WEBVTT 00:00:04.660 --> 00:00:07.679 You're listening to a stage talk titled Synthetic 00:00:07.679 --> 00:00:11.539 Propaganda, tracing an AI driven political operation. 00:00:12.019 --> 00:00:14.259 This week we were joined by the Bureau of Investigative 00:00:14.259 --> 00:00:18.160 Journalism's Effie Webb. Effie specialises in 00:00:18.160 --> 00:00:21.579 investigating big tech and AI. In this talk, 00:00:21.660 --> 00:00:24.500 she shares how she uncovered a far right political 00:00:24.500 --> 00:00:28.440 party that had paid for an AI influencer. and 00:00:28.440 --> 00:00:31.359 provides advice on how to investigate AI propaganda 00:00:31.359 --> 00:00:34.659 without amplifying it further. You can find links 00:00:34.659 --> 00:00:36.979 to all the resources mentioned in the talk in 00:00:36.979 --> 00:00:39.240 the podcast description. This talk was hosted 00:00:39.240 --> 00:00:42.179 by me, Charlotte Mar, on Thursday the 16th of 00:00:42.179 --> 00:00:45.179 April, 2026, in the Bill and Kat Discord server. 00:00:53.719 --> 00:00:56.679 So over the past few years, we've seen rapid 00:00:56.679 --> 00:00:59.240 advances in generative AI reshape everything 00:00:59.240 --> 00:01:01.719 from media production to political communication. 00:01:02.320 --> 00:01:04.760 At the same time, concerns about disinformation, 00:01:05.099 --> 00:01:07.120 influence operations and the integrity of online 00:01:07.120 --> 00:01:10.519 spaces have only intensified, particularly as 00:01:10.519 --> 00:01:12.840 new tools make it easier to create persuasive 00:01:12.840 --> 00:01:16.299 and scalable forms of content. Today's conversation 00:01:16.299 --> 00:01:19.060 sits at that intersection. Our guest is Effie 00:01:19.060 --> 00:01:21.879 Webb, an investigative reporter with the Bureau 00:01:21.879 --> 00:01:24.719 of Investigative Journalism. whose recent work 00:01:24.719 --> 00:01:26.739 explores how emerging technologies are being 00:01:26.739 --> 00:01:29.359 used within political campaigning in the UK. 00:01:29.980 --> 00:01:32.420 Her reporting raises important questions, not 00:01:32.420 --> 00:01:35.060 just about what's possible with AI, but about 00:01:35.060 --> 00:01:37.620 transparency, accountability and how we understand 00:01:37.620 --> 00:01:40.099 influence in an increasingly synthetic media 00:01:40.099 --> 00:01:42.719 environment. Effie will talk to us about her 00:01:42.719 --> 00:01:44.959 reporting and what some experts are calling a 00:01:44.959 --> 00:01:47.480 first -of -its -kind case, where a registered 00:01:47.480 --> 00:01:50.859 political party paid for content from an AI -generated 00:01:50.859 --> 00:01:53.799 influencer pushing ideological messaging. Before 00:01:53.799 --> 00:01:55.859 we begin, a short reminder that you can place 00:01:55.859 --> 00:01:57.939 your questions in the chat accessible in the 00:01:57.939 --> 00:02:00.140 right -hand corner of your screen. But please 00:02:00.140 --> 00:02:02.640 remember that this is being audio recorded for 00:02:02.640 --> 00:02:04.959 the podcast. So if you don't want me to mention 00:02:04.959 --> 00:02:07.379 your username, please add that as a note in your 00:02:07.379 --> 00:02:12.479 question. Okay. Effie, over to you. I will mute 00:02:12.479 --> 00:02:18.639 my mic. Thanks, Charlie. Yeah, I do shout if 00:02:18.639 --> 00:02:22.080 my audio goes a bit dodge, but it should be okay. 00:02:23.159 --> 00:02:27.120 Yeah, great to be here. Yeah, as you said, I'm 00:02:27.120 --> 00:02:28.939 an AI reporter at the Bureau of Investigative 00:02:28.939 --> 00:02:31.680 Journalism. For those who don't know the Bureau, 00:02:31.919 --> 00:02:34.780 we're an impact -driven non -profit newsroom 00:02:34.780 --> 00:02:38.300 based in London. And yeah, I've been increasingly 00:02:38.300 --> 00:02:42.539 focused on AI influence operations and political 00:02:42.539 --> 00:02:47.159 campaigning, which brings me to this Danny Bones 00:02:47.370 --> 00:02:52.469 So yeah, in a nutshell, the last few months I 00:02:52.469 --> 00:02:56.969 traced this anonymous influence operation essentially 00:02:56.969 --> 00:03:00.830 behind an AI rapper, political activist, commentator, 00:03:01.009 --> 00:03:05.509 et cetera, to a registered political party, Advance 00:03:05.509 --> 00:03:09.469 UK, and their kind of by -election campaign in 00:03:09.469 --> 00:03:14.949 Manchester. So I thought it would be maybe interesting 00:03:14.949 --> 00:03:18.289 if we could just like listen to some Danny Bones 00:03:18.289 --> 00:03:24.330 content okay so i'm gonna try and play a Danny 00:03:24.330 --> 00:03:28.210 Bones song this might work so this was his most 00:03:28.210 --> 00:04:03.740 recent track called UK So yeah, that's Steiny 00:04:03.740 --> 00:04:09.219 Bones' latest song. How do I come across Steiny 00:04:09.219 --> 00:04:13.879 Bones? Maybe that's useful to... go through first. 00:04:13.979 --> 00:04:16.620 So I found him on Spotify. It was in a Discover 00:04:16.620 --> 00:04:19.779 Weekly playlist. I'd been kind of keeping an 00:04:19.779 --> 00:04:23.860 eye on AI -generated music. So I think Spotify 00:04:23.860 --> 00:04:26.839 sort of picked up on that. I've been listening 00:04:26.839 --> 00:04:29.860 to like a bit of the Crew Con Gazette stuff as 00:04:29.860 --> 00:04:34.300 well, because that had made some headlines. And 00:04:34.300 --> 00:04:36.879 yeah, I'd listened to This is England, which 00:04:36.879 --> 00:04:40.199 is by far Danny Bone's most sort of popular song. 00:04:40.560 --> 00:04:43.819 Um, and yeah, really good production quality, 00:04:44.100 --> 00:04:46.620 production value, kind of like mixing and mastering 00:04:46.620 --> 00:04:50.819 that was professional, like authentic sounding 00:04:50.819 --> 00:04:55.600 vocals, no kind of trace of an AI slot type song. 00:04:56.160 --> 00:05:01.339 Um, press on the profile and like notice the 00:05:01.339 --> 00:05:04.300 artist profile image was an AI generated image. 00:05:04.899 --> 00:05:07.480 Um, I thought that was interesting given that 00:05:07.480 --> 00:05:12.100 like Aside from that sign of AI, there were hundreds 00:05:12.100 --> 00:05:14.600 of thousands of streams across the four songs, 00:05:14.600 --> 00:05:19.560 I think it was at that point. And he not verified 00:05:19.560 --> 00:05:21.980 as an artist because Spotify doesn't do verification 00:05:21.980 --> 00:05:25.819 anymore, but registered as an artist. And Spotify 00:05:25.819 --> 00:05:29.519 didn't seem to be kind of demoting the artist 00:05:29.519 --> 00:05:33.100 for being AI type thing. So then I went to social 00:05:33.100 --> 00:05:36.459 media and saw he... he, it was across sort of 00:05:36.459 --> 00:05:39.120 all the mainstream platforms and having only 00:05:39.120 --> 00:05:43.480 started in kind of November time was cultivating 00:05:43.480 --> 00:05:48.319 a like pretty healthy following by posting kind 00:05:48.319 --> 00:05:52.040 of mostly I'd say YouTube shorts and TikToks, 00:05:52.120 --> 00:05:56.879 but also kind of reels and videos on Twitter 00:05:56.879 --> 00:06:04.199 of kind of anti -migrant, anti -Muslim dog whistle 00:06:04.199 --> 00:06:08.319 type content, very conspiracy adjacent stuff 00:06:08.319 --> 00:06:11.579 a lot of the time, all with this kind of patriotic 00:06:11.579 --> 00:06:16.259 undertone and sort of implicit or explicit calls 00:06:16.259 --> 00:06:20.319 that we should all kind of take back our country 00:06:20.319 --> 00:06:25.360 and fight for, yeah, fight for the sort of British 00:06:25.360 --> 00:06:29.709 or Britain that wants wars type thing. What I 00:06:29.709 --> 00:06:31.490 found in, again, I'm going to just quickly share 00:06:31.490 --> 00:06:34.649 my screen because I think the way that Danny 00:06:34.649 --> 00:06:40.970 Bones is presented, yeah, so he has like kind 00:06:40.970 --> 00:06:43.470 of a roster of different looks that his creators 00:06:43.470 --> 00:06:45.990 have kind of given him on purpose. So he's kind 00:06:45.990 --> 00:06:50.209 of like sometimes a religious figure. Sometimes 00:06:50.209 --> 00:06:53.730 he's like more of a gritty grime artist. Sometimes 00:06:53.730 --> 00:06:57.550 he's a bit more of like a skinhead type rioter. 00:06:59.229 --> 00:07:02.689 And yeah, I think that's not an accident. I think 00:07:02.689 --> 00:07:07.449 he's not made to be... this isn't a deep fake 00:07:07.449 --> 00:07:10.569 situation. He is a kind of persona and character 00:07:10.569 --> 00:07:13.529 that can kind of be repurposed and remixed for 00:07:13.529 --> 00:07:18.850 whatever audience is the target. And in this 00:07:18.850 --> 00:07:22.670 case, it is kind of young British men, overwhelmingly, 00:07:22.850 --> 00:07:25.750 but more on that later. I'll stop sharing now. 00:07:28.460 --> 00:07:31.480 I was interested in this Danny Bones character, 00:07:31.540 --> 00:07:34.779 but at this point it was just a curiosity. At 00:07:34.779 --> 00:07:38.959 the same time, I'd been looking at the use of 00:07:38.959 --> 00:07:42.959 AI and synthetic media by political groups and 00:07:42.959 --> 00:07:46.480 particularly right -wing political groups and 00:07:46.480 --> 00:07:51.339 came across Advanced UK's recent shorts they 00:07:51.339 --> 00:07:55.490 were posting on on Twitter, sorry, and on TikTok 00:07:55.490 --> 00:07:59.649 actually, in this kind of attempt to appeal to 00:07:59.649 --> 00:08:04.290 a younger population and just a bit of context 00:08:04.290 --> 00:08:08.670 about what Advanced UK are for those who probably 00:08:08.670 --> 00:08:10.689 understand we've never heard of them. They are 00:08:10.689 --> 00:08:14.689 a kind of fringe splinter party headed by Ben 00:08:14.689 --> 00:08:17.189 Habib, who's the former co -deputy leader of 00:08:17.189 --> 00:08:21.389 Reform UK, Nigel Farage's party. They're sort 00:08:21.389 --> 00:08:25.129 of Christian nationalist, they would dispute 00:08:25.129 --> 00:08:27.329 the term far -right, but I would say far -right 00:08:27.329 --> 00:08:31.550 party whose policies all sort of center on this 00:08:31.550 --> 00:08:36.529 idea that mass immigration is a national emergency 00:08:36.529 --> 00:08:39.769 and that sort of mass deportation is the solution, 00:08:40.590 --> 00:08:48.350 alongside a sort of policy to kind of adopt widespread 00:08:48.350 --> 00:08:54.059 Christianity and sort of pious other religions. 