content, driven by under-investment and ill-suited automated systems.

US Election Platform Preparedness: Comparative Analysis

Assessed platforms across six areas ahead of the 2024 US election; the most alarming common finding was a pervasive lack of transparency about policies, safety efforts and resourcing.

Operation Overload: a growing disinformation threat targeting the US election

With Reset Tech, confirmed the operation is Russia-based and had shifted focus to the US election, targeting Kamala Harris.

TikTok and Anti-Migrant & Anti-Refugee Content

Of 104 analyzed videos, only 3.8% were removed; comments calling for harm to migrants persisted for months, and TikTok's search recommended deliberate misspellings that evaded moderation.

TikTok and White Supremacist Content

White supremacist content remained readily available; of 108 sampled videos, 70 were uploaded within the prior three months, and a network of neo-Nazi accounts amassed millions of views.

Grok AI: A deepfake disinformation disaster for democracy

X's Grok accepted all 60 tested prompts to generate misleading US election images.

Social media's role in the UK riots (OSA amendments)

Policy paper arguing platforms (especially X and Telegram) fueled the riots via online hate/lies; proposes new regulatory powers.

X ran ads on five accounts pushing lies and hate during UK riots

X placed major brands' ads beside disinformation accounts that amassed 260M views after Southport.

Abusing Women in Politics: How Instagram is failing women

Instagram failed to act on 93% of reported abusive comments (including death/rape threats) targeting US women politicians.

Musk misleading election claims viewed 1.2bn times on X

Musk's false/misleading US election claims got ~1.2 billion views, none carrying a Community Note.

Musk's X helps Tommy Robinson rack up 434 million views during UK riots

X amplified Tommy Robinson's disinformation to 434M+ views during the UK riots with virtually no fact-checks.

Public Data Access Programs: A First Look

First systematic evaluation of 19 platforms' researcher data-access programs; access varies widely and data quality is poor.

Digital Apartheid in Gaza: Unjust Content Moderation (2-part series)

Documents how platforms, especially Meta (reportedly ~94% compliance with Israeli Cyber Unit takedown requests), disproportionately removed pro-Palestinian content while failing to curb anti-Palestinian hate.

Trump's assassination attempt conspiracies

Conspiracies about the assassination attempt got 215M+ views on X; 95% of posts had no fact-check.

TikTok's 'Others Searched For' Feature

The search-suggestion feature showed clickbait-style suggestions and redirected users to competing political parties (particularly AfD), potentially distorting political perception among young users.

Yet more evidence of Russia's boundless impunity to spread misinformation in the EU

Further documentation of the Doppelganger influence operation's continued reach across social platforms in the EU.

Light on Safety: How TikTok Lite Sacrifices User Protections

With Mozilla: TikTok Lite (widely used in Global Majority countries) lacks content filtering, screen-management tools and harmful-content warnings, leaving 1B+ users exposed despite these being technically feasible.

The TikTok effect: how the app shaped political discourse in Finnish European elections

Faktabaari/CheckFirst CrossOver report uncovering worrying trends in TikTok's possible impact on the 2024 European elections in Finland.

Political bias on X's AI chatbot (Grok) risks influencing the UK vote

Grok generated politically biased suggested tweets, in 'Fun' mode encouraging a #VoteReformUK vote and in 'Regular' mode implicitly discouraging voting for the incumbent government.

'No ifs, many bots': Partisan bot-like accounts amplify divisive content on X

45 apparent bot accounts generated 4+ billion views (~610,000 posts), amplifying racist/sexualised abuse, conspiracies and climate disinformation; most supported Reform UK.

Bot-like posts seen more than 150 million times ahead of UK election

10 apparent bot accounts posted 60,000+ tweets seen ~150 million times in the weeks before the UK vote, many containing extreme hate speech, disinformation and pro-Putin content.

Platforms' AI policy updates in 2024: labelling as the silver bullet?

Reviews platforms' 2024 updates to AI-content policies, arguing reliance on 'labelling' AI content is an insufficient response.

