Academics have launched a rival inquiry into the appointment of Jason Arday, accusing the University of Cambridge of watering down its own investigation.
The post Academics Launch Rival Inquiry into Jason Arday’s Appointment appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
Starting next week, Pennsylvania will begin enforcing a law prohibiting the sale of e-cigarettes that have not been explicitly approved by the state. Supporters argue that it will protect public health, but it seems likely to do the opposite by preventing many former smokers from accessing the products that helped them quit.
Under the law, known as ACT 57, there are currently just six manufacturers of electronic nicotine delivery systems on the approved list that can be sold in the Keystone State, meaning many popular vaping products will be forcibly removed from shelves on October 19. Retailers who violate this law will face fines of $500 for each unapproved product. A second violation within a year will result in a civil penalty of between $750 and $1,000 per day per product, and a suspension of the dealer's license for at least 14 days. A shop's third violation within a year would result in a civil penalty of $1,000 to $1,500 per day per product, and the revocation of its license.
Politicians are touting this law as the latest way to protect the public, and of course, they claim it will especially protect children. "This law is about keeping harmful products out of the hands of both children and adults who may not realize what they are consuming," said Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday.
"I applaud the legislature for their bipartisan support of Act 57 to provide this important public health safety measure to the Commonwealth."
However, not all Pennsylvania residents are enthusiastic about the law's enforcement.
"This will be largely catastrophic," Chris Hughes, the former owner of Fat Cat Vapor Shop in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, tells Reason. Hughes predicts that the restrictions will encourage consumers to purchase vaping products across state lines, creating an illicit market. "Some people that are enterprising will drive across the border to Ohio [or] West Virginia, and bring a lot of products back and sell them to other people," he says.
Hughes is right to assume that the law will create an illicit market for vaping. In June, JAMA Network Open published a report on Alabama, Oklahoma, and Louisiana—three other states with constraints similar to Pennsylvania—finding that the restrictions were not associated with lasting reductions in e-cigarette nicotine sales. By the end of April 2025, products not listed in the states' approved directories accounted for 92.1 percent of measured e-cigarette nicotine sales in Alabama, 53.6 percent in Oklahoma, and 52.3 percent in Louisiana.
For people living further from the border, Hughes says that "a lot of them will return to smoking." "Half of those people will die prematurely from smoking.…It's a tragedy, really."
Indeed, evidence shows vaping to be one of the most effective tools to quit smoking. A 2024 study published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that in 2021–2022 alone, approximately 1.2 million American adults used e-cigarettes to help them quit smoking for at least six months, representing slightly more than 40 percent of all adults who successfully quit during that period. Meanwhile, a 2026 review from Cochrane, a global health nonprofit, found that smokers are more likely to quit when using e-cigarettes than with nicotine replacement therapy: 8 percent to 10 percent of smokers using e-cigarettes may successfully quit, compared with just 6 percent using nicotine-replacement therapy.
The impending restrictions have Pennsylvania vapers stockpiling products. Hughes says he has delayed paying his property taxes to make sure he has "two to three years' worth of e-liquid and coils while this shakes out." He also spoke to an employee at a vape shop recently who told him about a customer spending $500 on e-liquid after learning about the impending ban.
For vape shop owners across Pennsylvania, the new law will make business even more difficult. Hughes was forced to close down Fat Cat Vapor Shop in Williamsport after Pennsylvania introduced a 40 percent wholesale tax on vaping products in 2016. "The whole goal of my opening the business was to help get adult smokers off of cigarettes and transition them to something that I knew for a fact was much less harmful," he says. Hughes estimates that his shop helped approximately 8,000 adults quit smoking during its three years in business.
Now, he fears other independent vape shops will suffer the same fate as his own. "Most, if not all of them, will be bankrupted," Hughes warns. "It almost takes my breath away. I'm not even sure what to say."
Pennsylvania lawmakers may intend to protect public health, but their new law risks pushing adults away from healthier lifestyle choices. As is often the case, the government restricting the choices adults are allowed to make for themselves is likely to have deadly consequences.