00:08:55.080 --> 00:08:56.679 And that's kind of where I think the Diabones 00:08:56.679 --> 00:08:59.379 character has interesting parallels. But at this 00:08:59.379 --> 00:09:02.879 point, I was just noticing Advanced UK's use 00:09:02.879 --> 00:09:06.480 of AI. It wasn't the, I hadn't connected the 00:09:06.480 --> 00:09:11.159 two, so to speak. And it was in late January 00:09:11.159 --> 00:09:13.659 when Advanced UK were launching their culture 00:09:13.659 --> 00:09:17.159 and immigration policies. They posted a two minute 00:09:17.159 --> 00:09:21.889 video, which was a of AI -generated video. It 00:09:21.889 --> 00:09:24.990 was a montage of British culture and history, 00:09:25.809 --> 00:09:29.509 all parts of it at least, with various wars. 00:09:30.149 --> 00:09:34.590 So second world war soldiers, Anglo -Saxon warriors, 00:09:34.889 --> 00:09:38.429 et cetera. And there was a gritty voiceover that 00:09:38.429 --> 00:09:42.929 urged people to, or not urge people to vote advance, 00:09:42.990 --> 00:09:45.190 but say that an advanced UK government would 00:09:45.190 --> 00:09:49.179 be able to bring back bringing Britain back to 00:09:49.179 --> 00:09:54.200 its kind of, um, uh, you know, a time when, when 00:09:54.200 --> 00:09:58.620 it was better type thing. Um, and this, yeah, 00:09:58.820 --> 00:10:01.759 this video for whatever reason, sort of resembled 00:10:01.759 --> 00:10:05.379 the Danny Bones type content that I had been 00:10:05.379 --> 00:10:08.000 kind of keeping on as well. And the same kind 00:10:08.000 --> 00:10:11.759 of style and overlay. It also had a similar voiceover 00:10:11.759 --> 00:10:16.159 and the backing track as well. like was actually 00:10:16.159 --> 00:10:21.360 the instrumental to the This is England song, 00:10:21.360 --> 00:10:23.620 which is like his most popular song. But that 00:10:23.620 --> 00:10:25.759 kind of subtle detail was kind of easy to miss. 00:10:25.759 --> 00:10:27.519 And I had to re -watch this video a couple of 00:10:27.519 --> 00:10:30.360 times before, before really clocking on to that. 00:10:31.179 --> 00:10:33.700 And then right at the end of the video, a logo 00:10:33.700 --> 00:10:37.539 or, you know, a text overlay for the Node project 00:10:37.539 --> 00:10:42.179 flashes up for a second. The Node project, I 00:10:42.179 --> 00:10:46.009 then kind of uh, searched up and found that they 00:10:46.009 --> 00:10:48.230 were the sort of, they described themselves as 00:10:48.230 --> 00:10:50.990 a collective. So the influence collective behind, 00:10:51.029 --> 00:10:54.450 um, this Danny Bones kind of character or persona, 00:10:54.669 --> 00:10:57.850 if you like, um, very, I mean, they've changed 00:10:57.850 --> 00:11:00.470 their website now, but the website in there in 00:11:00.470 --> 00:11:03.690 its original form was this very slick boutique 00:11:03.690 --> 00:11:07.129 style, um, influence agency type website, one 00:11:07.129 --> 00:11:09.350 that you might expect a kind of high -end modeling, 00:11:09.350 --> 00:11:13.149 um, agency to have, um, with yeah, Danny Bones 00:11:13.149 --> 00:11:18.090 kind of plastered over the front of it and at 00:11:18.090 --> 00:11:20.970 the same time said, intentionally being very 00:11:20.970 --> 00:11:23.009 vague, both in its language about what it does 00:11:23.009 --> 00:11:28.409 and who's behind it and sort of also where it's 00:11:28.409 --> 00:11:32.509 based. There was nothing in terms of clues there. 00:11:33.190 --> 00:11:37.549 So yeah, I was really interested in what this 00:11:37.549 --> 00:11:39.610 node project thing was because now we had a kind 00:11:39.610 --> 00:11:44.100 of indication that um, at the very least, Advanced 00:11:44.100 --> 00:11:48.580 UK were using, um, node project content in their, 00:11:49.059 --> 00:11:52.580 in at least one of their videos. Um, so there 00:11:52.580 --> 00:11:55.980 were two questions, I suppose. One was who, like, 00:11:56.000 --> 00:11:57.700 who is the node project? How many people are 00:11:57.700 --> 00:12:00.320 behind it? Where are they based? And two, is 00:12:00.320 --> 00:12:04.320 money being exchanged hands here? So is, is this 00:12:04.320 --> 00:12:09.539 sort of a paid job? Um, or, you know, maybe other 00:12:09.539 --> 00:12:13.870 hypothesis being is advanced UK kind of someone 00:12:13.870 --> 00:12:16.669 in the social media team advanced kind of just 00:12:16.669 --> 00:12:19.889 pirating or copying from the node project. So 00:12:19.889 --> 00:12:23.789 at that point, it became a bit of traditional 00:12:23.789 --> 00:12:26.629 journalism, just calling up advanced UK and being 00:12:26.629 --> 00:12:32.830 like, hi, I'd like to speak to you about your 00:12:32.830 --> 00:12:36.129 AI generated stuff. They were very open with 00:12:36.129 --> 00:12:39.370 me about their relationship to the node project. 00:12:39.830 --> 00:12:43.590 They did tell me that they had paid for that 00:12:43.590 --> 00:12:46.809 two minute video I mentioned earlier. They didn't 00:12:46.809 --> 00:12:49.070 tell me how much, although they did say that 00:12:49.070 --> 00:12:52.610 it was not an insignificant amount of money. 00:12:53.029 --> 00:12:54.809 I did press them a bit on how much they paid, 00:12:54.889 --> 00:12:58.169 but they wouldn't go into that. I then spoke 00:12:58.169 --> 00:13:00.789 to someone else at advance who kind of is more 00:13:00.789 --> 00:13:02.889 on the social media end of things. And they said 00:13:02.889 --> 00:13:04.870 that it wasn't just that video, but it was a 00:13:04.870 --> 00:13:08.370 series of videos. which was significant because 00:13:08.370 --> 00:13:10.529 the other series of videos they commissioned 00:13:10.529 --> 00:13:16.710 from the Node Project were sort of their campaigning 00:13:16.710 --> 00:13:20.730 videos for this by -election, which was the Gortland 00:13:20.730 --> 00:13:24.789 -Denton by -election where Advance UK were contesting 00:13:24.789 --> 00:13:28.590 their first ever seat. And the Node Project made 00:13:28.590 --> 00:13:33.309 at least four videos, sort of one that kind of 00:13:33.309 --> 00:13:36.379 fronted their candidate, Nick Buckley. another 00:13:36.379 --> 00:13:39.019 that kind of showed this again, similar to sort 00:13:39.019 --> 00:13:41.899 of the Danny Bones type content, a very dystopian 00:13:41.899 --> 00:13:45.399 AI generated Britain, whilst urging people to 00:13:45.399 --> 00:13:49.179 register to vote in the upcoming by -election. 00:13:50.460 --> 00:13:55.299 So yeah, at this point it was clear that it was 00:13:55.299 --> 00:13:59.399 confirmed that by a lease advance that there 00:13:59.399 --> 00:14:03.799 had been a sort of paid payment here. We didn't 00:14:03.799 --> 00:14:07.240 know how much. there was a contact email for 00:14:07.240 --> 00:14:09.120 the Node project and that was kind of all there 00:14:09.120 --> 00:14:11.759 was in terms of how to get in touch with them. 00:14:12.139 --> 00:14:16.220 They were also relatively happy to engage in 00:14:16.220 --> 00:14:19.960 conversation over email, not over video, very 00:14:19.960 --> 00:14:23.620 keen to keep their anonymity as were advanced. 00:14:23.879 --> 00:14:27.960 So advanced were also, although they'd claimed 00:14:27.960 --> 00:14:30.840 they'd met some of the people behind the Node 00:14:30.840 --> 00:14:35.990 project, they were They refused to sort of give 00:14:35.990 --> 00:14:38.730 anything away in terms of who they were or where 00:14:38.730 --> 00:14:42.769 they were based, et cetera. So at that point, 00:14:42.870 --> 00:14:44.830 it was kind of a judgment call. Like we had enough 00:14:44.830 --> 00:14:47.429 to publish a story or more than enough to publish 00:14:47.429 --> 00:14:51.570 a story. We had an AI rapper, Danny Bones, an 00:14:51.570 --> 00:14:57.070 enormous influence operation and a fringe political 00:14:57.070 --> 00:14:59.950 party that has had the backing of Elon Musk paying 00:14:59.950 --> 00:15:04.789 for election campaign content that is AI generated. 00:15:06.350 --> 00:15:11.490 Almost for my own curiosity, I wanted to get 00:15:11.490 --> 00:15:17.049 to the bottom of who was behind the Node project 00:15:17.049 --> 00:15:22.029 and indeed how many people there were. So yeah, 00:15:22.029 --> 00:15:27.000 as I'd been sort of tracking and monitoring the 00:15:27.000 --> 00:15:31.820 node project. I'd been tracking and kind of just 00:15:31.820 --> 00:15:35.700 making a huge kind of spreadsheet of who were 00:15:35.700 --> 00:15:37.539 the most frequent engagers, who was commenting 00:15:37.539 --> 00:15:40.600 the most, who was donating. So they had a buy 00:15:40.600 --> 00:15:43.039 me a coffee donation page set up, who were kind 00:15:43.039 --> 00:15:46.759 of like the early donators on that. And, you 00:15:46.759 --> 00:15:51.840 know, just searching as well on Meta's ad library 00:15:51.840 --> 00:15:55.649 and uh, TikTok's, TikTok's ad library as well. 00:15:55.649 --> 00:15:58.250 So that was useful in two ways. Meta's ad library 00:15:58.250 --> 00:16:01.289 showed me who, well, one that there was the node 00:16:01.289 --> 00:16:05.049 project were paying for ads to like paid for, 00:16:05.129 --> 00:16:07.809 I think it was five ads for, to yeah, to promote 00:16:07.809 --> 00:16:11.129 themselves. Um, and they were targeting 18 to 00:16:11.129 --> 00:16:15.529 35 year old UK men, most of them. Uh, and then 00:16:15.529 --> 00:16:18.190 TikTok was useful in another way because it showed 00:16:18.190 --> 00:16:23.269 that the, someone had paid for a like not an 00:16:23.269 --> 00:16:26.289 ad, hashtag ad type thing, but someone had boosted 00:16:26.289 --> 00:16:29.049 some node project content and this was a particular 00:16:29.049 --> 00:16:34.029 person called AJ. And AJ had come up in my like 00:16:34.029 --> 00:16:38.610 earlier kind of network mapping of kind of particularly 00:16:38.610 --> 00:16:42.590 enthusiastic and committed followers, I suppose. 