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Reporting

AI slop

+4

Elon Musk is this year’s King of Digital Deception

Dec 17, 2025

•

26 min read

Elon Musk is this year’s King of Digital Deception

And some more serious findings – including a great reading list – from our survey of 53 experts

Alexios Mantzarlis
Alexios Mantzarlis

AI slop

+1

35 notable AI fails from 2025

Dec 15, 2025

•

23 min read

35 notable AI fails from 2025

Just because it’s "intelligent" doesn’t mean it’s always right

Alexios Mantzarlis
Alexios Mantzarlis

Reporting

+1

2025: The year tech embraced fakeness

Dec 9, 2025

•

30 min read

2025: The year tech embraced fakeness

This year, powerful people, companies, and institutions welcomed digital deception like never before. The rest of us faced the consequences.

Craig Silverman
Alexios Mantzarlis
Craig Silverman, +1

Reporting

+1

Nonconsensual nude generators had another banner year. What will it take to defeat them?

Dec 4, 2025

•

24 min read

Nonconsensual nude generators had another banner year. What will it take to defeat them?

Deplatforming the companies, debilitating the technology, and deterring the users

Alexios Mantzarlis
Alexios Mantzarlis

Fact-checking

+3

Community Notes: Big in Japan

Dec 1, 2025

•

10 min read

Community Notes: Big in Japan

Why are Japan’s amateur fact-checkers doing better on X?

Alexios Mantzarlis
Alexios Mantzarlis

Reporting

+1

Thousands of undisclosed ads flooded TikTok to sell AI study apps

Nov 20, 2025

•

15 min read

Thousands of undisclosed ads flooded TikTok to sell AI study apps

Maryland-based Mindgrasp used an army of student creators (and actors) to promote its study tools, without disclosing that they were paid.

Craig Silverman
Craig Silverman

Reporting

+2

An AI bot is now the top contributor to Community Notes on X

Nov 18, 2025

•

8 min read

An AI bot is now the top contributor to Community Notes on X

But synthetic contributors aren’t replacing humans – yet

Alexios Mantzarlis
Alexios Mantzarlis

Wikipedia

+4

Grokipedia cites a Nazi forum and fringe conspiracy websites

Nov 13, 2025

•

17 min read

Grokipedia cites a Nazi forum and fringe conspiracy websites

A site-wide comparison with Wikipedia sheds light on what Elon Musk is trying to do

Alexios Mantzarlis
Alexios Mantzarlis

Reporting

+5

Scam ads are flooding social media. These former Meta staffers have a plan

Nov 6, 2025

•

10 min read

Scam ads are flooding social media. These former Meta staffers have a plan

Rob Leathern and Rob Goldman, who both worked at Meta, are launching a new nonprofit that aims to add transparency to an increasingly opaque, scam-filled social media ecosystem.

Craig Silverman
Craig Silverman

Reporting

+3

Taking an AI nudifier to court: A conversation with the lawyer suing ClothOff

Nov 3, 2025

•

17 min read

Taking an AI nudifier to court: A conversation with the lawyer suing ClothOff

“They shouldn't be out there. They shouldn't be operating," said Shane Vogt, the lawyer for a teenage plaintiff

Alexios Mantzarlis
Alexios Mantzarlis

LinkedIn

+8

Tech platforms promised to label AI content. They're not delivering.

Oct 23, 2025

•

22 min read

Tech platforms promised to label AI content. They're not delivering.

An Indicator audit of hundreds of synthetic images and videos reveals that platforms frequently fail to label AI content

Alexios Mantzarlis
Nasha Dutta
Alexios Mantzarlis, +1

Reporting

+3

101 TikTok accounts masquerading as real news spread misinformation to millions

Oct 15, 2025

•

8 min read

101 TikTok accounts masquerading as real news spread misinformation to millions

Shallow impersonations of Telemundo, CNN, Fox News and other media got more than 200 million views posting fake ICE arrests and bombastic AI slop about geopolitics

Alexios Mantzarlis
Alexios Mantzarlis

Fact-checking

+3

Community fact-checking on X survived Elon Musk. It may not survive AI.

Oct 9, 2025

•

9 min read

Community fact-checking on X survived Elon Musk. It may not survive AI.