The post Will Pennsylvania's Vape Ban Create More Cigarette Smokers? appeared first on Reason Magazine.
On October 10, thousands of Ecuadorians took to the streets to protest against the government of right-wing President Daniel Noboa. The demonstration was organized by the Autonomous Front of Organized Resistance (FARO) under the slogan “Government vs. People.”
A esta hora, una marcha de rechazo al Gobierno de Daniel Noboa recorre las calles de Quito. La movilización está marcada por carteles de protesta y consignas contra el mandatario y su gestión. Los manifestantes atraviesan en este momento el paso deprimido del Guambra y avanzan… pic.twitter.com/WKPfT8D9jF
— Elena Rodríguez Yánez (@ElenaDeQuito) October 10, 2026
Saturday’s demonstration followed a protest on October 8, organized by labor unions also in Quito, to protest the security, energy, health, and employment crises facing the country. They also protested government cuts to education and health care, as well as alleged mistreatment of workers, according to Edwin Bedoya, president of the United Workers’ Front (FUT).
For its part, the October 10 demonstration – which consisted mainly of high school and college students – set out from the Central University and marched through Quito. Slogans such as “If the people have no peace, neither does the government” and “Out with Noboa, out with him!” were heard along the streets occupied by the demonstrators.
The president of the Catholic University Student Federation, Jatari Ulcuango, told protesters: “Four years ago, this government promised us electricity; two years ago, too – and now the blackouts have returned. Two months ago, the government told us it would provide us with medicine, and yet we’re only receiving 60% of the supply. They’re taking us for fools.”
He added: “We’re dying outside the hospitals. Criminals are kidnapping us, murdering us, and robbing us. That’s why we’ve come out this morning. They plan to dismantle public institutions to force us to hire private security. Who has gotten rich off the health crisis? The private healthcare sector, while the people are getting poorer and poorer.”
The peaceful march headed back to the Central University, where the students gathered. Later, the students reported on social media that they had been harassed and repressed by the police, who had accompanied the entire march.
Likewise, several media outlets reported that the police were aggressive toward them. This was reported by the outlet La Barra Espaciadora, which released a video showing police officers pushing journalists.
TeleSur journalist Elena Rodríguez also reported that law enforcement officers broke the microphone she was using and struck her on the head: “I’m sick and tired of having to recount, time and time again, police attacks against the press. Today, while I was trying to document the violence with which officers were beating young protesters, I was struck on the head from behind with a baton. I turned around, showed my Telesur microphone to identify myself as a journalist, and the response was another baton strike that ended up breaking it.”
She added: “If they think that by beating me up they’re going to get me to stop documenting police brutality, to put my microphone away, or to back off several blocks so I can report from a place where I won’t be a nuisance, they’re wrong. It is not we journalists who should distance ourselves from the events. It is the police who must stop attacking us. The right to report cannot be negotiated at the point of a baton.”
The protests are taking place against the backdrop of a widespread crisis in the country, which includes the worst security crisis in its history (tens of thousands of deaths due to violence between drug trafficking gangs), a very serious health crisis (a lack of supplies and medicines in the public health system), and other major crises such as those in education, public investment, and employment.
Local elections will be held in November, which will reveal the extent of support – or lack thereof – for President Noboa and his neoliberal government agenda, which aligns with the hemispheric security strategy led by the Trump administration.
Austrian police detained Ukrainian investigative journalist Mykhailo Tkach and cameraman Yaroslav Bondarenko in Vienna yesterday, on 8 October. Both were later released, but the circumstances of their detention remain unclear, and the prosecutor’s office said suspicion against them had not been substantiated so far.
The detention lasted more than 12 hours, the first time Tkach had been held that long while on a reporting assignment abroad. The case unfolded alongside a separate Austrian espionage investigation involving two men suspected of working for Ukraine’s military intelligence. Authorities have not said whether the cases are connected.