00:16:43.169 --> 00:16:48.190 So it then became a question of, is this person 00:16:48.190 --> 00:16:54.269 a super fan or is he a member of the node project 00:16:54.269 --> 00:16:56.190 or, you know, node project themselves. And it 00:16:56.190 --> 00:17:01.210 was very, um, it was interesting because I think 00:17:01.210 --> 00:17:04.329 there were some behaviors or things being posted 00:17:04.329 --> 00:17:07.809 that did, um, that resemble just kind of fan 00:17:07.809 --> 00:17:12.529 behavior. So resharing, reposting, um, liking, 00:17:12.829 --> 00:17:15.730 engaging, et cetera. There were others that went 00:17:15.730 --> 00:17:19.779 a step further. So on their personal accounts, 00:17:20.259 --> 00:17:23.680 particularly on TikTok, on threads as well, posting. 00:17:24.880 --> 00:17:27.700 I remember distinctly there was a Node Project 00:17:27.700 --> 00:17:30.059 t -shirt, or there was a t -shirt with the Node 00:17:30.059 --> 00:17:33.599 Project logo on it that I hadn't seen and was 00:17:33.599 --> 00:17:37.660 not apparent at all on any of the Node Project 00:17:37.660 --> 00:17:41.759 or Danny Bones platforms, but only on AJ's platforms. 00:17:41.960 --> 00:17:45.220 So that struck me as very strange behavior for 00:17:45.220 --> 00:17:49.200 someone who was just a fan. Um, I did get in 00:17:49.200 --> 00:17:53.039 touch with both AJ and the Node project, um, 00:17:53.099 --> 00:17:55.480 Stokes people, possibly the same people about 00:17:55.480 --> 00:17:59.440 this and they both denied, um, his involvement 00:17:59.440 --> 00:18:02.119 and said that he, yeah, he was, he was nothing 00:18:02.119 --> 00:18:04.759 more than a fan. Um, the story did shift a few 00:18:04.759 --> 00:18:08.359 times. So, um, there was a lot of back and forth. 00:18:08.579 --> 00:18:11.519 Um, but yeah, when it came to publishing, it 00:18:11.519 --> 00:18:13.640 was a judgment call that we didn't quite have 00:18:13.640 --> 00:18:19.750 a smoking gun to say definitively. this is the 00:18:19.750 --> 00:18:23.369 node project, here you go. Because again, it 00:18:23.369 --> 00:18:27.150 seems like there's not a kind of zero chance 00:18:27.150 --> 00:18:29.369 that there isn't at least more than one person 00:18:29.369 --> 00:18:34.609 involved in this type thing. And we did mention 00:18:34.609 --> 00:18:40.890 him in the piece though. So that was kind of... 00:18:40.589 --> 00:18:42.769 That was worth noting, but we didn't want to 00:18:42.769 --> 00:18:44.990 kind of just pin it on someone when it could 00:18:44.990 --> 00:18:48.789 be a larger operation. Maybe I will leave it 00:18:48.789 --> 00:18:52.970 there for now. And yeah, there's a lot more in 00:18:52.970 --> 00:18:56.049 terms of what happened after. But yeah, Charlie, 00:18:56.069 --> 00:18:59.509 if you want to. Yeah, I think people in the comments 00:18:59.509 --> 00:19:01.809 are just digging into the NOE project right now. 00:19:02.029 --> 00:19:05.890 I posted their websites and people are very interested 00:19:05.890 --> 00:19:09.200 in what they've got to say on it. It's really 00:19:09.200 --> 00:19:15.079 interesting what you were saying about just the 00:19:15.079 --> 00:19:18.380 volume of this and the role that AI is playing. 00:19:19.099 --> 00:19:21.480 We'd spoken in the comments, particularly about 00:19:21.480 --> 00:19:24.440 how it's not just a UK focused issue. We've also 00:19:24.440 --> 00:19:29.140 got, Bellingcat recently covered, how AI generations 00:19:29.140 --> 00:19:32.279 were being used to spread hate speech in India 00:19:32.279 --> 00:19:35.720 around election candidates and how troublesome 00:19:35.720 --> 00:19:40.119 that is. Today, the Foreign Press Association 00:19:40.119 --> 00:19:44.119 put out a statement on the IDF using AI to change 00:19:44.119 --> 00:19:48.519 an image of a journalist. It's kind of terrifying 00:19:48.519 --> 00:19:52.619 how much this is seeping into politics. In regards 00:19:52.619 --> 00:19:56.079 to this particular operation, how sophisticated 00:19:56.079 --> 00:19:59.039 is it? Are we looking at something that could 00:19:59.039 --> 00:20:03.920 be replicable by other party groups? Or is this 00:20:03.920 --> 00:20:07.259 only something that you think might? operate 00:20:07.259 --> 00:20:10.460 within the UK political structure? Yeah, it's 00:20:10.460 --> 00:20:12.519 a good question and don't think it's unique to 00:20:12.519 --> 00:20:15.819 the UK at all. I can see a world in which Danny 00:20:15.819 --> 00:20:18.900 Bones himself, there's nothing particularly British 00:20:18.900 --> 00:20:23.019 about the Danny Bones character except his British 00:20:23.019 --> 00:20:25.720 outfits. He could easily be used in a Polish 00:20:25.720 --> 00:20:27.559 election. He looks quite Eastern European, a 00:20:27.559 --> 00:20:32.960 lot of people have said. In terms of the AI element, 00:20:33.200 --> 00:20:39.519 I think AI poses a lot of threats to democracy, 00:20:39.720 --> 00:20:42.039 et cetera. This isn't a deep fake situation. 00:20:42.839 --> 00:20:46.140 He does look increasingly hyper real, I think, 00:20:46.160 --> 00:20:49.640 if I came at it fresh. If I was coming at it 00:20:49.640 --> 00:20:54.740 fresh now, I would probably have taken a step 00:20:54.740 --> 00:20:56.799 back and been like, is that real? Is it not? 00:20:57.619 --> 00:21:01.319 But back in January, there were very clear AI 00:21:01.319 --> 00:21:05.660 giveaways, especially with the the music videos. 00:21:05.859 --> 00:21:08.660 I think it is quite a sophisticated operation. 00:21:08.880 --> 00:21:13.099 I think the music in particular. So I wanted 00:21:13.099 --> 00:21:16.160 to know kind of, yeah, is this just a case of 00:21:16.160 --> 00:21:18.640 they're downloading a commercial AI music tool? 00:21:18.720 --> 00:21:20.980 So like some of the mainstream ones like Suno 00:21:20.980 --> 00:21:25.180 or UDO. I don't know if you pronounce that right, 00:21:25.299 --> 00:21:28.619 but yeah, UDO and Suno. I downloaded Suno, pasted 00:21:28.619 --> 00:21:32.660 in the lyrics to a Danny Bowen song and within 00:21:32.660 --> 00:21:36.400 like a minute or two had four different tracks 00:21:36.400 --> 00:21:41.920 in four different genres. So like drill, grime, 00:21:42.539 --> 00:21:47.220 acoustic, and they were nowhere near as good 00:21:47.220 --> 00:21:51.359 as Danny Bones sort of stuff. But it did make 00:21:51.359 --> 00:21:54.200 me think, okay, this isn't something where you 00:21:54.200 --> 00:21:59.299 need to be a musician or a complete tech whiz 00:21:59.299 --> 00:22:02.710 to do. Um, and I think, but I do think there's 00:22:02.710 --> 00:22:04.730 something about the Dunnybone stuff that, um, 00:22:04.769 --> 00:22:08.750 is not like, that does kind of put him in a category 00:22:08.750 --> 00:22:13.190 that isn't slot. I also think the character itself 00:22:13.190 --> 00:22:16.150 and the kind of character storytelling and creation 00:22:16.150 --> 00:22:19.269 that goes into it, um, that the creators or creator 00:22:19.269 --> 00:22:21.950 has put quite a lot of thought into in terms 00:22:21.950 --> 00:22:25.170 of making sure both technically that the character 00:22:25.170 --> 00:22:28.650 is consistent from video to video in terms of 00:22:28.650 --> 00:22:34.410 voice and appearance, et cetera, but also the 00:22:34.410 --> 00:22:38.970 political stuff. They are very reactive to the 00:22:38.970 --> 00:22:41.410 current affairs and current events of the day. 00:22:41.490 --> 00:22:43.329 During the Gortons and Denton by -election, there 00:22:43.329 --> 00:22:48.190 was a lot of far -right hate towards the Green 00:22:48.190 --> 00:22:50.809 Party and the various tactics. He was very on 00:22:50.809 --> 00:22:54.130 the money and very quick at putting out those 00:22:54.130 --> 00:23:00.609 videos. Is it sophisticated? Yes. Is it reputable? 00:23:00.950 --> 00:23:04.410 Definitely yes. Is it something that I think 00:23:04.410 --> 00:23:09.690 you could do pretty cheaply? Also, yes. And I 00:23:09.690 --> 00:23:13.950 think that there's nothing to say that we... 00:23:13.950 --> 00:23:16.170 I think the music medium is like maybe the most 00:23:16.170 --> 00:23:18.970 interesting part of this because also I think 00:23:18.970 --> 00:23:22.250 if you're a kind of rapper or a drill slash grime 00:23:22.250 --> 00:23:24.250 artist, you do have a bit more license to kind 00:23:24.250 --> 00:23:27.269 of say the controversial or like push the overton 00:23:27.269 --> 00:23:29.819 window a bit more with like... what you're saying 00:23:29.819 --> 00:23:32.759 as opposed to a traditional influencer word. 00:23:34.039 --> 00:23:40.819 We also saw in Iran with the Lego AI rap propaganda 00:23:40.819 --> 00:23:43.799 that was coming out a few weeks, maybe even still 00:23:43.799 --> 00:23:47.640 is coming out. I think there's just an interesting 00:23:47.640 --> 00:23:51.819 move into the music space because music is so 00:23:51.819 --> 00:23:56.599 visceral and it is catchy and it is memorable 00:23:56.599 --> 00:24:02.569 and it does a bit of political work without a 00:24:02.569 --> 00:24:08.130 listener necessarily approaching it from a political 00:24:08.130 --> 00:24:11.089 space. Yeah, and we've seen recently artists 00:24:11.089 --> 00:24:15.809 deny politicians from using their music as well 00:24:15.809 --> 00:24:18.970 in big political stages. We had a comment earlier 00:24:18.970 --> 00:24:20.750 that said, this is one of the more worrying things 00:24:20.750 --> 00:24:23.549 about AI for me. It lets fringe groups access 00:24:23.549 --> 00:24:26.509 a production quality and even artistry that they 00:24:26.509 --> 00:24:28.329 either couldn't have afforded or they wouldn't 00:24:28.329 --> 00:24:30.349 have been able to find artists willing to make 00:24:30.349 --> 00:24:32.569 things for them, which I think is really relevant. 