A new working paper looks at the durability of Community Notes

Alexios Mantzarlis
Alexios Mantzarlis

Reporting

+6

Explicit ads for nudifiers and AI girlfriend apps continue to plague Meta

Sep 30, 2025

•

3 min read

Explicit ads for nudifiers and AI girlfriend apps continue to plague Meta

Indicator found thousands of ads that featured bare breasts and simulated sex acts

Craig Silverman
Craig Silverman

AI slop

+2

This podcast company went all in on AI. It shows.

Sep 24, 2025

•

3 min read

This podcast company went all in on AI. It shows.

Inception Point AI wants to commodify audio AI slop with “How to Earlobe Kiss” and 4,748 other shows

Alexios Mantzarlis
Alexios Mantzarlis

Reporting

+2

TikTok content farms pivot to Charlie Kirk hoaxes

Sep 15, 2025

•

2 min read

TikTok content farms pivot to Charlie Kirk hoaxes

AI tributes and conspiracy theories about Kirk’s assassination got 32 million views

Alexios Mantzarlis
Alexios Mantzarlis

Reporting

+4

Meta ran 4,000 more ads for AI nudifiers. That may not be the worst part.

Sep 10, 2025

•

2 min read

Meta ran 4,000 more ads for AI nudifiers. That may not be the worst part.

The company is making it easy for the advertisers to conceal their identity

Alexios Mantzarlis
Benjamin Shultz
Alexios Mantzarlis, +1

OSINT

+2

Why is GitHub restricting accounts that share OSINT and dark web resources?

Sep 8, 2025

•

2 min read

Why is GitHub restricting accounts that share OSINT and dark web resources?

At least half a dozen repos or entire accounts were recently banned or blocked from public access

Craig Silverman
Craig Silverman

LinkedIn

+5

Aid workers looking for jobs on LinkedIn face spammy websites, scammy recruiters, and sham listings

Sep 4, 2025

•

2 min read

Aid workers looking for jobs on LinkedIn face spammy websites, scammy recruiters, and sham listings

LinkedIn deleted 27 pages with almost 6 million followers

Alexios Mantzarlis
Alexios Mantzarlis

Reporting

+3

“Dress up your buddy’s wife in a tiny latex dress”: A digital fashion startup ran Meta ads for an AI app with an “undress” option

Sep 2, 2025

•

2 min read

“Dress up your buddy’s wife in a tiny latex dress”: A digital fashion startup ran Meta ads for an AI app with an “undress” option

DressX, which has raised $15 million in financing, said the ads were placed by a contractor. Meta banned the ad accounts after being contacted by Indicator

Craig Silverman
Craig Silverman

AI slop

+4

Celebrity slop: Hoax pages thrive under Meta’s relaxed moderation

Aug 21, 2025

•

2 min read

Celebrity slop: Hoax pages thrive under Meta’s relaxed moderation

Indicator identified more than 100 foreign-run Facebook pages that use AI to spread false claims about celebs like Stephen Colbert, Caitlin Clark and others

Craig Silverman
Craig Silverman

Fraud

+5

TikTok’s rewards program has incentivized a thriving marketplace for US accounts and tax IDs

Aug 19, 2025

•

2 min read

TikTok’s rewards program has incentivized a thriving marketplace for US accounts and tax IDs

Brazil’s ‘TikTok Dark’ targets the Global North with geoshifted clickbait accounts

Alexios Mantzarlis
Alexios Mantzarlis

AI slop

+3

Dozens of TikTok accounts use AI avatars of real journalists to spread fake news

Aug 13, 2025

•

2 min read

Dozens of TikTok accounts use AI avatars of real journalists to spread fake news

The platform’s Spanish-language misinformation problem led me to a Brazilian marketplace for monetized TikTok accounts

Alexios Mantzarlis
Alexios Mantzarlis

Reporting

+2

AI-enabled geolocation: A conversation with GeoSpy's Daniel Heinen

Aug 11, 2025

•

29 min read

AI-enabled geolocation: A conversation with GeoSpy's Daniel Heinen

He said that using an LLM to do geolocation is "like using a chainsaw to do surgery versus a scalpel."

Craig Silverman
Craig Silverman

Fact-checking

+3

I reviewed 100 of TikTok’s “Footnotes” so you don’t have to

Aug 6, 2025

•

3 min read

I reviewed 100 of TikTok’s “Footnotes” so you don’t have to

Most of them were useless

Alexios Mantzarlis
Alexios Mantzarlis
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Indicator is your essential guide to understanding and investigating digital deception.


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