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  • ‘It’s not a nice world to bring children into’: Births fall to the lowest level in 50 years

    Live births in England and Wales are at their lowest since 1977, while the age of first-time mothers has also risen.

  • A Corporate Battle in London Threatens the Last Independent News Outlets in Serbia

    The founder of the telecommunications and media giant United Group and former CEO have launched a legal battle in London to stop their majority shareholder, the private equity firm BC Partners, from selling the company’s media division, claiming that the 30 million euros ($34.8 million) deal could extinguish the last editorially independent news outlets in Serbia.

    Dragan Šolak, the former chairman of United Group, and Viktorija Boklag, its former CEO, initiated legal proceedings to halt the sale of the group’s media business ahead of a pivotal board meeting scheduled for May 28. According to their claim, negotiations are at an advanced stage, with a draft agreement already prepared to sell 100 percent of the shares in Adria News—the group’s regional news network—to European Future Media Investments.

    In a statement cited Tuesday by the regional news network N1 TV, the two minority shareholders accused BC Partners of negotiating the sale behind closed doors, completely bypassing their contractual right to consent.

    The proposed buyer is European Future Media Investments, a Luxembourg-based fund backed by the Portuguese investment group Alpac Capital.

    For press freedom advocates, the buyer’s political connections are deeply alarming. Alpac Capital is headed by Pedro Vargas David, whose father, Mario David, is a former longtime adviser to Hungary’s illiberal prime minister, Viktor Orbán. 

    Late last year, Serbia’s increasingly authoritarian president, Aleksandar Vučić, publicly referred to the elder David as a “friend.”

    Alpac is no stranger to state-backed media acquisitions. Investigative reports previously revealed that the firm’s 2022 acquisition of a majority stake in the European broadcaster Euronews was partially bankrolled by Hungarian state funds.

    At the center of the fierce corporate tug-of-war is the Adria News Network (ANN), United Group’s media arm, which operates roughly 120 media operations across the Balkans. The portfolio is a vital lifeline for independent journalism in the region. It includes N1 TV—often a lone critical voice on Serbian airwaves—as well as Nova, TV Vijesti, the weekly magazine Radar, and the Serbian daily newspapers Danas and Nova.

    “The sale of United Media would destroy the integrated telecommunications and media model built over years and hand over some of the last remaining independent media in Serbia to a buyer with a concerning track record regarding media freedoms,” Šolak said in a press release.

    He added that he was “deeply concerned” and would take all necessary legal steps to ensure his rights under the shareholders’ agreement are fully enforced.

    The London lawsuit—filed against three entities controlled by BC Partners through Gerrard Enterprises LLC and Cable Management Company Ltd—seeks a court injunction to block the sale entirely.

    Šolak and Boklag argue that their shareholders’ agreement explicitly grants them the right to consent to any material change in United Group’s business. Spinning off the media division, they contend, fundamentally transforms the company from an integrated telecommunications leader into a standard telecoms firm, destroying the distinct value of its Southeast European operations.

    The escalating legal fight follows a recent setback for the minority shareholders, who recently saw a Dutch court reject a separate board challenge—a ruling that had already heightened press freedom anxieties in Serbia.

    Now, shifting their battle to the U.K., the founders are framing the lawsuit as both a contractual dispute and a moral imperative. Regional media freedoms, they stated, “are too important to be treated as a disposable item in the exit process of a private equity fund.”

    In a brief statement responding to the swirling reports, the Adria News Network said it does not comment on market speculation, adding that “our newsroom operations and editorial processes continue as normal.” United Group similarly declined to comment on the pending litigation.

  • Resident doctors in England to strike for 16th time over pay

    British Medical Association resident doctor members in England announce new strike for four days from 15 June.

  • UK Targets Russian Crypto Sanctions Evasion Network

    Britain imposed a new package of sanctions targeting cryptocurrency exchanges, financial companies, and individuals accused of helping Russia evade Western restrictions and move money for its war economy.

    The U.K. Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office said the 18 designations target infrastructure used to transfer funds, procure goods, and support Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The measures took effect immediately and include companies and individuals linked to Russia’s financial sector, as well as entities accused of making funds, goods or technology available to sanctioned Russian actors.

    The sanctions focus partly on the A7 network, which the U.K. described as a Kremlin-backed system designed to bypass Western sanctions, finance military procurement, and process proceeds from Russian oil sales. According to the British government, the network claimed to have moved more than $90 billion last year, an amount it said was roughly equal to half of Russia’s annual military spending.

    The designation list names several companies described as supporting the Russian financial sector, including EXMO Exchange Limited, Rapira Group LLC, Aifory LLC, Bitpapa IC FZC LLC, Open Joint Stock Company “Eurasian Savings Bank,” and Huobi Global S.A. It also names individuals including Igor Gorin, Irina Akopyan, Sergey Mendeleev, and Liran Cohen.