00:24:33.210 --> 00:24:36.990 We actually had a question about the AI Lego 00:24:36.990 --> 00:24:40.289 videos earlier and since you brought it up, I'll 00:24:40.289 --> 00:24:43.240 mention it. When AI is used by multiple actors 00:24:43.240 --> 00:24:46.039 in a political conflict or war, what can be done 00:24:46.039 --> 00:24:48.480 by both the media and the public in order to 00:24:48.480 --> 00:24:51.519 be able to sift through all the slop? What are 00:24:51.519 --> 00:24:55.259 your thoughts on that particularly? Yeah, it's 00:24:55.259 --> 00:24:58.160 a great question. And I think the media has, 00:24:58.720 --> 00:25:03.440 we have to think carefully about coverage being 00:25:03.440 --> 00:25:07.000 thoughtful, responsible, and that we're not just 00:25:07.000 --> 00:25:09.900 echoing and amplifying. you know, back and forth 00:25:09.900 --> 00:25:13.759 slot between two bad actors or more bad actors. 00:25:14.039 --> 00:25:18.200 I think for this story and this was like, again, 00:25:18.259 --> 00:25:21.460 it was a judgment call in how much kind of, you 00:25:21.460 --> 00:25:24.119 know, there's a balancing act of you want to 00:25:24.119 --> 00:25:26.140 paint the picture of Danny Bones and you want 00:25:26.140 --> 00:25:29.440 to show the sort of harmful Islamophobic, xenophobic, 00:25:29.700 --> 00:25:32.599 racist, far -right, conspiratorial content whilst 00:25:32.599 --> 00:25:36.660 also not just becoming a like unpaid bit of marketing 00:25:36.660 --> 00:25:41.579 for him. I think whenever you report on something 00:25:41.579 --> 00:25:44.319 bad like that, and especially with AI where people 00:25:44.319 --> 00:25:47.559 are curious and they'll go and press on the Spotify 00:25:47.559 --> 00:25:50.119 artist or go to the social media, which we did 00:25:50.119 --> 00:25:53.279 see happen, it's kind of an inevitable balancing 00:25:53.279 --> 00:26:00.819 act that you have to just make a call on. In 00:26:00.819 --> 00:26:03.079 a general sense, I think a good rule of thumb 00:26:03.079 --> 00:26:05.640 is like, think about why you're reporting it. 00:26:05.680 --> 00:26:08.740 Is it just like, huh, like this is, this is kind 00:26:08.740 --> 00:26:13.660 of, this is really funny. This is, um, this is, 00:26:13.740 --> 00:26:16.039 yeah, exactly. This is sort of AI slop being 00:26:16.039 --> 00:26:19.740 done for AI slop sake. I think, yeah, obviously 00:26:19.740 --> 00:26:22.240 because this had an actual registered UK political 00:26:22.240 --> 00:26:25.779 party's funding, it was a story worth telling. 00:26:25.920 --> 00:26:29.319 If it hadn't had the funding, I think There may 00:26:29.319 --> 00:26:34.400 have been an argument to publish anyway because 00:26:34.400 --> 00:26:38.779 it was still being used by the party. But I think 00:26:38.779 --> 00:26:41.759 going forward and knowing now what happened after 00:26:41.759 --> 00:26:43.980 we published and the kind of publicity that Danny 00:26:43.980 --> 00:26:45.980 Bones did end up getting and the Node Project 00:26:45.980 --> 00:26:49.539 did end up kind of making money essentially from 00:26:49.539 --> 00:26:55.539 our coverage, I will approach stories with that 00:26:55.539 --> 00:27:00.279 in mind, I think, going forward. I really want 00:27:00.279 --> 00:27:02.920 to touch on that. But first, maybe you can give 00:27:02.920 --> 00:27:05.859 us a little bit more background on the Node project 00:27:05.859 --> 00:27:08.779 because we have had a few questions about that 00:27:08.779 --> 00:27:14.480 specifically. So someone asked earlier if there 00:27:14.480 --> 00:27:17.420 was anything in the UK that kind of protected 00:27:17.420 --> 00:27:20.440 us from organizations like the Node project. 00:27:21.420 --> 00:27:24.079 And so Hans just asked, is this Node project 00:27:24.079 --> 00:27:27.380 registered with Companies House? And perhaps 00:27:27.380 --> 00:27:28.880 you can just give us a little bit more breakdown 00:27:28.880 --> 00:27:33.279 on the No Project, what it is specifically, and 00:27:33.279 --> 00:27:36.039 then maybe we can go into the impact the article 00:27:36.039 --> 00:27:39.680 had after. Sure. Yeah, that's a good question. 00:27:39.880 --> 00:27:43.500 No, they're not on Companies House, sadly. They 00:27:43.500 --> 00:27:46.279 have a website, that is kind of all they have. 00:27:46.839 --> 00:27:48.039 Well, they've got a website and then they've 00:27:48.039 --> 00:27:50.500 got all their social media platforms where they 00:27:50.500 --> 00:27:53.180 kind of... Um, frame themselves as sort of the 00:27:53.180 --> 00:27:55.819 management of Danny Bones, um, the sort of, yeah, 00:27:56.019 --> 00:28:00.079 artist manager. Um, the, I have archived the 00:28:00.079 --> 00:28:02.180 previous website, so if anyone's interested in 00:28:02.180 --> 00:28:05.200 seeing it in its original form, um, I can, I 00:28:05.200 --> 00:28:08.640 can send that over, but essentially, um, now 00:28:08.640 --> 00:28:10.700 what the website is or, you know, what the known 00:28:10.700 --> 00:28:13.740 project shows is a kind of very stripped back 00:28:13.740 --> 00:28:16.660 thing saying, Hey, sign up for a paid membership 00:28:16.660 --> 00:28:19.950 here. You can be a £20. you can pay 20 pounds 00:28:19.950 --> 00:28:22.710 to be a Node founding member, sorry, a Node early 00:28:22.710 --> 00:28:25.789 member, or you can pay 100 pounds to be a founding 00:28:25.789 --> 00:28:28.230 member and have access to a private telegram 00:28:28.230 --> 00:28:31.089 group and all sorts of perks that are promised 00:28:31.089 --> 00:28:34.730 like that. And you can see that they've made 00:28:34.730 --> 00:28:37.869 kind of over two grand just in the last three 00:28:37.869 --> 00:28:43.250 weeks from that. So clearly there is interest 00:28:43.250 --> 00:28:47.410 in the Node project and In terms of their website, 00:28:48.190 --> 00:28:54.250 I did a Whois lookup and it had this kind of 00:28:54.250 --> 00:28:58.170 domain registration that was shielded by a commercial 00:28:58.170 --> 00:29:03.630 privacy proxy service, like quite standard. So 00:29:03.630 --> 00:29:06.089 it was just a case of getting in touch with them. 00:29:08.649 --> 00:29:11.069 trying to, well, trying to keep the conversation 00:29:11.069 --> 00:29:13.369 going, not being super confrontational and kind 00:29:13.369 --> 00:29:15.430 of like accusatory essentially, but actually 00:29:15.430 --> 00:29:18.829 just like entering a dialogue with them. Um, 00:29:19.029 --> 00:29:22.569 I will say I, and this is kind of a piece to, 00:29:22.569 --> 00:29:25.329 to come, so I won't like say too much, but I 00:29:25.329 --> 00:29:28.349 do have a bit more of a lead now on like who 00:29:28.349 --> 00:29:34.029 is behind the node project. Um, so yeah. more 00:29:34.029 --> 00:29:36.670 to come on that, but in terms of the bit about 00:29:36.670 --> 00:29:39.730 kind of protections we have, there are like, 00:29:40.089 --> 00:29:42.130 I think the key ones are like the Advertising 00:29:42.130 --> 00:29:45.150 Standards Authority and the Electoral Commission, 00:29:45.410 --> 00:29:48.930 both of whom have rules in terms of, you know, 00:29:49.009 --> 00:29:51.130 they weren't, none of these rules really were 00:29:51.130 --> 00:29:53.309 obviously designed for kind of AI influences 00:29:53.309 --> 00:29:56.089 or synthetic influences, but there are rules 00:29:56.089 --> 00:29:58.490 around, you know, disclosure and transparency 00:29:58.490 --> 00:30:01.910 when something is a um, paid for ads and when 00:30:01.910 --> 00:30:03.950 something is, um, particularly when it's a kind 00:30:03.950 --> 00:30:07.170 of political campaign. So, and there is a lot 00:30:07.170 --> 00:30:08.829 of scrutiny on that kind of thing at the moment 00:30:08.829 --> 00:30:10.930 and kind of making sure those rules do kind of 00:30:10.930 --> 00:30:14.829 match the, the AI age. So, um, I think, yeah, 00:30:15.230 --> 00:30:17.750 yes and no in terms of, in terms of kind of protection. 00:30:18.750 --> 00:30:21.029 Thanks for answering that. And you, you've kind 00:30:21.029 --> 00:30:24.769 of hinted a little bit about what happened. Um, 00:30:24.809 --> 00:30:28.430 but perhaps it's a good lesson as well for the 00:30:28.430 --> 00:30:30.950 audience to hear about. what happened after you 00:30:30.950 --> 00:30:36.289 published, because the No Project and a small 00:30:36.289 --> 00:30:38.710 group of crypto traders then tried to turn the 00:30:38.710 --> 00:30:41.329 coverage itself into a source of income, right? 