Meta's elections dashboard: A very disappointing sign

Technical critique of Meta's EU election-monitoring dashboard: keyword lists mis-copied across countries, Instagram lacking location filters, and Facebook filters cutting ~50% of relevant material, calling it a 'PR distraction.'

Operation Overload: pro-Russian actors flood newsrooms with fake content

Exposed the 'Matryoshka'/Operation Overload campaign flooding 800+ media/fact-checking organisations with content urging them to 'verify' fabricated anti-Ukraine material, diverting fact-checker resources.

TikTok and YouTube pass new test to detect foreign election disinformation ads in UK

Ahead of the UK general election, both platforms rejected a set of prohibited foreign-interference/disinformation ads, a rare pass that contrasts with failures elsewhere.

Unchecked Political Ads: Pro-Russian Propaganda on Meta Ahead of EU Elections

Between May 1-27 2024, Meta approved at least 275 pro-Russian propaganda ads (lacking required disclaimers) targeting Italy, Germany, France and Poland, reaching over 3 million accounts.

Antisemitic Admins: Meta's failure to moderate large Facebook Groups

Meta failed to act on admins spreading anti-Jewish hate to 300K+ Facebook Group members.

Confusing Google predictions and unbalanced politics on TikTok and Instagram

CrossOver Finland analysis found politically unbalanced content on TikTok and Instagram alongside confusing Google search predictions ahead of the 2024 elections.

Assessing cost-effectiveness: responses to the Doppelganger operation

Assesses responses to the Russian Doppelganger operation that clones media outlets and spreads links/ads across X, Facebook and Telegram.

Ticked off: TikTok approves EU elections disinformation ads in Ireland

TikTok approved all 16 election-disinformation ads ahead of the EU parliamentary elections; X rejected all of them and YouTube rejected all but two.

Shrinking democracy, growing violence: Internet shutdowns in 2023

Annual #KeepItOn documentation of shutdowns and platform blocking worldwide in 2023, tying disruptions to elections, protests and conflict.

No Embargo In Sight: Meta Lets Pro-Russia Propaganda Ads Flood the EU

A moderation loophole let pro-Russian propaganda run on Meta; under 5% of undeclared political ads were caught, and one campaign reached 38M+ users in France and Germany. The European Commission opened proceedings citing this report.

Full Disclosure: Stress Testing Tech Platforms' Ad Repositories

With CheckFirst: tested ad-transparency tools of 11 companies; none rated 'ready,' with major data gaps and inaccuracies.

Mozilla commissions CheckFirst to conduct a stress test of Ad Repositories

First comprehensive report on DSA-strengthened platform ad libraries, finding the ad transparency tools failing to meet their intended purpose.

Hate Pays: How X accounts are exploiting the Israel-Gaza conflict

10 X accounts pushing anti-Jewish/anti-Muslim/anti-Palestinian hate grew ~4x faster after October 7.

'Votes will not be counted': Indian election disinformation ads and YouTube

In a joint test with Access Now, YouTube approved 100% (48/48) of ads containing blatant election disinformation in English, Hindi and Telugu, all violating YouTube's own policies.

Digital Disparities: the global battle for reproductive rights on social media

Meta restricts reproductive-care information in Africa/Asia/Latin America while allowing anti-choice misinformation ads.

Instagram Creators: Check If Your Posts Are 'Political'

After Meta stopped 'proactively recommending' political content, The Markup built a tool letting creators test whether their posts would be classified as political and thus algorithmically limited.

CheckFirst & Faktabaari: Finnish far-right videos highly recommended by YouTube

First CrossOver Finland report showing significant over-representation of right-wing/far-right voices in YouTube's recommendations during the 2024 Finnish presidential election.

How Automated Content Moderation Works (Even When It Doesn't)

Explainer documenting the automated techniques (hash-matching, classifiers) platforms use to moderate billions of posts, and where these systems routinely fail.

Safe by Default (People vs Big Tech briefing)

Argues engagement-based recommender systems amplifying borderline content is a feature not a bug; calls on regulators to require non-profiling feeds as the default.

