What we've been up to (and what's next)

Dear Citizens,

We don’t usually send updates like this, but we think it’s important to share more of what we’re doing - and why it matters.

This autumn, two questions are running through our work: who gets to shape our democracy, and who controls the technology our public services depend on?

This month, that means taking the lessons of Russian interference into Parliament, pressing for scrutiny of Palantir’s role in the NHS, and using film to bring more people into the debate about Big Tech.

New faces, new projects

In August, Rebecca Vincent joined the Citizens as Deputy Director. Rebecca is a human rights campaigner and former diplomat with more than two decades’ experience leading campaigns and coalitions, including at Reporters Without Borders and Big Brother Watch. She’ll lead much of our work to influence policy and hold the government to account as AI becomes part of public services, from policing to the NHS and defence. Expect more campaigns and more things you can do!

In September, Finn Bell joined us as Community Events Manager. He has worked across journalism, documentary film, technology and campaigning, and is helping us build the Citizens Film Club: a way to bring people together around films that make the power of Big Tech easier to see - and harder to ignore.

They join Executive Director Clara Maguire, Lillian Race, who leads our social media and audience growth, Ben Wyskida, our communications expert in the US, and journalist Max Colbert, who writes The Eye, our weekly guide to the shifting relationship between Big Tech and the state.

Russia interfered in Brexit. Britain still needs to know how.

The Prime Minister has now said publicly that Russia interfered in the 2016 EU referendum; Andy Burnham is the first UK Prime Minister to do so. For years, the government’s language stopped short of saying so plainly. But an acknowledgement is not an inquiry, and it does not tell us what happened or how to prevent it happening again.

The story of Russian interference in Brexit was first broken by journalist Carole Cadwalladr - founder of the Citizens - and has been a key focus throughout our six-year history, including through a legal challenge we pursued all the way to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

Just last month, on 8 September we co-hosted an event at parliament with the APPG for Fair Elections to launch the report ‘UK’s Russia Lesson: Building Deterrence against Foreign Political Interference’, containing the transcripts from expert testimony given at oral hearings in July, including from Marina Litvinenko, Dominic Grieve KC, Christopher Steele and others, setting out what the government need to investigate and why. Now we’re working with Peers in the House of Lords, seeking two amendments to the Representation of the People Bill: one to create sanctions against foreign actors, their proxies and their enablers; and the other to establish a public inquiry into Russian interference.

The Prime Minister has now acknowledged it happened. We’re pressing for Parliament to find out how - and ensure there are consequences.

That event wasn’t our only foray into parliament that week, as just the day prior, on 7 September, we co-hosted a parliamentary drop-in session along with the Open Rights Group, facilitating an expert exchange with MPs - including Clive Lewis and Siân Berry - and representatives of business and civil society on the crucial subject of the UK’s digital sovereignty. Stay tuned as we also expand on this strand of our work over the months ahead.

Palantir is watching, erm - Clive Lewis?

For the first time this year, the Citizens fielded a presence at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool, where we hosted an event on the sidelines. On 28 September, we screened the short documentary film Pink Hair Data Whistleblower, featuring an in-depth interview with Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie filmed while the story was breaking back in 2018. We followed the screening with a riveting panel discussion among Carole Cadwalladr - the journalist who broke the Cambridge Analytica story - filmmaker Marc Silver, and Clive Lewis MP.

During the panel, Lewis revealed a letter he had received from former deputy leader of the Labour Party Tom Watson in response to an op-ed Lewis had written for the Guardian, criticising Watson’s move to Palantir as senior vice president as a ‘sign of how far the rot has spread in UK politics’. Among other points, Watson’s letter noted that Palantir had tracked Lewis speaking about the company nearly 130 times. The letter was later published by the Nerve, and seems to have prompted Watson to respond with a feeble rebuttal in the Guardian, whilst also defending Palantir on X, where the debacle was trending for days. Did the attention strike a nerve?

People vs Palantir

As Tom Watson continued to dig the hole deeper, we thought what better time to lend our support to an international day of ‘People vs Palantir’ action? On 1 October, our team took part in a protest outside Palantir’s central London headquarters, organised by a coalition including Global Justice Now, the Good Law Project, Health Workers for a Free Palestine, Just Treatment, Keep Our NHS Public, MedAct, Palestine Solidarity Campaign UK, Pull the Plug and We Own It.

At the protest, Rebecca spoke to the Canary and the Independent Student Press Association about why the Citizens wants Palantir out of the NHS and out of the British state full stop, and why it’s not too late for Andy Burnham to do the right thing and decline to renew Palantir’s NHS contracts - with the FT reporting that the Prime Minister is searching for alternatives.

Films to be reckoned with

On 7 October we co-hosted a preview screening of the Social Reckoning (two days before the film’s UK release) in London, in partnership with Luminate, Together Films and People vs Big Tech. The Citizens’ founder Carole Cadwalladr hosted a panel discussion afterwards, featuring former Facebook advisor Roger McNamee, who we interviewed before the event, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa, and Ava Lee of People vs Big Tech, with Sarah Wynn-Williams joining silently on stage, in light of the legal cases she continues to face in connection with her book: ‘Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism’.

Coming in November: The Citizens Film Club

Films can show us how power works - and bring people together to challenge it. In November, we’re launching a Film Club with The Big Tech Playlist: six independent documentaries, selected with Doc Society, about Big Tech and the world it is changing.

We’ll bring the films to cinemas, community spaces and online, with live conversations and ways to get involved. It’s a grassroots effort to make room for films and conversations that can disappear in the scroll.

Together, we can be stronger than any algorithm.