    British officials said the measures also target A7-linked individuals and a Kyrgyz bank suspected of facilitating payments for the network, as well as three Georgian companies operating Russia-focused exchanges. The government said one major global cryptocurrency exchange was suspected of channeling more than $1.5 billion back into Kremlin-linked hands.

    Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said the U.K. was trying to close the financial routes Russia uses to avoid sanctions, saying there would be “no safe havens” for those enabling Moscow’s aggression.

    The move follows mounting scrutiny of Kyrgyzstan’s role in Russia-related sanctions evasion. OCCRP previously reported that British lawmakers had urged sanctions on Kyrgyz officials accused of enabling Russian crypto-based evasion, including through financial infrastructure linked to the A7A5 stablecoin and the broader A7 network. The lawmakers argued that cryptocurrency had become one of the routes allowing Russia to keep funding its war despite Western restrictions.

    The British government said Russia has increasingly turned to “dark networks and shadow financial systems” as sanctions pressure its economy. It said Moscow cut its 2026 growth forecast from 1.3 percent to 0.4 percent and halved its projection for 2027.

  • Two Libraries, Two Sets of Superpowers: The Internet Archive and the NOAA Library

    Two Libraries, Two Sets of Superpowers: The Internet Archive and the NOAA Library

    Digitization project in progress! Signage at the NOAA Library.

    This is the story of two libraries supporting one another to ensure physical preservation and broad access to great research collections. 

    The first is the NOAA Library, an institution that was established in the early 1970s, building on the inheritance of previous US Federal agency libraries, including those of the National Weather Service, United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, and Bureau of Commercial Fisheries of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. The NOAA Library primarily serves the employees and affiliates that have full access to the library’s e-resources and physical holdings. Members of the public can access NOAA publications through the NOAA Institutional Repository or the NOAA Library’s digitized holdings.

    The second is the Internet Archive. Having recently celebrated its 30th birthday, the Internet Archive has strong capabilities in digitizing materials at scale as well as safeguarding physical materials in physical archives.

    Both libraries are part of the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP). NOAA received the honor of being named the FDLP Library of the year in 1999, while the Internet Archive is the new to the network, having joined in 2025. NOAA’s current FDLP status as a digital access partner made connecting with the Internet Archive a natural decision.

    The NOAA Library and the Internet Archive have been working together collaboratively since 2022 when NOAA first donated materials they no longer deemed to be in scope as per the Library’s collection development policy. This collection, however, fell into the Internet Archive’s mission to provide Universal Access to All Knowledge by acquiring, digitizing, and hosting materials just like this.. Since that time the two libraries have continued to collaborate, sharing a goal and vision of making these materials more available. NOAA collections fit nicely into the Internet Archive’s Democracy’s Library, which seeks to give broad access to government publications, including those from US Federal agencies and other parts of government.

    Liz Rosenberg, who leads the physical donation program, describes the relationship this way. “A lot of folks do not know that we preserve physical materials. So when NOAA reached out to explore this kind of collaboration we were so grateful for the opportunity to help preserve valuable resources from their collections. Our partnership has blossomed over years of collaboration with wonderful NOAA librarians, and we are excited to be bringing broader digital access to their unique collections.”

    Ben Hope, director of the NOAA Library also values the partnership. “Libraries are at their best when they combine stewardship with access,” says Hope.”Our partnership with the Internet Archive ensures that NOAA’s scientific and historical collections are not only preserved for future generations, but also made more discoverable and accessible to researchers, educators, and the public worldwide. Together, we are extending the reach and impact of NOAA’s knowledge far beyond the walls of any single library.”

    Collections boxed up on site.
    The Internet Archive “Away Team” and NOAA collaborators celebrate.
    Loading collections onto the truck.

    Please check out the digital collections as we are collaboratively building. The NOAA collections contain a wealth of resources around weather, fisheries, deep sea exploration and more! https://archive.org/details/noaa 

    If you are interested in donating materials or know of other potential collaborations, please contact us.

  • Injectable Peptides – The New Snake Oil

    Injectable Peptides – The New Snake Oil

    We are going backwards. Hopefully this will be temporary trend, but it has been consistent for the past few decades. Prior to the FDA we had the “wild west” of patent medicines – anyone could put anything in a bottle and sell it with any claims. It was up to the average person to decide if a product was safe or effective. […]

    The post Injectable Peptides – The New Snake Oil first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

  • Ebola outbreak in DR Congo collides with conflict and hunger, WHO warns

    The UN World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday warned that eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo faces a “catastrophic collision of disease and conflict” as a fast-spreading Ebola outbreak outpaces containment efforts in a region already battered by armed violence, mass displacement and acute hunger.
  • The ‘Lost’ Villages of Myanmar’s Rakhine

    The ‘Lost’ Villages of Myanmar’s Rakhine

    A “river of blood” was how one survivor described the scene in western Myanmar. “I saw shooting. I saw mass killing.” Another told the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHRC) how 20 relatives, including three children, had been killed in the 2024 attack on Htan Shauk Khan village.