00:30:41.910 --> 00:30:44.369 I'm sharing your second article in the chat now 00:30:44.369 --> 00:30:46.690 for those who might want to read it as you talk 00:30:46.690 --> 00:30:52.089 about this. Yeah, so yeah, I think what I was 00:30:52.089 --> 00:30:54.170 prepared for after we published the first was 00:30:54.170 --> 00:30:58.019 like backlash from the far right, which often 00:30:58.019 --> 00:31:02.059 happens and maybe some personal online attacks 00:31:02.059 --> 00:31:04.200 at me. That didn't happen at all. That was all 00:31:04.200 --> 00:31:06.640 very above board and professional and there was 00:31:06.640 --> 00:31:09.099 no doxing, none of that. What happened instead 00:31:09.099 --> 00:31:11.880 was the Danny Bones character and the Node Project 00:31:11.880 --> 00:31:16.799 very much leaned into the criticism and leaned 00:31:16.799 --> 00:31:20.460 into the controversy. They quickly made a reaction 00:31:20.460 --> 00:31:24.440 video going bit by bit through our article and 00:31:25.160 --> 00:31:29.200 calling out which bits were wrong in their mind 00:31:29.200 --> 00:31:33.559 and then ending this video with a call to support 00:31:33.559 --> 00:31:36.640 the cause and donate and then they had a new 00:31:36.640 --> 00:31:40.680 donation link. There was a series of other videos 00:31:40.680 --> 00:31:44.019 that followed that and you could see they were 00:31:44.019 --> 00:31:46.960 just trying to stir controversy and classic kind 00:31:46.960 --> 00:31:51.779 of tropes like mainstream media kind of left 00:31:51.779 --> 00:31:56.549 state. sponsored kind of stuff were being thrown 00:31:56.549 --> 00:31:59.710 around and sort of accusations we were trying 00:31:59.710 --> 00:32:03.930 to silence him or, yeah, silence Danny, so to 00:32:03.930 --> 00:32:08.069 speak. On a completely separate corner of Twitter 00:32:08.069 --> 00:32:11.210 or, you know, relatively separate corner of Twitter, 00:32:12.089 --> 00:32:15.490 two groups were set up called The Node Project, 00:32:15.849 --> 00:32:19.009 which were sort of, yeah, these crypto speculators 00:32:19.009 --> 00:32:22.730 who saw this stir that had been created around 00:32:22.839 --> 00:32:25.359 our coverage and also the Daily Mail's coverage, 00:32:25.940 --> 00:32:29.279 plus Danny Bones and the Node Project, plus the 00:32:29.279 --> 00:32:34.319 far -right reaction and the back and forth we 00:32:34.319 --> 00:32:41.059 were having. The crypto speculators very shrewdly 00:32:41.059 --> 00:32:44.339 thought this seems like a moment that could be 00:32:44.339 --> 00:32:48.660 flipped into a meme coin or into a lucrative 00:32:48.660 --> 00:32:53.779 crypto opportunity. At the time, I had tracked 00:32:53.779 --> 00:32:58.400 four Danny Bones meme coins that popped up on 00:32:58.400 --> 00:33:02.660 the Solana blockchain created on Pumpfun. And 00:33:02.660 --> 00:33:04.779 I actually just checked before this talk and 00:33:04.779 --> 00:33:09.960 now there are 40. Forty and I think there are 00:33:09.960 --> 00:33:12.339 about a dozen creators behind them. So some of 00:33:12.339 --> 00:33:15.859 them are kind of duplicates or, you know, the 00:33:15.859 --> 00:33:17.859 creator created more than one type thing, but 00:33:17.859 --> 00:33:20.809 still that's... that's a fair amount of coins. 00:33:20.910 --> 00:33:24.809 And this all happened within about 48 hours. 00:33:25.089 --> 00:33:27.730 So like the Danny Bones blackbash happened within 00:33:27.730 --> 00:33:32.150 three hours, the coins popped up. From what I 00:33:32.150 --> 00:33:35.630 could tell and from what I could trace, largely 00:33:35.630 --> 00:33:40.690 from people in the US, there wasn't an indication 00:33:40.690 --> 00:33:45.589 that the people causing the hype and encouraging 00:33:45.589 --> 00:33:49.500 people to buy into these coins were in any way 00:33:49.500 --> 00:33:52.299 kind of connected to advanced UK, anyway kind 00:33:52.299 --> 00:33:56.359 of interested in British politics necessarily, 00:33:56.599 --> 00:34:00.440 but were more kind of just opportunistic and 00:34:00.440 --> 00:34:03.700 rightly seeing like this as a kind of political 00:34:03.700 --> 00:34:07.140 moment that, you know, sitting with parallels 00:34:07.140 --> 00:34:12.360 to a very simple, another situation with this 00:34:12.360 --> 00:34:14.760 Amelia character who also was turned into a Mean 00:34:14.760 --> 00:34:16.460 Boy and I can go into that a little bit more 00:34:16.460 --> 00:34:19.909 if we want, but a few months prior to our story, 00:34:20.389 --> 00:34:23.449 Elon Musk had kind of retweeted about this immediate 00:34:23.449 --> 00:34:27.630 AI character, which had made the mean coins related 00:34:27.630 --> 00:34:32.070 to her extremely lucrative. So I think there 00:34:32.070 --> 00:34:34.369 was a sort of logic that maybe we can make that 00:34:34.369 --> 00:34:39.590 happen again and get endorsement from Musk himself, 00:34:40.110 --> 00:34:42.730 which didn't happen and the coin sort of... um, 00:34:42.789 --> 00:34:44.969 crash and value, um, relatively quickly, but 00:34:44.969 --> 00:34:46.570 they are still, they're still floating around. 00:34:46.969 --> 00:34:51.630 So you never know. So you didn't predict this 00:34:51.630 --> 00:34:55.989 kind of response, um, that it did happen. Has 00:34:55.989 --> 00:34:58.250 it changed the way that you mentioned earlier 00:34:58.250 --> 00:35:00.349 that you might change the way that your report 00:35:00.349 --> 00:35:05.909 going forwards? What kind of concerns or, or 00:35:05.909 --> 00:35:08.170 considerations are you now putting in for this 00:35:08.170 --> 00:35:12.889 next report that you're working on? Yeah, it's 00:35:12.889 --> 00:35:21.750 a good question. I wouldn't dissuade people from 00:35:21.750 --> 00:35:24.190 covering this type of stuff at all. I just think 00:35:24.190 --> 00:35:27.909 it's interesting to be prepared for these different 00:35:27.909 --> 00:35:30.190 types of responses and reactions that aren't 00:35:30.190 --> 00:35:34.389 necessarily the traditional personal attacks, 00:35:34.449 --> 00:35:37.269 but actually might be much more of a kind of 00:35:37.269 --> 00:35:39.869 who's going to try and cash in on the coverage. 00:35:41.590 --> 00:35:44.469 Again, the reason we did that second piece is 00:35:44.469 --> 00:35:51.030 it was a story in itself. We then had a look 00:35:51.030 --> 00:35:54.570 at the whole Node project commercial engine and 00:35:54.570 --> 00:35:59.489 realized there were six revenue streams, commissions 00:35:59.489 --> 00:36:04.389 from Advanced UK, ad hoc donations, both crypto 00:36:04.389 --> 00:36:11.070 and normal. There was the money from Spotify 00:36:11.070 --> 00:36:15.010 and possibly money from X probably. Not, well, 00:36:15.110 --> 00:36:17.070 the other platforms didn't claim that he was, 00:36:17.210 --> 00:36:20.070 they were earning on that. Um, and then obviously 00:36:20.070 --> 00:36:23.110 the crypto hype. So when the sort of 24, 48 hours 00:36:23.110 --> 00:36:25.449 of crypto hype was happening, uh, the node project 00:36:25.449 --> 00:36:28.010 shared their own kind of wallet. So they did 00:36:28.010 --> 00:36:30.329 kind of cash in it to some extent on that or 00:36:30.329 --> 00:36:34.469 at least appeared to. So I think, yeah, it, it 00:36:34.469 --> 00:36:39.489 made the. It almost made the, um, hateful kind 00:36:39.489 --> 00:36:44.329 of side of all this and the kind of, um, yeah, 00:36:44.510 --> 00:36:48.409 sort of, um, political side secondary to the, 00:36:48.409 --> 00:36:51.750 um, economic side, I think. And the, the commercial 00:36:51.750 --> 00:36:54.170 side almost became the more interesting one because 00:36:54.170 --> 00:36:57.309 again, we didn't, we don't know how political 00:36:57.309 --> 00:36:59.889 or how apolitical even, uh, the Node project 00:36:59.889 --> 00:37:02.150 and its actors are. And again, it's something 00:37:02.150 --> 00:37:04.190 we've seen before. My colleague Niamh published 00:37:04.190 --> 00:37:07.920 a story. um, late last year about, uh, individual 00:37:07.920 --> 00:37:10.820 in Sri Lanka who was making a lot of money, um, 00:37:11.880 --> 00:37:16.420 making kind of, uh, AI slop kind of videos targeting, 00:37:16.420 --> 00:37:20.099 um, you know, relatively racist videos targeting, 00:37:20.099 --> 00:37:23.139 um, UK audiences. And not only kind of, he was 00:37:23.139 --> 00:37:25.699 making and distributing them and cashing in on 00:37:25.699 --> 00:37:29.179 that, but he had a kind of, um, program or kind 00:37:29.179 --> 00:37:31.920 of Academy, you can call it, to teach others 00:37:31.920 --> 00:37:34.440 to do it and go viral and make money. So it's, 00:37:34.619 --> 00:37:37.780 yeah, the incentives to do this are very clearly 00:37:37.780 --> 00:37:40.840 financial and you don't need to be a holistically 00:37:40.840 --> 00:37:44.519 aligned, ideologically aligned person to do this. 00:37:44.800 --> 00:37:46.760 So it really could be anyone. So I think that's 00:37:46.760 --> 00:37:49.539 something I'm thinking about more going forward. 00:37:50.840 --> 00:37:54.980 It's a money -making machine. Interesting. Hexnaught 00:37:54.980 --> 00:37:57.650 asked earlier, Really great work from Effie. 00:37:57.769 --> 00:38:00.630 Is there any indication of this type of usage 00:38:00.630 --> 00:38:03.510 of AI propaganda in a highly targeted manner? 00:38:03.929 --> 00:38:06.050 I'm effectively thinking of the combination of 00:38:06.050 --> 00:38:09.170 voter targeting based on area, interest and specific 00:38:09.170 --> 00:38:11.690 propaganda. Edie, do we see a different Danny 00:38:11.690 --> 00:38:14.710 Bones type for users in Belfast versus Cardiff 00:38:14.710 --> 00:38:19.630 versus London? Ooh, that's a very good, yeah, 00:38:19.750 --> 00:38:23.519 that's a great question. The only, yeah, as I 00:38:23.519 --> 00:38:25.599 kind of said earlier, the only indication that 00:38:25.599 --> 00:38:30.139 there are kind of possibly different, different 00:38:30.139 --> 00:38:32.500 Danny Bones for different audiences are those, 00:38:32.500 --> 00:38:35.119 um, kind of different digital skins, if you will, 00:38:35.199 --> 00:38:37.320 that he, that the creators will give him. And 00:38:37.320 --> 00:38:39.480 I do think there is a sense that they're doing 00:38:39.480 --> 00:38:43.579 that on purpose to, so as to not alienate, um, 00:38:43.780 --> 00:38:46.420 part of his audience who clearly are not into 00:38:46.420 --> 00:38:51.409 like UK grime and UK drill. but are more on the 00:38:51.409 --> 00:38:55.170 Christian side of things. And then thirdly, the 00:38:55.170 --> 00:38:59.909 kind of more riot, like overtly political stuff. 