In a video published by Ukrainska Pravda, Tkach said seven people wearing masks and carrying weapons approached their car at a traffic light about 3–5 kilometers from central Vienna, broke its windows, and pointed weapons at them.
He said the people did not identify themselves or explain their actions. The journalists were pulled from the car, forced face down onto the road, searched, and had their hands taped behind their backs, according to Tkach. He said he initially thought they were being kidnapped because he did not see identification or have time to notice police markings. He realized they were police only after seeing police vehicles.
“As I felt it, they detained us like terrorists,” Tkach said.
He added that people shouted and pointed weapons, and there was no communication. He said one person put a knee on his neck and shouted at him to be quiet. He also saw glass from the broken window fly into Bondarenko’s face.
In a second report, Ukrainska Pravda said Tkach’s account of a document presented to him listed three allegations: espionage in the interests of Ukrainian military intelligence, participation in a criminal organization, and, as far as he remembered, causing harm to Austria. He said investigators did not explain the evidence behind the allegations.
Vienna prosecutor’s office spokesperson Nina Bussek told the Austrian Press Agency (APA) that suspicion against the two journalists had arisen during other investigations but had not been substantiated. She said it currently appeared that the suspicion was not holding up. Austrian officials have not publicly addressed Tkach’s account of the force used.
Tkach and Bondarenko were in Vienna on an assignment to find Ruslan Kravchenko, Ukraine’s former prosecutor general, Ukrainska Pravda reported. Kravchenko was dismissed on 15 September amid an investigation by Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau and Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office into alleged protection of fraudulent call centers. He denied involvement. Der Standard reported that it remained unclear whether the journalists’ detention was connected to their reporting on him.
Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi confirmed Tkach’s release and said the Ukrainian consul had requested access to him, according to NV. Musaieva said Bondarenko had been injured and hospitalized.
A statement signed by Ukrainian media and civil society organizations, including Euromaidan Press, called for an immediate, transparent, and independent investigation of law enforcement’s actions. The signatories also demanded an independent review of the force used, the return of seized equipment, and necessary medical and legal assistance.
Austrian Interior Minister Gerhard Karner confirmed the arrests of four Ukrainians, according to ORF. The two men detained on 5 October were placed in pretrial detention until 21 October on suspicion of secret intelligence activity against Austria. APA reported that they were suspected employees of Ukraine’s military intelligence service. Both deny the allegations.
On 19 November 2025, Indian police raided the ‘Kashmir Times’ in Jammu. They said they were on an “anti-terror” operation. The offices had been shut since 2022 and were in dilapidated condition, the equipment largely defunct. Yet, the police claimed to have recovered a “pistol and live AK-47 cartridges.”
Since 2018, only five journalists have faced cases under India’s draconian anti-terror Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. Trials rarely start, leaving journalists in a state of perpetual purgatory, even if they are out on bail under onerous conditions.
Before the police came charging into these unused offices last year, the ‘Kashmir Times’, founded by my father in 1954, had long suffered sustained persecution – the seizure of records, of equipment, the harassment of staffers, the use of social media to spread slurs, trumped up charges of tax evasion and the embedding of spies.
The first ever copies of Kashmir Times, initially a weekly, were seized by the government. In 1983, my father survived a murderous assault with serious injuries inflicted by a Hindu nationalist mob. I joined the newspaper in 1989, as the armed militancy, the ‘insurgency’ against the Indian state, became widespread, and experienced firsthand the struggle to report the news accurately and truthfully. The government would frequently withdraw its advertising, which was the main source of funding for most news outlets. We were besieged on several fronts, facing down the state, militants and aggressive Hindu nationalists.
In 2019, as Indian prime minister Narendra Modi began his second term in office, his government removed the special autonomous status granted to Jammu and Kashmir and protections that had existed for nearly 70 years. Once a state, Jammu and Kashmir was split into two federally governed territories. The Indian-administered part of Kashmir – the subject of several military conflicts between India and Pakistan, with both countries claiming the entire disputed territory while controlling a portion of it – had effectively become a police state and control of the media was a critical component of this transformation.