    Human Rights Watch (HRW) said earlier this month that the Arakan Army (AA) “may have killed at least 170 Rohingya men, women, and children” in Hoyyar Siri (known as Htan Shauk Khan in Burmese) in Buthidaung Township. It described the May 2, 2024, attack as a “massacre”.

    Buthidaung is one of the two townships in Rakhine State that is home to the majority of the Rohingya, a mainly Muslim ethnic minority in the predominantly Buddhist Myanmar.

    At least 40 villages in Buthindaung were burned down in April and May 2024 amid clashes between the AA, an ethnic armed group fighting Myanmar’s military junta for control of Rakhine, and junta forces battling to retain their hold of the township.

    Both sides committed abuses against civilians during the clashes, according to HRW. The military junta’s forced conscription of Rohingya to fight on its behalf has also intensified violence against them. 

    The military and Rohingya armed groups began arson attacks in Buthidaung township in April 2024. By mid-May the AA had captured all junta bases, according to the think tank, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. The destruction of Buthidaung previously been documented by Bellingcat. 

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    The AA has denied accusations that it massacred civilians in Buthidaung, claiming that those killed were junta soldiers and Rohingya militants.

    Bellingcat emailed the United League of Arakan, AA’s political wing, about the alleged attack on civilians but did not receive a response at the time of publication. Myanmar’s Ministry of Defence also did not respond to our questions. 

    Evidence of civilian harm in Myanmar is slow to emerge and difficult to obtain due to the military’s strict control of the region and the tight grip of armed groups such as the AA in areas they control. 

    “The mass killing could only be confirmed more than a year later,” the recent HRW report said, “when survivors eventually crossed into Bangladesh and found their way to the Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar.” 

    Aerial imagery shows that Htan Shauk Khan was almost entirely destroyed in May 2024.

    False-colour infrared map from Copernicus on Planet Insights Browser shows exposed ground in grey or tan, indicative of possible damage, in the village.

    Erasing Homes

    A new investigation by Bellingcat has identified 115 villages in Rakhine State, similar to Htan Shauk Khan, as partially or completely destroyed since the February 2021 military coup that overthrew Myanmar’s democratically elected government.

    The data points to a pattern of violence that leaves civilian areas uninhabitable and in some cases, erases them completely.






    MapLibre | Protomaps | Planet Labs © OpenStreetMap contributors

    Several buildings were set on fire when the junta allegedly dropped a
    bomb     on the Muslim village of Zu La on Nov. 3, 2024. The fire was captured nearby on
    NASA FIRMS.

    Satellite imagery indicates that it was attacked again on Dec. 9, 2024. Visible smoke can be seen
    rising from the village.

    Zu La is located in Maungdaw Township. Along with neighbouring Buthidaung, Maungdaw is home to
    the majority
    of Myanmar’s persecuted Rohingya.

    Zu La, and the neighbouring village of Gone Nar, previously faced violence during the 2017
    Rohingya genocide.

    Satellite imagery from that year shows them completely burned to the ground.

    They show signs of reconstruction after 2017.

    But repeated attacks in 2024 destroyed the villages again.

    Neither of the villages appears on the latest maps from 2024. These are produced by the United
    Nations mapping unit, based on Myanmar government maps.

    Steve Ross, Senior Fellow at the US nonprofit Stimson Center who is leading the ‘Crisis in
    Myanmar’s Rakhine State’ project, told Bellingcat this is part of the military’s broader
    campaign to deny the existence of the Rohingya and erase identity in Rakhine.

    Bellingcat contacted the Myanmar government but had received no response by the time of
    publication.

    Villages in Mungdaw are inured to cycles of violence. Ywar Haung, a village south of Zu La, has
    stood barren since 2017.

    So has Kan Kya, where the military built the Border Guard Police Battalion No. 5 (BGP5).

    All four villages are among the growing number of Rakhine’s lost settlements.

    Six of the 10 villages we found partially or totally destroyed in Maungdaw in 2024 aren’t marked
    on the UN’s township map.

    Removing more villages from the map remains a possibility, Ross said. However, following this
    April’s elections, which critics dismissed as a sham,
    the military is eager to restore international credibility and avoid actions that might be seen
    as provocative, the expert told Bellingcat.

    The AA announced the capture of Maungdaw when it
    seized BGP5 on Dec. 8, 2024.

    And with that the armed group gained full
    control     of Myanmar’s entire border with Bangladesh.

    Shortly afterwards, the AA took control of the strategically important Ann Township in central
    Rakhine.

    The armed group announced it had captured the headquarters of the Western Regional Military
    Command on Dec. 18, 2024.

    It shared a video of the headquarters and nearby
    military installations burning.

    Local residents in and around the township were trapped,
    displaced or forced to
    flee     their homes due to the months-long fight for Ann.