00:39:00.329 --> 00:39:04.289 So I think there's definitely kind of slices 00:39:04.289 --> 00:39:08.929 of his audience that he is trying to appeal to 00:39:08.929 --> 00:39:11.710 maybe all at once. It would be really interesting 00:39:11.710 --> 00:39:14.630 actually, I think, yeah, to see where those, 00:39:14.710 --> 00:39:17.550 I mean, the Metta ad data could only really give 00:39:17.550 --> 00:39:20.889 us so much in terms of like how granular that 00:39:20.889 --> 00:39:25.769 is. Obviously Metta used to be better and I think 00:39:25.769 --> 00:39:28.809 other platforms are pretty rubbish in terms of 00:39:28.809 --> 00:39:32.269 targeting, but yeah, no, I think going forward 00:39:32.269 --> 00:39:35.530 with other elections coming up, you know, midterms 00:39:35.530 --> 00:39:38.710 in the US and May elections here, it would be 00:39:38.710 --> 00:39:41.000 really interesting to to have a look at that 00:39:41.000 --> 00:39:43.900 kind of data and, you know, maybe set up some 00:39:43.900 --> 00:39:46.679 kind of profiles based in those places to see 00:39:46.679 --> 00:39:50.739 if different types fetch different kind of profiles, 00:39:50.739 --> 00:39:55.219 so to speak. There's been a bit of chatter in 00:39:55.219 --> 00:39:58.599 the chat about whether you saw any evidence towards 00:39:58.599 --> 00:40:01.360 or any evidence that dismissed a theory that 00:40:01.360 --> 00:40:05.639 this could have any foreign influence involvement. 00:40:06.659 --> 00:40:10.849 Often, you know, you see AI propaganda campaigns 00:40:10.849 --> 00:40:14.710 are coming from foreign sources. Is this just 00:40:14.710 --> 00:40:19.269 a UK based operation or have you seen any indication 00:40:19.269 --> 00:40:22.650 that it could be wider field as well? Yeah, I 00:40:22.650 --> 00:40:26.349 think it's such a hard thing to attribute and 00:40:26.349 --> 00:40:30.150 going off the word of the Node project, I wasn't 00:40:30.150 --> 00:40:34.050 keen to like take their word as final. They said 00:40:34.050 --> 00:40:36.690 they were based in the UK or he, it, whatever, 00:40:36.829 --> 00:40:41.239 said they were based in the UK. Fine. AJ, as 00:40:41.239 --> 00:40:45.219 far as I could tell, is also UK based. Advanced 00:40:45.219 --> 00:40:49.860 UK, Ben Habib himself said he'd met them or had 00:40:49.860 --> 00:40:52.320 met people who are involved in the Node project 00:40:52.320 --> 00:40:57.719 and that they were based up north. So increasingly 00:40:57.719 --> 00:41:01.639 as I was going through this, my hypothesis went 00:41:01.639 --> 00:41:03.840 further and further away from this being a foreign 00:41:03.840 --> 00:41:07.079 interference situation. That's not just it, but 00:41:07.079 --> 00:41:09.679 again, like the whole kind of node project set 00:41:09.679 --> 00:41:12.239 up and the way that they allude to themselves 00:41:12.239 --> 00:41:15.260 is that like, this could be one node of like 00:41:15.260 --> 00:41:19.980 multiple different, um, different kind of, um, 00:41:20.179 --> 00:41:23.599 different nodes. And again, it's a very kind 00:41:23.599 --> 00:41:26.019 of nascent operation only starting November. 00:41:26.340 --> 00:41:28.239 The Danny Bones character is the only kind of, 00:41:28.400 --> 00:41:31.639 you know, is that kind of, um, proof of concept 00:41:31.639 --> 00:41:35.000 potentially. And that could be Danny Bones for, 00:41:35.000 --> 00:41:39.260 for, for other jurisdictions and other kind of 00:41:39.260 --> 00:41:45.119 localities. There is no indication directly of 00:41:45.119 --> 00:41:47.000 it being a foreign thing. I also just think there's 00:41:47.000 --> 00:41:50.659 a hunch that whoever's behind it is so tapped 00:41:50.659 --> 00:41:54.639 into the minutiae of UK news and not in a kind 00:41:54.639 --> 00:41:58.659 of way that anyone outside the UK could just 00:41:58.659 --> 00:42:03.019 tap into, oh, we've got a kind of we've got a 00:42:03.019 --> 00:42:05.519 lot of backlash towards like small boats or whatever, 00:42:05.920 --> 00:42:08.519 but like very, very kind of hyper local news 00:42:08.519 --> 00:42:10.780 and stuff like that. Again, doesn't mean it couldn't 00:42:10.780 --> 00:42:13.480 be a very sophisticated and politically aligned, 00:42:13.480 --> 00:42:15.599 you know, for an actor, but that was another 00:42:15.599 --> 00:42:20.019 kind of heuristic, I suppose. Yeah, it does really 00:42:20.019 --> 00:42:24.539 speak to a lot of British signals, especially 00:42:24.539 --> 00:42:28.559 to do with the far right in the UK. If you are 00:42:28.559 --> 00:42:30.900 interested in learning a little bit more about 00:42:30.900 --> 00:42:33.579 foreign influence operations and disinformation 00:42:33.579 --> 00:42:36.679 campaigns, we did speak to DoubleThink Labs Jasper 00:42:36.679 --> 00:42:40.059 Hewitt, I think last year or the year before 00:42:40.059 --> 00:42:43.739 on the stage talks about Chinese influence operations 00:42:43.739 --> 00:42:46.440 and disinformation campaigns. So I just put the 00:42:46.440 --> 00:42:48.679 link to that in the chat in case you want to 00:42:48.679 --> 00:42:51.239 listen back to that. It's interesting that they 00:42:51.239 --> 00:42:53.980 are based in the UK but aren't on Companies House. 00:42:54.880 --> 00:42:58.610 That's an interesting question. as to why they're 00:42:58.610 --> 00:43:02.090 not there. But I'm sure you might explore that 00:43:02.090 --> 00:43:08.010 in your upcoming piece. We had a simple question, 00:43:08.090 --> 00:43:11.090 they said it earlier in the chat. Did you see 00:43:11.090 --> 00:43:13.789 any evidence that people believed Danny Bones 00:43:13.789 --> 00:43:17.230 was real? Did anyone seem to know it was fake 00:43:17.230 --> 00:43:19.250 and not care? I'm curious about whether we're 00:43:19.250 --> 00:43:23.030 moving towards a time where authenticity doesn't 00:43:23.030 --> 00:43:25.349 matter as much as production value and appeal 00:43:25.349 --> 00:43:29.630 to people's own biases. No, I love that point. 00:43:30.849 --> 00:43:38.230 Regardless of how real he appears, there is still 00:43:38.230 --> 00:43:41.610 a compelling character there. There's catchy 00:43:41.610 --> 00:43:43.389 songs that get stuck in your head that maybe 00:43:43.389 --> 00:43:48.369 then filter into your unconscious biases. I remember 00:43:48.369 --> 00:43:51.070 when he got banned from TikTok because we didn't 00:43:51.070 --> 00:43:52.989 report him, but we asked TikTok for a right of 00:43:52.989 --> 00:43:55.849 reply. I kind of felt sorry for him, the weird 00:43:55.849 --> 00:43:59.570 way, because he did this really... Anyways, I 00:43:59.570 --> 00:44:03.590 was really anthropomorphizing him, despite knowing 00:44:03.590 --> 00:44:07.449 how synthetic he was. And in terms of the first 00:44:07.449 --> 00:44:10.150 part of your question about were there people 00:44:10.150 --> 00:44:12.610 that genuinely thought he was real? Yes, absolutely. 00:44:15.150 --> 00:44:16.969 Most people that asked me about this initially 00:44:16.969 --> 00:44:20.750 is, is this guy real? Who is this guy? Is he 00:44:20.750 --> 00:44:25.389 real? So that's been something to really reckon 00:44:25.389 --> 00:44:28.210 with. And again, for reporting as well, to just 00:44:28.210 --> 00:44:35.329 make that explicit. What's been interesting as 00:44:35.329 --> 00:44:38.530 well is the way he will stitch together footage 00:44:38.530 --> 00:44:43.710 that is real. Again, because he's sort of commentating 00:44:43.710 --> 00:44:45.670 on the day's news, he'll stitch together like 00:44:45.670 --> 00:44:48.929 a normal politician or activist might, stitch 00:44:48.929 --> 00:44:52.440 together real footage. very sophisticatedly place 00:44:52.440 --> 00:44:55.300 himself, the avatar, in that space. So that's 00:44:55.300 --> 00:44:58.420 like Trafalgar Square or something like that. 00:44:59.019 --> 00:45:01.940 So yeah, I wouldn't blame anyone who would kind 00:45:01.940 --> 00:45:04.639 of question whether or not he was real. And I 00:45:04.639 --> 00:45:06.820 think particularly, yeah, as I've said before, 00:45:07.500 --> 00:45:09.559 the music side of things, I'm sure there are 00:45:09.559 --> 00:45:12.559 people who are listening to him on Spotify and 00:45:12.559 --> 00:45:16.659 have no idea that there's like a sort of AI generated 00:45:16.659 --> 00:45:21.010 persona behind him. And same with Advanced UK, 00:45:21.289 --> 00:45:23.550 I don't. I think they were pretty convinced by 00:45:23.550 --> 00:45:26.210 it when I spoke to them. Oh, you think Advanced 00:45:26.210 --> 00:45:30.469 UK thinks he's a real artist? No, I think they 00:45:30.469 --> 00:45:32.269 were just very impressed, as they should be. 00:45:32.469 --> 00:45:35.949 I think they were just like, this is incredible, 00:45:35.949 --> 00:45:39.190 incredible air. I was about to say, I think someone 00:45:39.190 --> 00:45:41.389 needs to chat to them with those. They think 00:45:41.389 --> 00:45:44.110 they're famous for a real creator. You mentioned 00:45:44.110 --> 00:45:46.489 that you'd reported it just now to platforms 00:45:46.489 --> 00:45:50.630 like TikTok and Instagram, right? And they both 00:45:50.630 --> 00:45:53.010 took action. Do you think current moderation 00:45:53.010 --> 00:45:55.809 systems are equipped for this type of content? 00:45:56.590 --> 00:45:59.889 And Spotify, I'm guessing you did report to that 00:45:59.889 --> 00:46:05.289 they didn't take a step. Why was that? Yeah, 00:46:05.289 --> 00:46:08.889 we didn't report in a takedown way to any of 00:46:08.889 --> 00:46:11.110 the platforms. We wouldn't ever do that as journalists. 00:46:12.510 --> 00:46:15.250 We were just generally interested in what's their 00:46:15.250 --> 00:46:18.650 policies on both AI -generated influences like 00:46:18.650 --> 00:46:22.530 this, on disclosure, on AI labeling, and on the 00:46:22.530 --> 00:46:26.010 political links, plus a lot of the more egregious 00:46:26.010 --> 00:46:30.130 hateful content. It was interesting seeing the 00:46:30.130 --> 00:46:34.019 array of or the range of responsiveness from 00:46:34.019 --> 00:46:36.920 the different platforms. So yeah, TikTok completely 00:46:36.920 --> 00:46:38.880 banned the account straight away, which was a 00:46:38.880 --> 00:46:41.519 surprise, I think. You can speculate about why, 00:46:41.519 --> 00:46:43.579 but I think maybe because all of the social media 00:46:43.579 --> 00:46:45.780 companies are under a lot of scrutiny now with 00:46:45.780 --> 00:46:51.300 the kind of litigation in America about addiction 00:46:51.300 --> 00:46:55.760 and social media harms, possibly. Instagram took 00:46:55.760 --> 00:46:59.659 down three of the videos that I've flagged. YouTube... 