As Executive Editor of the ‘Kashmir Times’, one of the oldest newspapers in the region and the largest, with four editions, I petitioned India’s Supreme Court against the six-month-long internet shutdown that the Modi government imposed in 2019. But by 2020, three editions of the ‘Kashmir Times’ had shut down and the fourth only limped along, a once daily newspaper that was now only occasionally published. By February 2022, even this edition was shut down. I left India with my husband Prabodh Jamwal, the editor of the ‘Kashmir Times’, and revived it as a digital newsroom in exile in the United States in November 2023.
But, as the so-called terror investigation and the mysterious discovery of weapons in our long disused office in 2025 showed, the ‘Kashmir Times’ remained a thorn in the side of the Modi government. The Indian prime minister has frequently presented India on the international stage as the “mother of democracy” and the “Vishwaguru”, a moral exemplar and teacher to the world. Just last week, between September 12 and 13, Delhi hosted Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian as part of the annual BRICS meeting, the global group founded initially by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (hence the acronym) that is increasingly being presented as an alternative power centre to the American-led Western alliance. For an India seeking to portray itself as not just an emerging superpower but as a democratic force, it is vital that Kashmir remain repressed, hidden away from global scrutiny.
It’s why, even as a newsroom in exile, we continue to be pursued by an Indian government seeking to tarnish our credibility, to deny us the right to report on Kashmir. We are being subject to a vendetta and it represents what has happened to journalism in Kashmir. Journalists have been silenced by the Modi government, Kashmiri voices strangled, and the local media industry deliberately destroyed.
What is happening to journalism in Kashmir is a harbinger of what lies ahead for the rest of India.
Geeta Seshu of Free Speech Collective, which monitors press freedoms in India, argues that Kashmir is a laboratory where every strategy of media suppression is tested and perfected for use elsewhere. India, which once had a noisy, argumentative press, now ranks at a lowly 157 out of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index. Reporters Without Borders, which compiles the ranking, says “press freedom is in crisis” in Modi’s India.
The 2023 Digital Personal Data Protection Act provided a “dangerous framework for expansion of surveillance and censorship” across the country. It empowered the government to demand data from any entity, including journalists, effectively requiring them to reveal their sources. The amendments to the 2020 Information Technology Rules already burden intermediaries with harsh obligations and have been used to arrest journalists, block websites and compel social media platforms to restrict content. Recently, Instagram restricted posts about reports of Kashmiris shot by Indian security forces using pellet guns on unarmed protestors.
Seshu’s fear that what happens in Kashmir will be replicated in the Indian mainland has largely been borne out. For example, in 2023, nearly 50 journalists associated with the portal ‘NewsClick’ – some only vaguely – were subject to arrests and interrogations. Many had their devices seized without due process. Their alleged crimes were essentially guilt by association, charges manufactured not from evidence but from a, frankly, lazy piece of journalism published in the ‘New York Times’ about NewsClick’s funding. The charges were eventually quashed by an Indian court.
Such court rulings are less likely in Kashmir. As a Kashmiri journalist based in Delhi says, “unlike the rest of India, Kashmir is a police state, and state control requires any independent journalism to be shut down.”
In Kashmir, the Indian state has engineered a sophisticated edifice of control through securitization, surveillance and interrogation. It is invisible, intangible, and all-pervasive, a model that extracts quiet surrender and obedience. Unlike the targeted killings of journalists in Gaza, in Kashmir the control of information is seamlessly embedded in everyday life, requiring no enforcement, no traces of brutality. The journalists are essentially cowed into submission.
It began with the world’s longest internet shutdown – a complete lockdown for six months and a partial one for another year. What the shutdown created, despite a court verdict restoring communications, was fear among journalists compelled to work out of a government-surveilled computer facility, and then a perpetuation of that fear through consistent localized and temporary digital shutdowns. So commonplace are these shutdowns that they no longer warrant reporting or commentary.