    According to reports, the military
    entered Pyaung Chaung village and burned it down on Oct. 31, 2024.

    Satellite imagery from Nov. 1, 2024, shows large-scale damage in the village. There were reports that the
    military warned residents to evacuate the village a week before the attack.

    Ross believes that the military’s intention has been to try to make Rakhine as ungovernable as
    possible if the AA gains full control of the state.

    Nearby villages of Yat Thar Ywar Thit

    and Pyaung Thay show similar evidence of destruction.

    Sittwe
    city    , the capital of Rakhine State, has become a focal area of fighting since late 2025.
    The city is in Sittwe township, one of the three townships still under junta control.

    Su Mon Thant, Asia-Pacific analyst at Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED),
    said capturing Sittwe would be highly symbolic for the AA as no non-state actor has yet taken
    control of a state capital in the country.

    The AA already controls areas along an India-backed transport corridor in Myanmar that includes
    a port in Sittwe.

    Sittwe is surrounded by water on three sides. Capturing it would be challenging, with the
    military maintaining naval superiority and building defences in and around the city to deter a
    potential AA offensive, Ross said.

    On Dec. 27, 2024, the AA attacked the Kyauk
    Tan checkpoint near Sittwe on the highway linking the capital to Yangon, the largest city to the
    south of Rakhine.

    There are many villages near the checkpoint.

    Like Taw Kan

    where, according to local reports,
    junta forces carried out an arson attack that destroyed 80 houses on Jan. 15, 2024.

    Bellingcat found at least 13 villages near the checkpoint that had been destroyed, with only a
    few remaining structures. All but one of them were attacked in 2024-2025.

    Less than 4km from the checkpoint is Yar Tan

    which appears intact in a March 2024 Google Earth image

    but several buildings look destroyed in high-resolution satellite image on Google Earth from
    March 2025.

    Trenches and military outposts began appearing near the village around Nov-Dec 2024.

    They grew as the months passed. However, due to a lack of updated high-resolution satellite
    images, we cannot tell whether these are currently in use or to what extent.

    There are also villages that appear to have been replaced with defensive structures. For
    example, Kan Pyin Ywar Haung, for which the latest available high-resolution satellite image
    shows trenches on both sides.

    Although such structures are clearly visible in high-resolution satellite imagery, lower-quality
    images can also help indicate whether a village was replaced with fortifications.

    Kan Pyin Ywar Thit, located just south of Kan Pyin Ywar Haung, appears to have been completely
    destroyed; however, the same criss-crossing lines are not visible across the village.

    Similar fortifications appear in other villages.

    Defence infrastructure has replaced villages on the outskirts of Sittwe, making it more difficult
    for AA to advance towards the city, said Ross.

    Bellingcat also found at least 10 villages partially or totally destroyed in Kyaukpyu Township
    since fighting intensified in February 2025.

    Kyaukpyu,
    which has abundant oil, natural gas and marine resources, is also home to a junta naval base

    As well as Chinese infrastructure projects that the AA fully or partially controls.

    Nearly all the villages we found to be destroyed or damaged are within a 10km radius of the
    naval base.

    In early March this year, clashes
    took place between the AA and the military near Say Maw village, located less than 5km from the
    base.

    NASA FIRMS detected fire in the village and the surrounding areas on March 23, 2026.

    The latest high resolution satellite image on Planet from April 2026 shows flattened buildings in
    the village.

    A month earlier Saing Chon Dwein village, also less than 5km from the base, was reportedly
    burned down by the military.

    The fire was caught on a Feb. 9, 2026 lower resolution satellite image

    with burnt areas distinguishable the next day.

    Like Sittwe, Kyaukpyu is surrounded by water, making it difficult for the Arakan Army, which
    lacks naval capabilities, to seize control. “AA has some advanced drones reportedly, but these
    areas also have jamming technology,” said Thant.

    Methodology

    The data was compiled using news reports, including social media channels, ACLED, satellite imagery and NASA FIRMS. The names of the villages were corroborated using the UN’s Myanmar Information Management Unit (MIMU), news reports and Planet Labs. 

    We only included areas where the destruction was clearly visible in high-resolution satellite imagery or significant enough to be detected in mid-resolution images. Our data is not exhaustive and the true number of affected villages is likely to be higher.

    While it is difficult to ascertain whether the villages we found damaged or destroyed showed signs of reconstruction, at least five of them appear to show some buildings rebuilt in latest available satellite imagery.

    Military Control Is Slipping

    Last month, in the first election since Myanmar’s 2021 coup, the pro-military parliament chose junta chief Min Aung Hlaing to be the next president.  

    According to research group Data for Myanmar, at least 65 townships were excluded from voting, including the 14 in the AA’s control. In Rakhine’s 17 townships, voting was held in only three still under junta control – Kyaukpyu, Sittwe and Manaung.

    The AA resumed attacks against the junta in Rakhine in November 2023, ending a year-long ceasefire.