00:46:59.920 --> 00:47:02.460 didn't take anything down, but they added AI 00:47:02.460 --> 00:47:05.519 disclosure labels, which was interesting and 00:47:05.519 --> 00:47:11.599 not quite the point. YouTube have demonetized 00:47:11.599 --> 00:47:16.480 AI generated videos. Not because of this story, 00:47:16.500 --> 00:47:18.820 but that was sort of earlier in the year. X didn't 00:47:18.820 --> 00:47:21.219 get back to us, surprise, surprise. Spotify, 00:47:21.539 --> 00:47:24.099 and I think this is reasonable from Spotify. 00:47:24.579 --> 00:47:28.250 Spotify didn't act and What Spotify are dealing 00:47:28.250 --> 00:47:30.530 with content wise are just the songs, which aren't 00:47:30.530 --> 00:47:34.650 necessarily like overtly racist or Islamophobic 00:47:34.650 --> 00:47:36.510 or anything. It's the content, which is kind 00:47:36.510 --> 00:47:39.710 of the more on the problematic side of things. 00:47:40.449 --> 00:47:42.289 So Spotify, I had an interesting conversation 00:47:42.289 --> 00:47:45.630 with them where they said, look, there's a whole 00:47:45.630 --> 00:47:50.369 spectrum of artists using AI and not using AI. 00:47:52.250 --> 00:47:55.110 there's no way to tell whether an artist necessarily 00:47:55.110 --> 00:47:57.909 is using AI, which is quite scary. Um, and that 00:47:57.909 --> 00:47:59.969 some artists, you know, they are real, but are 00:47:59.969 --> 00:48:02.489 using AI in their, in their day -to -day kind 00:48:02.489 --> 00:48:06.530 of production, um, uh, methods just like, you 00:48:06.530 --> 00:48:08.650 know, we all are at work and things like that. 00:48:08.690 --> 00:48:11.550 So yeah, I think Spotify quite lacks, um, when 00:48:11.550 --> 00:48:14.349 it comes to AI, but I think in terms of moderating 00:48:14.349 --> 00:48:16.610 the content, it is really difficult to moderate, 00:48:16.610 --> 00:48:21.019 um, music and audio and like more so I would 00:48:21.019 --> 00:48:24.679 say than video just because a lot of the nuance 00:48:24.679 --> 00:48:28.840 and yeah a lot of the meaning can kind of get 00:48:28.840 --> 00:48:33.940 lost in like um kind of rhetoric and you know 00:48:33.940 --> 00:48:36.039 there's then this plausible deniability about 00:48:36.039 --> 00:48:38.380 like oh maybe you didn't actually mean that because 00:48:38.380 --> 00:48:40.579 it's a rap song where you know there's lots of 00:48:40.579 --> 00:48:42.920 it's quite normal to use a slur or it's quite 00:48:42.920 --> 00:48:45.840 normal to use like language that incites violence 00:48:45.840 --> 00:48:48.019 type thing uh whereas it would be much more easy 00:48:48.019 --> 00:48:51.800 to moderate them all. traditional kind of someone 00:48:51.800 --> 00:48:55.340 giving a hot take on YouTube or something. Yeah, 00:48:55.340 --> 00:48:57.619 that's a really interesting point about where 00:48:57.619 --> 00:49:00.840 the lines are when it comes to music. For example, 00:49:01.000 --> 00:49:05.820 the Indian AI generated imagery that was created 00:49:05.820 --> 00:49:08.440 to generate hate around the elections that I 00:49:08.440 --> 00:49:10.219 talked about earlier that we recently released 00:49:10.219 --> 00:49:13.400 an investigation on. All of that was still imagery 00:49:13.400 --> 00:49:18.219 and video imagery that clearly contained very 00:49:18.219 --> 00:49:24.280 hateful messaging and was rightly in some cases 00:49:24.280 --> 00:49:27.519 taken down from platforms. But yeah, as you're 00:49:27.519 --> 00:49:31.679 saying in music, the lines are a little bit more 00:49:31.679 --> 00:49:35.079 blurred and less clear. Somebody shared earlier 00:49:35.079 --> 00:49:38.460 actually a case, another case where an AI generated 00:49:38.460 --> 00:49:43.670 band had released two albums on Spotify before 00:49:43.670 --> 00:49:45.710 they were kind of, before they admitted that 00:49:45.710 --> 00:49:47.630 they were completely air -generated and they 00:49:47.630 --> 00:49:52.210 got over 1 million views, listens. Really interesting 00:49:52.210 --> 00:49:54.769 that Spotify is kind of finding themselves in 00:49:54.769 --> 00:49:59.050 this kind of hole. You mentioned that the lyrics 00:49:59.050 --> 00:50:02.210 to Danny Bones' songs aren't... too explicit. 00:50:02.329 --> 00:50:04.610 What kind of lines are we, what kind of things 00:50:04.610 --> 00:50:08.630 is he talking about specifically? And where do 00:50:08.630 --> 00:50:12.190 you think the lines between kind of creative 00:50:12.190 --> 00:50:15.429 expression and political manipulation, where 00:50:15.429 --> 00:50:18.389 can we draw the line when AI is involved with 00:50:18.389 --> 00:50:22.809 that? Yeah, I'm not sure AI changes the line 00:50:22.809 --> 00:50:26.250 at all. I think AI just makes the accountability 00:50:26.250 --> 00:50:30.449 much more murky. I think where Danny Bones' music 00:50:30.449 --> 00:50:34.449 is, I mean, okay, let's say, it is worth saying, 00:50:34.590 --> 00:50:36.449 I think it has got, and that clip I showed at 00:50:36.449 --> 00:50:38.969 the beginning, it has got a little bit more crossing 00:50:38.969 --> 00:50:42.389 the line, I think. So like, you know, more explicitly 00:50:42.389 --> 00:50:45.909 mentioning, you know, more explicit criticisms 00:50:45.909 --> 00:50:49.489 of immigrants and, you know, the fact that we 00:50:49.489 --> 00:50:51.510 are handing quotes, well, I'm not going to directly 00:50:51.510 --> 00:50:54.969 quote, but like handing out benefits to migrants 00:50:54.969 --> 00:51:00.409 who don't benefit the country type thing and 00:51:00.409 --> 00:51:03.869 getting much more overtly political. I think, 00:51:04.170 --> 00:51:06.849 again, it's the lyrics, but what Spotify I think 00:51:06.849 --> 00:51:09.289 would say is the lyrics by themselves and the 00:51:09.289 --> 00:51:11.510 songs by themselves without the music videos, 00:51:12.570 --> 00:51:16.769 which is kind of a separate beast to Danny Bones 00:51:16.769 --> 00:51:21.409 short form content, are relatively harmless. 00:51:21.670 --> 00:51:24.230 The music videos and the songs together, I would 00:51:24.230 --> 00:51:28.349 say, is where you can kind of pick up on the 00:51:28.349 --> 00:51:32.449 implications he's making in his songs. I think 00:51:32.449 --> 00:51:37.829 he's in his right to be very critical of the 00:51:37.829 --> 00:51:41.750 government and that's totally fine. There's a 00:51:41.750 --> 00:51:43.909 lot of things he says which I think we'd all 00:51:43.909 --> 00:51:49.610 agree with. There's, yeah, there's always, you 00:51:49.610 --> 00:51:54.469 know, like, this isn't to say, like, he shouldn't 00:51:54.469 --> 00:51:58.489 have kind of free speech, etc. But I think there 00:51:58.489 --> 00:52:05.369 is, again, yeah, with an AI musician, there's, 00:52:05.369 --> 00:52:07.530 yeah, there's two levels, or there's two kind 00:52:07.530 --> 00:52:09.929 of layers of accountability that are more difficult, 00:52:10.349 --> 00:52:12.349 both kind of, who do you call out if something 00:52:12.349 --> 00:52:16.090 does? across the line, especially if a party 00:52:16.090 --> 00:52:19.190 has paid for it. Like, is the party going to 00:52:19.190 --> 00:52:22.130 take the responsibility? Is the platform, is 00:52:22.130 --> 00:52:25.429 the musician, is the creator? It's very unclear. 00:52:27.289 --> 00:52:30.869 And the second one being, well, it's music. You 00:52:30.869 --> 00:52:36.829 know, it's a genre that can evoke racial slurs 00:52:36.829 --> 00:52:41.030 or, you know. homophobic slurs, et cetera, which 00:52:41.030 --> 00:52:45.469 do appear at times in his music. But again, it 00:52:45.469 --> 00:52:49.889 hits a minefield and I think Spotify and other 00:52:49.889 --> 00:52:52.949 distributors will have to think carefully about 00:52:52.949 --> 00:52:56.349 whether they want to keep allowing this kind 00:52:56.349 --> 00:53:00.170 of stuff to maybe even take over human artists 00:53:00.170 --> 00:53:01.849 on the platform. I'm not saying that's happened, 00:53:01.849 --> 00:53:04.550 I don't know the stats, but I think YouTube made 00:53:04.550 --> 00:53:09.280 a conscious decision to stop monetizing AI. videos. 