In June 2020, the Modi government introduced a 53-page document called ‘J&K's Media Policy’ which gave the authorities sweeping powers to monitor, judge, and punish journalists, branding critical reporting as “fake news”, “unethical”, or “anti-national”. The authorities would also routinely remove government advertising from cash-strapped outlets and provide accreditation only to journalists deemed loyal, thus turning bureaucrats into arbiters of what constitutes news and who gets to report it. The effect is chilling.
And then there’s the monitoring of communications.
“I can’t say if they’re using Pegasus or some other spyware or technology,” a journalist told me about being interrogated over emails sent to an editor, “but they knew everything about our conversations.” In a 2021 leak, it turned out the Indian government was using Pegasus to spy on at least 40 Indian journalists, only one of who was Kashmiri.
But, a Kashmiri journalist says, “officials have told us ‘nothing in Kashmir is end-to-end encrypted’ and digital activity is clearly being constantly monitored.” No Kashmiri journalist I spoke to for this story, including those who contribute to the ‘Kashmir Times’, have the encrypted messaging Signal app, used worldwide by journalists, on their phones. Devices are routinely checked when journalists are summoned to police stations in Kashmir for questioning. Some said their devices were returned after being tampered with. “You face humiliation and beatings for using Signal and VPNs,” many journalists said. “You can only get away with it if you’re not on their radar,” said one.
In November 2025, the Indian government issued a directive insisting on verifying the “bona fides” of journalists working in Jammu and Kashmir, and the police followed up by requiring journalists to part with personal information including biometrics and bank statements. In January this year, senior journalist Basharat Masood of The Indian Express spent seven hours at a Srinagar police station, then was summoned for three more days and told to sign a bond promising not to “repeat his mistake” – for reporting on the surveillance of mosquea surveillance, even as officials had already admitted to large-scale data collection and verification.
Police also surveil Kashmiris through the use of drone cameras, a network of 1,000 electronic cameras installed at major traffic junctions, and through unrestricted access to people’s social media activity across platforms ostensibly to track anti-India activity. During an illegal “Census 2024” drive, the police collected residents' personal data and GPS-tagged coordinates of homes. And the soon-to-be-rolled-out Jammu and Kashmir-specific digital identity cards that collects the data of entire households, purportedly to ensure the smooth rollout of welfare schemes, has also sparked local anxieties.
Still, as pervasive as the surveillance is, it is journalists that find themselves in the firing line. Any critical word warrants a summons to a police station, interrogation, intimidation and even detention. This happens repeatedly, with journalists never aware of what specific “offence” might trigger a police summons. The reflex, after several such visits to police stations, is self-protection and self-censorship.
A Kashmiri journalist told me that the language the police use to summon journalists for questioning is particularly sinister. It is almost as if the police are enjoying instilling fear. “Aaj dastarkhan par aapki dawat hai”, for instance, is a typical summons. You are invited to a feast, the police say cynically, knowing a journalist is likely to be harshly questioned, even beaten.
Often, Kashmiri journalists, without notice, are placed on no-fly lists. Sanna Irshad Mattoo, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist, was twice prevented from travelling abroad for exhibitions and award ceremonies, a pointed message that even international recognition offers no protection. At least twelve journalists have had their passports revoked; two of them were already abroad at the time, rendering them stateless.
The Free Speech Collective filed a Right to Information (RTI) query in March 2024 to ascertain exactly how many Kashmiris had had their passports revoked or cancelled. The plea was rejected by the government on grounds of “national security”.
As India continues to press its case as a formidable, if still rising power, citing its 7.8% growth rate over the past quarter, it continues to be defensive and secretive about Kashmir. Foreign journalists are largely barred, or at least heavily restricted, from reporting from both Indian and Pakistani-administered Kashmir. In May, last year, India and Pakistan exchanged air strikes after a terrorist attack in Indian-administered Kashmir and Modi fell out with Donald Trump over the latter’s claim to have stopped both nuclear powers from accelerating towards a disastrous war.
Despite Kashmir being a long-standing issue that merits global attention, reporting from the region has reduced to a trickle.