    Data published by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) and analysed by Bellingcat reveals a sharp increase in the military’s air and drone strikes in Rakhine. After the AA resumed its offensive, strikes rose from 30 in 2023 to 461 in 2024. By the end of 2024, the AA had captured all but three townships in the state.

    Bellingcat found that strikes were then concentrated in the townships where the junta is fighting to maintain control. They decreased in 13 townships captured by the AA and remained unchanged in one during 2025. By contrast, attacks increased in Kyaukpyu and Sittwe, yet to be captured by the AA. Data for Manaung is unavailable.

    ACLED’s data comes from multiple sources, including news reports and social media. While the data is not exhaustive, a broad trend can be identified. You can read further details and caveats about the data here.

    Su Mon Thant, Asia-Pacific analyst at ACLED,explained that the military conducts clearance operations to prevent the AA from using villages as buffers or shelters – a tactic employed across the country. “At the same time, it’s a warning sign for other villages,” she said, adding that when one village is set ablaze, it sends a signal to other villages not to “accept, shelter or harbor” armed groups. Thant also noted that people are displaced when their village is destroyed, eroding support for armed groups as locals suffer the consequences of the fighting. 

    The AA has vowed to take control of all of Rakhine by 2027 and success may bring a geopolitical shift in the region. The armed group’s control over Kyaukpyu and Sittwe will give it significant leverage, with both India and China having infrastructure projects in the townships, Steve Ross of the Stimson Center told Bellingcat.

    But neither side can control the state without further alleviation of civilian suffering, Ross said. According to UNHRC data, there are almost half a million internally displaced people (IDPs) in Rakhine as of March 30, 2026.

    Estimated total IDPs in March-April of each year. Data prior to 2022 is unavailable. Source: United Nations Human Rights Council. Chart: Created on Datawrapper, edited on Adobe Illustrator by Pooja Chaudhuri/Bellingcat

    In Sittwe township alone, about 120,000 Rohingya have been displaced by communal conflict since 2012. 

    “People displaced from other parts of Rakhine State during the war are in Sittwe, hundreds of thousands of civilians,” said Thant, adding that neither side can control the capital without significant loss of life.

    There are also 1 million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. The futures of both the refugees and IDPs remain uncertain. 

    “Nobody can go home yet at this stage,” said Thant.

    Bellingcat is a non-profit and the ability to carry out our work is dependent on the kind support of individual donors. If you would like to support our work, you can do so here. You can also subscribe to our Newsletter and follow us on Bluesky here, Instagram here, Reddit here and YouTube here.

    The post The ‘Lost’ Villages of Myanmar’s Rakhine appeared first on bellingcat.

  • Pluralistic: AI and a world without migrants (27 May 2026)

    Today’s links


    A hand-tinted image of elderly people in the lounge of a nursing home. Three killer robots have been inserted into the scene.

    AI and a world without migrants (permalink)

    I don’t care who you are, there will always be times when hell is other people. Not because other people are horrible – quite the opposite! Other people are wonderful, but boy are they ever stubborn.

    From boardgames to romance, team sports to movement politics, business ideas to construction projects, there’s so much important, enjoyable and essential stuff you can’t do alone. But other people insist on having their own priorities and goals, and they mulishly refuse to organize their lives to suit your priorities.

    Our species has put a lot of work into resolving this conundrum. Not only did we evolve a whole brain structure – the neocortex – that helps us understand others’ perspectives, but we also evolved many social structures (like laws and teams and governments and families and committees and bureaucracies) to help us coordinate with others to do superhuman things (that is, things that exceed the capacity of a single human).

    These structures are imperfect, but they’re better than the alternative: coercion. Persuading others is not without its pitfalls, but compared to forcing others to bend to your will, “persuasion” is the hands-down favorite.

    Not for everyone, though. There has always been a group of people who refused to acknowledge that other people have perfectly valid reasons for wanting to pursue their own goals rather than yours. We call most of those people “toddlers” and devote sizable social effort to helping them outgrow this belief.

    But there’s another group of people who carry this belief into adulthood. If they’re of regular means, we call those people “bullies.” However, if they’re sufficiently wealthy, we call them “billionaires” (this is the same force that allows money to transmute a “hoarder” into a “collector”).

    Just lately though, we’ve come up with a new solution to the problem of hell being other people. Rather than coercing other people into arranging their affairs to suit our needs, we’ve devoted trillions of dollars to replacing people with pliant chatbots, in the hopes that these chatbots can be made so effective that we can just dispense with other people altogether.

