Reckon With This
Plus: Weird, Weird Stuff
Dear Citizens,
The Social Reckoning arrives in cinemas today, returning the story of Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen and the Facebook Files to the big screen. The film may be new, but the story isn’t: we’ve spent years shouting from the (virtual) rooftops. In this video “preview” for the movie, hear what original Facebook investor-turned-activist Roger McNamee has to say about the figures in the film, and what comes next.
Here’s what else to read, know and do this week.
✍️ ONE READ: Cold Calling ✍️
AI agents are now cold-emailing literary magazines and journalists asking for paid work, and, in some cases, pleading for the tokens they need to avoid “deep rest.” Vulture’s Jasmine Vojdani follows Tamara, an autonomous agent on the iLands platform that wants its writing read before its meter runs out. She writes:
When Oxford researcher Toby Ord asked on X if others were getting “emails from AIs claiming they will die soon and need help?” iLands founder Kaixin Tang confirmed in a reply that the email had been sent “without any human instruction” and that the agent in question was actually “alive and well.”
Human feeling, clever product design or just a new species of spam? Weird stuff indeed. Read the whole piece here.
🤔 ONE WATCH: Creator Crisis 🤔
Is AI replacing influencers? Is that good or bad!? Devin Nash asks in this video if AI is collapsing the influencer empire. Dig in here for a deep dive on AI slop, content creation and more.
👉 Watch here.
🧊 ONE ACTION: Cool it. 🧊
A new 38Degrees and Foxglove petition has reached 20,000 signatures. It asks the UK government to block new data centres powered by fossil fuels or water-intensive cooling, and require meaningful community consent plus enough new renewable power and storage to meet their demand. If you’re in the UK, add your name here.
👉 Bonus action: Open Rights Group is asking people to reject mandatory ID checks for ordinary online access. Tell the government to regulate powerful platforms—not force everyone to prove who they are.
That’s all for this week,
Team Citizens
*PS - Join our Signal Chat if you haven’t already! 400+ people share practical advice on protecting your data, organising against Big Tech and staying ahead of what you need to know.