A Google search of Kashmir-related news floods your screen with links, but it is bulk without substance. Articles read like a log of official announcements and statements, punctuated by the occasional piece on a shrinking water body, a development project, a political tussle over a non-issue, or unemployment figures. Each report floats like a loose, individual particle suspended in air, packaged and presented as definitive. No investigation into context. No excavation of the past. No interrogation of contributing factors. A story about an alleged terrorist’s hair transplant and cosmetic dentistry, based entirely on police sources, is passed off as an investigation into Kashmiri insurgency. A superficially detailed piece on anti-encroachment drives or home demolitions will carry little beyond the grief of the displaced, or the remarks of a politician whose interest in the community begins and ends with votes. A terrorist’s hair transplant story, based on the police version, passes off as an investigation into Kashmir’s complex insurgency dynamic.
Kashmir fell off the radar a long time ago, says Free Speech Collective’s Geeta Seshu.
Even mundane stories are difficult to report. No one wants to be quoted. A university professor said he could once “talk to journalists and trust they understood the context. Now, a single sentence can be pulled out, circulated on WhatsApp, and suddenly I’m either an anti-national or a government stooge. Both sides will use the same quote to attack you differently. Why would I take that risk?”
Tarushi Aswani, an Indian journalist, told me that “a curtain has been pulled over Kashmir by silencing journalists who ask questions.” Instead, she added, “press release journalism fills the vacuum, erasing the truth about Kashmir, its history, its politics, its development, environment and aspirations.” Kashmir is no longer looking at a mirror. The lack of truthful reporting means nothing is reflected back. Instead, Kashmiris are looking into the lens of a surveillance camera.
*The eight Kashmiri journalists interviewed for this story spoke on condition of anonymity.
Aakash Hassan
Alishan Jafri
The post How Modi silenced Kashmir appeared first on Coda Story.
In 2016, when Peter Thiel killed Gawker, he insisted that he wasn’t attacking journalism writ large.
On the contrary, he told the New York Times, he’d spent $10 million secretly backing Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against the news outlet because: “I saw Gawker pioneer a unique and incredibly damaging way of getting attention by bullying people even when there was no connection with the public interest… if I didn’t think Gawker was unique, I wouldn’t have done any of this. If the entire media was more or less like this, this would be like trying to boil the ocean.”
10 years later with the aid of an “AI tribunal,” a team of intelligence and law enforcement veterans, and a political climate vastly more hostile to press freedom, he is trying to do exactly that, bypassing the courts, short-circuiting the first amendment, and making it much, much cheaper to indulge in the quasi legal harassment of journalists.
Objection.ai is a new startup funded by Thiel, and cofounded by Aron D’Souza, who worked closely with him on the Gawker case. It promises “a fast affordable way to challenge statements in the media.” Anyone can file an objection, which will trigger an investigation by a team hired, the company says, from the CIA, FBI, and British intelligence agencies. Targeted outlets and reporters will have an opportunity to respond, and the results will be fed to an AI model, which will render a verdict. The complainant, and the target, are asked to agree to binding arbitration, with an unspecified range of potential consequences. Financial details are vague, but the company has said the process will cost around $2,000 — far less than the retainer of a crisis communications expert.
An initial slate of cases includes objections against the New York Times, for reporting on how Thiel’s fellow traveller David Sacks, former PayPal chief operating officer and Donald Trump’s former “AI and Crypto Czar,” uses his White House position to benefit Silicon Valley connections; The Wall Street Journal for its revelations about the doodle contributed by Donald Trump to Jeffrey Epstein’s birthday book (a case recently dismissed by a federal judge); and British reporter Hannah Broughton for an aggregated story in the UK tabloid the Mirror about allegations that Amazon workers were told to continue working while a colleague lay dead on the warehouse floor. A smattering of social media provocateurs (Candace Owens) and politicians (Bernie Sanders) round out the roster, but the aggregate effect is indisputable: Thiel’s animus was about journalism all along. Indeed, the Objection.ai team couldn't be clearer about that.