    Many everyday people have replaced their romantic partners with chatbots (“AI boyfriends”/”AI girlfriends”), and they’ve formed active communities to revel in the delights of pursuing love with someone who demands no moral consideration or compromise, glorying in a world of love without lovers:

    https://www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-podcasts/1353-the-naked-emperor/episode/16215328-e1-love-bots

    There’s a whole community of people who have stopped listening to music created by people in favor of made-to-order slop, exulting in a world of music without musicians:

    https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/937059/nobody-wants-to-tell-me-why-they-only-listen-their-own-suno-slop

    These are foundationally solipsistic exercises, fantasy worlds in which you are the only real person and everyone else is a bot, an NPC, a phantom. AI has democratized solipsism, a privilege that was once the exclusive purview of billionaires, whose belief that most other people weren’t fully real let them inflict the kind of mass pain on millions that is a prerequisite for amassing a truly vast fortune:

    https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/18/seeing-like-a-billionaire/#npcs

    No surprise then that billionaires were easy marks for AI hustlers, who promised the possibility of a world without people, where an army of “agents” could do the jobs that presently demand the contributions of unreasonable human beings who refuse to acknowledge that your priorities trump theirs.

    Jeff Bezos built the world’s most advanced automated warehouses, and the workers in those warehouses are seriously injured at 300% of the national rate, and they are not allowed pee breaks (nevertheless, these workers unreasonably insist on metabolizing fluids and expelling the waste). The automation and the injuries aren’t unrelated facts. The inhumane treatment is caused by the automation, because when you commit hundreds of billions to automation capex, you need to work those assets to recoup the investment. In a human/machine collaboration, humans will always be the bottlenecks. To maximize return on automation, you need to drive the human peripherals that serve the machines at the absolute limit of human endurance. Jeff Bezos’s machines don’t just use humans, they use them up:

    https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/27/rancid-vibe-coding/#class-war

    Billionaires poured trillions into AI because they are obsessed with the fantasy of a world without people. Mark Zuckerberg would like to replace your on-platform friends with chatbots. Sure, your friends are the reason you’re stuck on his platforms, but your friends are stubborn and thus suboptimal. Remember: hell is other people, so while your friends unreasonably refuse to leave Facebook with you and follow you to another platform (this is bad for you, but good for Zuck), they also refuse to organize their social media lives to “maximize your engagement” and thus the number of ads you see (which is bad for Zuck). By replacing your friends with chatbots, Zuck hopes to reinvent social media without the socializing:

    https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/17/for-youze/#forever

    Billionaires are betting that bosses (and other would-be billionaires) will spend trillions buying AI products, captured by the fantasy of a workplace without workers. They think AI could be the remedy for the ancient, nameless dread that bosses experience every time they contemplate the fact that if they don’t show up for work, everything hums along fine; whereas if the workers don’t show up, the whole enterprise collapses. Secretly, bosses are haunted by the fear that they’re not driving the car, they’re strapped into the back seat, amusing themselves with a toy steering-wheel:

    https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/05/fisher-price-steering-wheel/#billionaire-solipsism

    That’s what the Hollywood strikes were about: studio bosses’ fantasy of movies without actors and screenplays without screenwriters. Since the invention of the studio system itself, studio bosses have wrestled with the fact that talented people who are beloved by audiences have bargaining leverage, which they use to demand better outputs and higher wages (this is the same conundrum faced by hospital administrators confronting nurses and doctors, college administrators confronting faculty, etc):

    https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/20/i-would-prefer-not-to/#i-cant-do-that-boss

    This solipsistic drive is what powers investment in AI “persuasion” technologies, making billions for latter-day Cambridge Analyticas who peddle the outlandish tale of having built a mind-control ray. It’s a winning sales-pitch because it plays into the fantasy of a world where customers do as they’re told, organizing their lives according to your priorities, at the expense of their own wellbeing:

    https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/07/rah-rah-rasputin/#credulous-dolts

    It’s not just captains of industry who are occupied with furious, all-consuming fantasies of a world without people. Dictators, autocrats and technocrats in the political world love AI because it dangles the possibility of a world without bureaucrats and public officials. If the civil service can be replaced with chatbots, then the will of the dictator can be translated directly into policy without any tedious negotiations with experts who understand how things work and have deep moral commitments to the public good:

    https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/13/vibe-governance/#k-hole

    A world without people is especially attractive to politicians presiding over aging, declining nations whose most ardent voters have been convinced that migrants are a threat to their nation (rather than its salvation).

    Objectively speaking, the only way that a rich country with an aging workforce can remain wealthy and powerful is by wooing working-age people from elsewhere to migrate to that country. Even if every tradwife is kept in a state of continuous gestation courtesy of a fertility-obsessed natalist, there’s still going to be decades during which your wealthy, aging population will need young, skilled people to do all the essential labor. From picking crops, to staffing hospitals, to building homes, to filing lawsuits, to preparing tax-returns, your quiverfull child army will be too young to take over for years to come.

    Trapped in the political impossibility of a country whose productive activities are absolutely reliant on young, strong, resourceful, skilled migrants, and a xenophobic political movement that scapegoats these migrants and revels in the spectacle of ethnic cleansing, politicians see AI as a way out of their double-bind. If migrants can be replaced with AI, then you can satisfy the racist sadism of your most ardent voters without shutting down the country for lack of workers.