00:53:09.380 --> 00:53:11.039 And again, that might be completely commercial 00:53:11.039 --> 00:53:13.619 as opposed to anything ethical, but like, you 00:53:13.619 --> 00:53:15.800 know, you're just, if you just have an onslaught 00:53:15.800 --> 00:53:20.280 of AI slot, then you're not going to get the 00:53:20.280 --> 00:53:22.659 views you want to get. So it might be something 00:53:22.659 --> 00:53:24.639 we, I think it'd be interesting to look out for 00:53:24.639 --> 00:53:28.699 in the next couple months or year or so. Yeah. 00:53:28.699 --> 00:53:31.079 I think it's interesting how throughout this 00:53:31.079 --> 00:53:36.000 talk we've really personified this AI. entity, 00:53:36.000 --> 00:53:39.219 calling in him, you know, talking about someone's 00:53:39.219 --> 00:53:41.860 just put in the chat. Does an AI entity have 00:53:41.860 --> 00:53:44.539 a right to free speech though? All these questions 00:53:44.539 --> 00:53:46.420 are things that we don't necessarily have the 00:53:46.420 --> 00:53:48.880 answers to. And we also don't really know, right, 00:53:48.940 --> 00:53:52.599 how involved Advanced UK were in regards to the 00:53:52.599 --> 00:53:55.019 content of the videos. They could have commissioned 00:53:55.019 --> 00:53:58.099 something, but we're not sure how involved they 00:53:58.099 --> 00:54:01.820 were in the actual creation, just involved in 00:54:01.820 --> 00:54:06.860 the payment and the use of. It's super interesting 00:54:06.860 --> 00:54:10.579 the way that these lines are drawn and how we're 00:54:10.579 --> 00:54:13.980 talking about this kind of entity that has had 00:54:13.980 --> 00:54:17.539 some political sway. If we fast forward five 00:54:17.539 --> 00:54:22.420 years or even 10, what does the Danny Bones playbook 00:54:22.420 --> 00:54:25.840 look like for maturity to you? What are your 00:54:25.840 --> 00:54:30.219 concerns there? What could this mold into? I 00:54:30.219 --> 00:54:34.150 think... even in a year like AI moves so quickly 00:54:34.150 --> 00:54:37.590 as does kind of, well, I think especially the 00:54:37.590 --> 00:54:41.489 right are very kind of more willing already to 00:54:41.489 --> 00:54:46.889 adapt to like newer types of political influence 00:54:46.889 --> 00:54:49.989 and like campaigning and they have been much 00:54:49.989 --> 00:54:53.230 more successful in engaging and using AI. I think 00:54:53.230 --> 00:54:56.170 like what's to say that human influences will 00:54:56.170 --> 00:55:01.510 kind of just be totally totally replaced by these 00:55:01.510 --> 00:55:04.170 AI avatars who are like compelling, who have 00:55:04.170 --> 00:55:07.769 a kind of backstory, who have a believable set 00:55:07.769 --> 00:55:11.530 of political and believable and sort of consistent 00:55:11.530 --> 00:55:17.590 set of sort of values and, you know, to such 00:55:17.590 --> 00:55:19.809 way that, yeah, we have ended up literally personifying 00:55:19.809 --> 00:55:24.920 him it. And, you know, obviously that you know, 00:55:25.480 --> 00:55:28.360 let's assume AI continues the way it is, we'll 00:55:28.360 --> 00:55:33.179 continue to get cheaper, faster, even automated. 00:55:33.539 --> 00:55:35.219 There won't really need to be a human in the 00:55:35.219 --> 00:55:39.019 loop to, to, to, for that kind of thing. And 00:55:39.019 --> 00:55:41.780 I would say, yeah, as we mentioned a bit, like 00:55:41.780 --> 00:55:45.400 I think it will, the next frontier might be like 00:55:45.400 --> 00:55:48.760 hyper personalizing it and maybe, you know, targeting 00:55:48.760 --> 00:55:52.639 becoming, you know, sort of so strong that, you 00:55:52.639 --> 00:55:56.380 know, we're all getting a sort of a different 00:55:56.380 --> 00:56:00.780 version of an influencer or that we don't even, 00:56:01.059 --> 00:56:03.980 you know, that there isn't even a kind of one 00:56:03.980 --> 00:56:06.519 influencer that we're seeing kind of explode, 00:56:06.699 --> 00:56:10.260 but actually kind of a tailor -made kind of, 00:56:10.260 --> 00:56:13.159 yeah, influencer that our algorithm picks off 00:56:13.159 --> 00:56:16.920 on. So I think, yeah, we can obviously like look 00:56:16.920 --> 00:56:21.360 out for stuff and just keep doing like... keep 00:56:21.360 --> 00:56:25.440 doing good journalism and flagging these cases, 00:56:25.920 --> 00:56:30.099 but not platforming them if we don't have to. 00:56:31.159 --> 00:56:34.679 Absolutely. Somebody just shared that AI generated 00:56:34.679 --> 00:56:37.280 content is generally afford the same first amendment 00:56:37.280 --> 00:56:40.199 protections as content created by people, corporations 00:56:40.199 --> 00:56:42.260 and other legal entities, but it's also subject 00:56:42.260 --> 00:56:44.539 to the same established limits on speech in the 00:56:44.539 --> 00:56:47.119 US. So it really depends on the country in question, 00:56:47.119 --> 00:56:50.230 which is really interesting. And absolutely, 00:56:50.409 --> 00:56:52.869 you were saying, report it, flag it where you 00:56:52.869 --> 00:56:55.989 see it. But yeah, try not to amplify it so much. 00:56:56.190 --> 00:56:58.070 That is an issue that Bellingcat faces every 00:56:58.070 --> 00:57:01.429 day as we're often finding deep fakes and things 00:57:01.429 --> 00:57:04.750 like that coming through social media, trying 00:57:04.750 --> 00:57:09.130 not to amplify the original post. Just as a final 00:57:09.130 --> 00:57:13.349 point. What would be your advice to someone who 00:57:13.349 --> 00:57:16.670 may be familiar with a case like the Danny Bones 00:57:16.670 --> 00:57:20.050 case? What would be your advice for first steps 00:57:20.050 --> 00:57:22.590 if somebody, a researcher or a journalist listening 00:57:22.590 --> 00:57:25.650 to this has found something similar? I would 00:57:25.650 --> 00:57:31.750 say, yeah, do all the forensic digging you can 00:57:31.750 --> 00:57:36.809 just on the mainstream platforms. I think the 00:57:36.809 --> 00:57:39.719 Danny Bones case was relatively... interesting 00:57:39.719 --> 00:57:43.860 in that there was all I kind of needed on those 00:57:43.860 --> 00:57:47.099 big mainstream platforms, but I think definitely 00:57:47.099 --> 00:57:50.840 take a look on, yeah, go on the telegrams, go 00:57:50.840 --> 00:57:54.820 elsewhere, because yeah, what I saw in the investigation 00:57:54.820 --> 00:57:56.679 is once they were banned from TikTok, there was 00:57:56.679 --> 00:58:00.659 a very swift, ready move to kind of, well, to 00:58:00.659 --> 00:58:03.519 X, which again, that's pretty mainstream, but 00:58:03.519 --> 00:58:05.500 there's now telegrams. So there is that kind 00:58:05.500 --> 00:58:09.760 of like... predictable trajectory of where these 00:58:09.760 --> 00:58:13.840 people end up. So I'd say you can maybe get ahead 00:58:13.840 --> 00:58:16.719 of the curve there. I think Facebook groups as 00:58:16.719 --> 00:58:19.260 well, see which Facebook groups they're in or 00:58:19.260 --> 00:58:22.300 maybe if you know the creator behind it, see 00:58:22.300 --> 00:58:26.239 what groups their content is being shared in. 00:58:26.260 --> 00:58:27.840 I think that's always interesting to get a sense 00:58:27.840 --> 00:58:31.480 of both who they're targeting but who is finding 00:58:31.480 --> 00:58:36.179 this stuff just interesting organically. I would 00:58:36.179 --> 00:58:38.780 say make sure you keep a record of everything. 00:58:38.880 --> 00:58:42.739 And if that is, you know, one of these, um, kind 00:58:42.739 --> 00:58:46.380 of screen capture type useful, um, nifty tools, 00:58:46.440 --> 00:58:48.639 that's great. But if you just have to go through 00:58:48.639 --> 00:58:50.679 and manually screen record every single TikTok 00:58:50.679 --> 00:58:53.679 then so be it, because I was very, I was very 00:58:53.679 --> 00:58:55.699 glad I did that because when the TikTok account 00:58:55.699 --> 00:58:58.440 was banned and the story had so much of the TikTok 00:58:58.440 --> 00:59:01.719 content. in it that we were referring to. It 00:59:01.719 --> 00:59:03.820 was very, it was a relief to have those kind 00:59:03.820 --> 00:59:06.539 of there and also then to kind of present the 00:59:06.539 --> 00:59:09.440 case as evidence to, you know, the Electoral 00:59:09.440 --> 00:59:11.360 Commission, the Advertising Sounds Authority, 00:59:11.960 --> 00:59:14.619 the relevant people. It was, we had all the documents, 00:59:14.780 --> 00:59:16.780 evidence, we weren't just going off kind of, 00:59:16.780 --> 00:59:21.760 you know, memory. Yeah, sadly when one platform 00:59:21.760 --> 00:59:25.019 door closes, another platform door opens for 00:59:25.019 --> 00:59:28.000 these groups. I shared in the chat, you don't 00:59:28.000 --> 00:59:31.739 have to manually save everything. We do have 00:59:31.739 --> 00:59:33.739 the Bellingcat auto -archiver, which is a tool 00:59:33.739 --> 00:59:37.440 that you can use. It works on most social platforms, 00:59:37.639 --> 00:59:40.659 not all, but most. So do have a look at that 00:59:40.659 --> 00:59:43.260 and make use of it. There's a really useful guide 00:59:43.260 --> 00:59:46.239 to it on our website, which I've just linked 00:59:46.239 --> 00:59:49.980 to. Effie, thank you so much for the fantastic 00:59:49.980 --> 00:59:52.219 talk today. People have been fascinated by what 00:59:52.219 --> 00:59:54.739 you've got to say. If anybody wants to get in 00:59:54.739 --> 00:59:56.500 touch with you, maybe they have a lead for you, 00:59:56.500 --> 00:59:59.380 maybe they want to just chat to you a little 00:59:59.380 --> 01:00:01.539 bit more about the investigation. Where can they 01:00:01.539 --> 01:00:04.739 find you? How can they reach out to you? I'm 01:00:04.739 --> 01:00:08.280 on LinkedIn, EffieWeb, so E -F -F -I -E -Web. 01:00:08.360 --> 01:00:11.480 I think that would be the best place. I'm also 01:00:11.480 --> 01:00:15.380 on Blue Sky, although I'm trying to be on memoir. 01:00:16.190 --> 01:00:23.250 I'm also on Signal at EFW .40. So either of those 01:00:23.250 --> 01:00:25.670 three. Brilliant. I've just linked to your LinkedIn 01:00:25.670 --> 01:00:30.440 in the chats. Please do make a point of saving 01:00:30.440 --> 01:00:32.280 that. I'll also include it in the description 01:00:32.280 --> 01:00:36.019 of this podcast if you're fine with that. But 01:00:36.019 --> 01:00:38.539 yeah, make sure that you read Effie's pieces 01:00:38.539 --> 01:00:41.059 and the follow -up piece that we're all eager 01:00:41.059 --> 01:00:44.300 to read now. And I can't thank you enough for 01:00:44.300 --> 01:00:46.880 taking time out to chat today. We'll be back 01:00:46.880 --> 01:00:48.880 in two weeks' time with another stage talk. But 01:00:48.880 --> 01:00:50.860 for now, thank you everybody for listening. Great. 01:00:51.039 --> 01:00:53.840 Thanks, Raleigh. Thank you for listening to the 01:00:53.840 --> 01:00:56.739 stage talk. If you'd like to catch a stage talk 01:00:56.739 --> 01:00:59.590 live where you you can ask the guest questions, 01:01:00.010 --> 01:01:02.929 join the Bellingcat Discord server by visiting 01:01:02.929 --> 01:01:08.989 www .discord .gg slash Bellingcat. The music 01:01:08.989 --> 01:01:12.469 you've heard is titled Dawn by Newer Self and 01:01:12.469 --> 01:01:14.110 is courtesy of Artlist.