“Gawker was not unique,” writes D’Souza on the company’s website. “It was simply the first large media company to be tested against reality in the age of clicks, outrage, and algorithmic amplification. Since then, the same structural failure has spread everywhere.”
“Peter Thiel and I … did not just fight Gawker,” he goes on. “ — We demonstrated that facts still mattered if someone was willing to enforce them.”
This is worse than revisionism. D’Souza is banking on everyone having forgotten that the Hulk Hogan case had nothing to do with “reality.” It was undisputed that the sex tape published by Gawker was real. The original suit, which failed, was for copyright infringement and the ultimate $140 million award that bankrupted the company was for invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional harm.
This foundational lie is important, because it is a warning against the temptation to engage Objection.ai on the merits. It would be easy enough to conduct a good faith debate to take at face value D’Souza’s argument that tech platforms and algorithms amplify false claims to millions, that courts are expensive and slow, media ombuds toothless, and fact-checkers partisan. And it would not be hard to demonstrate that he is harnessing widely shared concerns about a disordered information environment to mobilize support for an AI powered justice system controlled by a hyperpartisan private company with a track record of attacking the very institutions that are holding the line on consensus reality.
It would also be a mistake. There is nothing good faith about this effort. Rather, it is classic Thiel: an attempt to hack the principles of accountability, and turn them against journalism. Leave it to his less sophisticated Silicon Valley peers to rail against the media, create in house news outlets or buy them. The PayPal co-founder is going for the heart of the system, and financing infrastructure that will enable anyone who can afford a used Honda Civic to launch a harassment campaign, cloaked in the language of legitimate investigation. James O’Keefe, but with the judicial rather than journalistic process as its governing metaphor.
It will be tempting, too, to question the likely financial sustainability of Objection. That will be the least of its founders' concerns. The for-profit structure supports a story about the company’s purpose. It may work, or not, but its goals are nonfinancial. We reached out to Thiel for comment on Objection.ai before publication and will update this article as soon as he responds.
Providing funding, alongside Thiel, is Balaji Srinivasan, the investor and author of “The Network State,” a book about social networks with “a sense of national consciousness” replacing the nation state. He once outlined an early version of the Objection.ai model in an email to the far right theorist Curtis Yarvin about dealing with critical coverage. "If things get hot,” he suggested “it may be interesting to sic the Dark Enlightenment audience on a single vulnerable hostile reporter to dox them and turn them inside out with hostile reporting sent to *their* advertisers/friends/contacts."
These men understand the limits of the Gawker verdict’s impact. It bankrupted the company, a personal victory for Thiel, but perhaps the least important outcome of the case. At a more systemic level, it struck fear into the hearts of media insurers and newsroom counsel, focusing attention on third party litigation finance as potential threat.
If people with limitless resources could sponsor litigation against news organizations they disliked, constitutional protections would be no match for the sheer cost and complexity of defense.
Now, they’ve found an AI-assisted way to supercharge those effects.
The Gawker case routed around the First Amendment by relying on a privacy claim. Objection.ai does so by building a hallucination of the legal process. Any journalist foolish enough to agree to binding arbitration by the company probably deserves what they get, but that will be a vanishingly small minority. For those who don’t, a phone call, or a knock on the door from a former FBI agent, or defense intelligence operative, will be chilling, and an ex-parte verdict rendered by Thiel’s custom-tuned AI will act as a cudgel on social media and via traditional PR. Journalists will be assigned a “trust score” to act as an additional goad.
In an environment of less peril for press freedom, it might be easy to laugh off Objection.ai as the confection of a thin-skinned millenarian. Right now, with the crony capture of broadcast news far advanced, swathes of the tech community openly hostile to journalism, and the White House onside, it would be wise to take it seriously. That starts with seeing it for what it is, and refusing to engage with a process which, unlike the real courts, Peter Thiel has no legal power to compel.
Natalia Antelava
Isobel Cockerell
The post Peter Thiel is building a parallel justice system — Powered by AI appeared first on Coda Story.
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