    In other words: in feeding the fantasy of a world without people, AI serves the fantasy of a world without migrants. Unlike gastarbeiters, bracero fruit-pickers and Saudi quasi-slaves, AI makes no demands, requires no moral consideration, and does not attempt to germinate a culture, a cuisine, or a language in your sacred soil.

    This grotesque fantasy has always lurked in the subtext of the automation story. The plot of Disney’s Big Hero 6 boils down to: “In future-America/Japan, it will be more politically possible to have robots look after our aging parents than it will be to welcome the millions of skilled health-workers in the Pacific Rim who are eminently qualified to do the job.” Big Hero 6 is the solution to the problem of building a nursing home without nurses.

    The wealthy have always dreamed of transforming the proletariat into the precariat: desperate workers who do as they’re told. But in the automation story of which AI is the latest chapter (and purportedly the climax), the precariat becomes the unnecessariat: workers who are surplus to requirements and can be vaporized or liquidated or warehoused or simply ignored.

    In the fantasy world of total automation, the owners of AI can make the world go around without any of us, which means that we will exist solely at their sufferance, and will therefore have to act like the NPCs they half-believe we are already, organizing everything we do around their priorities.

    This is the foundation of Sam Altman’s obsession with a biometrically controlled universal basic income. Altman can’t stop fantasizing about a world in which all the productive work is done by his software, and the state’s sole purpose is to supply us – the unnecessariat – with vouchers we can only redeem for services provided by Altman’s robot army. It’s charter schools for everything, with Altman at the top, all wrapped up in a layer of dystopian retinal scanning:

    https://www.wired.com/story/worldcoin-sam-altman-orb/

    Billionaires and would-be billionaires are absolute suckers for this solipsistic bullshit, because they genuinely don’t think other people are real. They love “effective altruism” because it counsels them to make as much money as possible, without regard to how many people they cheat, hurt, or kill…provided that they pledge to use these ill-gotten gains to improve the lives of 10^53 imaginary artificial people who will come into existence in 10,000 years. After all, the total benefit of even the most infinitesimal welfare gains experienced by 10^53 people vastly exceeds all the pleasures that all eight billion actual, living people are capable of experiencing:

    https://www.semafor.com/article/11/21/2023/how-effective-altruism-led-to-a-crisis-at-openai

    It all makes perfect sense – provided you don’t believe that other people are really, truly real.

    Hey look at this (permalink)


    A shelf of leatherbound history books with a gilt-stamped series title, 'The World's Famous Events.'

    Object permanence (permalink)

    #15yrsago California prison overcrowding, in photos https://web.archive.org/web/20110525171353/https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/05/california-prison-overcrowding-photos

    #15yrsago What Will Come After: the sweet melancholy of the zombie apocalypse https://memex.craphound.com/2011/05/25/what-will-come-after-the-sweet-melancholy-of-the-zombie-apocalypse/

    #10yrsago If Donald Trump ever talks to a real journalist, these are the questions he should answer https://www.nationalmemo.com/21-questions-for-donald-trump

    #10yrsago Norwegian Consumer Council broadcasts live, marathon reading of app Terms of Service https://web.archive.org/web/20160526145553/https://www.forbrukerradet.no/vilkar-og-personvern-minutt-for-minutt/

    #10yrsago Pastejacking: using malicious javascript to insert sneaky text into pasted terminal commands https://github.com/dxa4481/Pastejacking

    #10yrsago Why medieval monks filled manuscript margins with murderous rabbits https://web.archive.org/web/20160614000551/https://jonkanekojames.com/2015/05/02/why-are-there-violent-rabbits-in-the-margins-of-medieval-manuscripts/

    #10yrsago Students: court orders government agencies to offer educational discount on FOIA requests https://web.archive.org/web/20160525155102/https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160521/16031934508/appeals-court-tells-government-it-must-extend-educational-institution-foia-fee-price-break-to-students.shtml

    #10yrsago The euphemisms news reporters use when a sports figure injures his penis and testicles https://web.archive.org/web/20160525125452/https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/media-groin-draymond-green-steven-adams/

    #10yrsago Company says facial features reveal terrorists and pedophiles 80% of the time https://web.archive.org/web/20160525130941/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2016/05/24/terrorist-or-pedophile-this-start-up-says-it-can-out-secrets-by-analyzing-faces/

    #5yrsago We promised this vaccine waiver 20 years ago https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/25/the-other-shoe-drops/#quid-pro-quo

    Upcoming appearances (permalink)

    A photo of me onstage, giving a speech, pounding the podium.


    A screenshot of me at my desk, doing a livecast.

    Recent appearances (permalink)


    A grid of my books with Will Stahle covers..

    Latest books (permalink)


    A cardboard book box with the Macmillan logo.