Platforms, Promises and Politics: a reality check on election pledges

Finds platforms' election interventions in the Global Majority are template-copied and far weaker than those offered in the US/EU.

In Transparency We Trust?

On platforms' AI-generated-content disclosure mechanisms; finds detection tools unreliable and disclosure approaches inconsistent across platforms.

Demoted, Deleted, and Denied: More Than Just Shadowbanning on Instagram

An investigation found Instagram heavily demoted nongraphic Israel-Hamas war images, deleted captions, hid comments without notification, and suppressed hashtags, well beyond classic 'shadowbanning.'

It's not a glitch: how Meta systematically censors Palestinian voices

Documents systematic censorship of Palestinian and pro-Palestinian content since October 7, 2023, driven by Meta's vague 'Dangerous Organizations' policy and discriminatory enforcement (e.g., lowering the hide-threshold to 25%).

TikTok removes views from hashtags

TikTok obscured hashtag view counts, reducing transparency for researchers studying harmful content.

Disinformation on YouTube: research and content moderation policies

Factsheet documenting how disinformation on YouTube is researched and how the platform's content-moderation policies operate.

Disinformation on TikTok: research and content moderation policies

Factsheet documenting how disinformation on TikTok is researched and how the platform's content-moderation policies operate.

When Kindness Kills: How Algorithms Accelerate Savior Swarms

Introduces 'savior swarming,' algorithmically amplified surges of well-intentioned collective action that overwhelm and harm the communities they aim to help (cases: Twitter trending, r/BlackPeopleTwitter).

Each Facebook User is Monitored by Thousands of Companies

A study of 267,000 users found the average Facebook user had activity sent to Facebook by roughly 2,230 different companies, exposing the scale of third-party tracking.

Disinformation on X: research and content moderation policies

Factsheet documenting how disinformation on X is researched and how the platform's content-moderation policies operate.

Disinformation on Facebook: research and content moderation policies

Factsheet documenting how disinformation on Facebook is researched and how the platform's content-moderation policies operate.

The New Climate Denial

'New' denial narratives attacking climate science/solutions made up 70% of climate-denial content on YouTube in 2023.

Quantifying extremism: UK riot-related far-right Telegram networks

Data-driven analysis of ~45,000 messages during the 2024 UK riots mapping far-right Telegram networks.

Reckoning with Mis/Disinformation in 2024 (series)

A reflection series revisiting a decade of mis/disinformation research in the context of the 2024 US election, examining how platform information systems continue to be gamed.

In the Blind Spot: Right-wing Extremists on Alternative and Established Platforms

Analysis of how German-language right-wing extremists build and migrate infrastructure across both mainstream and alternative platforms, exposing moderation 'blind spots.'

Algorithms of Trauma 2: 'Anxious about your health? Facebook won't let you forget'

Case study showing Facebook's ad-delivery algorithms push distressing health/illness ads exploiting users' mental vulnerabilities; disabling 'sensitive interests' limits advertiser targeting but not Facebook's own profiling.

Violent and sexualised hate speech targeting women journalists (South Africa)

Nearly all 40 misogynistic test ads (in 4 languages) were approved; Meta and TikTok approved all 40 within 24 hours. Concludes automated moderation is 'not fit for purpose.'

Facebook Watches Teens Online As They Prep for College

A Pixel Hunt investigation found Meta's tracking pixel embedded on school, test-prep and college-application websites, letting Meta monitor students as they browse education sites.

Not a solution: Meta's new AI system to contain discriminatory ads

Meta's 'Variance Reduction System' for biased US housing-ad delivery is 'more band-aid than AI fairness solution'; reporting gaps make it impossible to verify.

More Tools, More Control: Young Users on Handling Unwanted Messages

Young users want more granular controls to manage unwanted messages; current platform tools are insufficient, with design recommendations for youth safety that preserve autonomy.

TikTok's Role in Youth Mental Health

With Amnesty International: a two-part audit found TikTok's recommendation system could rapidly lead young users toward content glorifying self-harm and suicide.

Platforms' policies on AI-manipulated and generated misinformation

Maps how major platforms address AI-manipulated and AI-generated misinformation in their policies.

TikTok's Toxic Trade

Videos glorifying steroid-like drugs got 587M+ US views in three years, some linking directly to sellers.

Platforms' policies on climate change misinformation (V1)

Maps how the five platforms address climate misinformation, revealing uneven and weak climate-specific rules.

A world of online hate and lies: Mapping our investigations

A synthesis of 10+ country investigations concluding platforms systematically fail to enforce their own hate-speech/disinformation ad policies, with weaker moderation outside the US.

X Content Moderation Failure

X still hosted ~86% of 300 reported extreme-hate posts a week after they were reported.

Social media algorithms are harmless, or are they?

Critiques the Meta-partnered 2020-election studies, arguing behavioral data showed the algorithms increased uncivil-content exposure, removed cross-cutting content, and boosted time-on-platform.

Facebook Hustles: The Belgian spin-off

Deep-dive into a scam network of 1,500+ Facebook ads luring users to fake media sites impersonating Belgian outlets and politicians.

Platforms' policies on elections misinformation

Maps and compares how five major platforms address election misinformation in their policies.

Platforms' policies on health misinformation

Maps and compares how five major platforms address health misinformation in their policies.

Facebook Hustles: The Hidden Mechanics of a Scam Machinery

A month-long investigation uncovered a large-scale scam operation recruiting victims via 1,500+ Facebook ads and fake media sites impersonating news outlets/creators.

'We need to kill them': Xenophobic hate speech approved by Facebook, TikTok and YouTube (South Africa)

Violent xenophobic test ads were approved by all three platforms; nearly every ad passed, with only one Facebook rejection.

Twitter fails to act on 99% of Twitter Blue accounts tweeting hate

Twitter failed to act on 99% of hateful posts by Blue subscribers and appeared to algorithmically boost them.

Lost in Translation: Large Language Models in Non-English Content Analysis

Multilingual LLMs used for content moderation perform substantially worse in non-English (especially low-resource) languages; cautions against treating them as a fix for global moderation.

YouTube's Climate Denial Dollars

200 climate-disinformation videos (half breaching Google policy) drew 73.8M views with ads placed against them.

State Hate: How Iran's Press TV Uses Social Media to Promote Anti-Jewish Hatred

With ADL: Iran's state broadcaster weaponizes social platforms to spread antisemitic conspiracy content.

Toxic Twitter: How Twitter Makes Millions from Anti-LGBTQ+ Rhetoric

Anti-LGBTQ+ 'grooming' rhetoric jumped 119% under Musk while Twitter profited from ads placed against it.

Reels of Fortune: Instagram-shaped memories for a bigger reach

Qualitative story on how Instagram's pivot to Reels/video pushes users to curate memories 'for the algorithm,' generating training data that teaches the platform to rank memories automatically.

Horizon Worlds Exposed

Minors were routinely harassed and exposed to adult content in Meta's flagship VR social network.

Antisemitism on Twitter Before and After Elon Musk's Acquisition

With CASM Technology: weekly average English-language antisemitic tweets rose 106% after Musk's takeover and new antisemitic-posting accounts more than tripled, with no evidence 'deboosting' reduced engagement.

Toxic Twitter: bringing back banned accounts generates ad revenue

Previously banned accounts reinstated by Musk are generating millions in ad revenue for the platform.

Extreme and violent anti-LGBTQ+ hate approved for publication by leading social media platforms

Test ads with extreme anti-LGBTQ+ hate were almost all approved: YouTube and TikTok approved all 10 ads, Facebook rejected only two, and all three approved the 'burn all gays' ad.

What does TikTok know about you? Data donations deliver answers!

Launch of the DataSkop TikTok data-donation campaign, detailing TikTok's extensive data collection and the opacity of the 'For You' feed.

Why is 'Nazis' regularly trending on Twitter in Belgium?

Analysis showing how Russian official narratives get amplified on Twitter in Belgium whenever 'Nazis' trends, revealing coordinated pushing of pro-Kremlin framing.