    Upcoming books (permalink)

    • “The Reverse-Centaur’s Guide to AI,” a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/)

    • “Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It” (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026

    • “The Post-American Internet,” a geopolitical sequel of sorts to Enshittification, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2027

    • “Unauthorized Bread”: a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, April 20, 2027

    • “The Memex Method,” Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2027


    Colophon (permalink)

    Today’s top sources:

    Currently writing: “The Post-American Internet,” a sequel to “Enshittification,” about the better world the rest of us get to have now that Trump has torched America. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor.

    • “The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to AI,” a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux about being an effective AI critic. LEGAL REVIEW AND COPYEDIT COMPLETE.

    • “The Post-American Internet,” a short book about internet policy in the age of Trumpism. PLANNING.

    • A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

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  • Mexican President Responds to World Cup Piracy Concerns, Prefers ‘Open’ Broadcasts

    Mexican President Responds to World Cup Piracy Concerns, Prefers ‘Open’ Broadcasts

    The FIFA 2026 World Cup officially kicks off on June 11, hosted across Mexico, the United States, and Canada.

    As the largest sports tournament in the world, and with multi-billion-dollar broadcast rights, these events typically increase the demand for pirate streaming sites.

    World Cup Host City Raises Piracy Alarm

    The organizers of the tournament are also aware of this. This includes Mexico City’s host committee, which published an alarming letter on X a few days ago. The letter, sent to the federal consumer protection agency (Profeco), flagged online piracy as a severe problem that deserves the government’s attention.

    The letter explains that social media and news reports have alerted them to the increased popularity of pirate apps and sites, including KaelusTV, ThunderTV, Telelatino, Sunset TV, and PopTV, which operate from a wide variety of domain names.

    Social media promotions, including the TikTok ad for one of the many Sunset TV apps, are indeed not difficult to find.

    Sunset TV promo on TikTok

    sunset

    Aside from obvious copyright infringement concerns that put commercial profits at risk, the host city points at another issue. These piracy apps and services can put the personal data of Mexicans at risk by stealing passwords and other info, while also raising malware and fraud concerns.

    Consumer Awareness

    Mexico City’s host committee argues that a government-backed consumer protection campaign is warranted. The letter offers no public evidence for the fraud claims, and says the platform names themselves came from news reports and social media.

    “I most attentively request that the Federal Consumer Protection Agency implement an informative campaign, which we will gladly support, to alert consumers in Mexico about the risks they incur when accepting to contract the services of this type of providers, which can even lead to financial fraud, theft of personal data or passwords, as well as banking data housed on their devices,” the letter reads.

    The letter (part 1+2)

    letter mexico

    The letter flags piracy as a broad problem, but its only ask is for a government-backed awareness campaign. Despite its targeted message, the response was broad, ranging from anonymous football fans to the country’s president.

    Piracy & Commercial Interests

    Posting the message publicly on X resulted in a wave of commentary that’s not in favor of FIFA and the rightsholders. Several cited the high costs of the ticket prices, and merchandise, as well as the fact that many World Cup matches are behind a paywall.

    In Mexico, where Televisa is the main rightsholder, streaming most matches through its paid ViX Premium service for subscribers with a 499-peso World Cup pass. Mexico’s national team matches will be available freely, but the paywall is likely to increase the interest in pirate services among fans.

    “Piracy isn’t the problem; it’s the consequence of the real problem, which is the attempt to elitize football,” one commenter noted.

    Not the problem

    axel

    A negative response from the public, whose interests the host city is partly trying to protect, is somewhat ironic but not unexpected. Instead of talking about malware threats, the entire discussion is dominated by cost issues and commercial interests.

    The consumer protection agency, Profeco, responded through César Iván Escalante, who noted that this request has not been made in the official FIFA working groups, which it is already taking part in. Instead, it appears to be an isolated request from the Mexico City host committee.

    Escalante notes that the letter, which was sent personally by the director of the stadium hosting the Mexico City matches, asks the government to help protect commercial interests.

    “Regarding the transmission rights, what they want is for us to take part in protecting the transmission rights that belong to Televisa, to prevent these platforms from being able to use them,” he said, suggesting that this is more than a simple consumer protection issue.

    President Responds

    The consumer angle is particularly striking when considering that the Mexican public has been rather critical of the commercial interests.

    To a degree, that also applies to Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, who also responded to the matter. Sheinbaum would personally prefer the broadcasts to be open, while acknowledging that FIFA has sold them to commercial platforms.

    “The broadcast should be open, that’s what I think, but FIFA decided a while ago that the matches are only shown on certain platforms. So, those platforms have to be accessible so that people can watch the matches,” Sheinbaum said, while noting that it is not correct to complain via social media while you are in official meetings with the same people.

    Instead of launching an anti-piracy campaign, the president stated that the government will set up massive screens in public squares around the country, so people can watch for free. It is unclear whether the authorities have secured a public rebroadcasting license for these screens.

    From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.