Tech platforms pillage public-interest journalism for profit. But we have leverage as they sow the seeds of their own downfall

• Carine Fouteau is president and publishing director of the French investigative news outlet Mediapart

Big tech companies pose an immeasurable threat: socially, politically, militarily and ecologically. They are also causing a profound crisis of information. The tools they design now serve as weapons of mass destruction against democracy. There is so much at stake that an urgent and broad mobilisation is required.

From the harvesting of personal data and the weaponisation of public opinion, to the destruction of jobs, the infringement of civil liberties and environmental damage, ordinary citizens are the main victims of this predatory economy – an economy with an agenda that aligns with the interests of the planet’s most authoritarian and reactionary states.

Carine Fouteau is president and publishing director of the French investigative news outlet Mediapart

Mediapart is hosting Hacking Big Tech, a public event about technology, AI and democracy in partnership with the Guardian, in Paris on Saturday 17 October 2026. The conference will be live-streamed free on Mediapart’s website, app and YouTube channel and can be accessed here from 1pm CEST on 17 October

Jean-Noël Barrot criticises X owner in speech attacking foreign efforts to destabilise France before 2027 election

France’s foreign minister has accused Elon Musk of using his social media platform to orchestrate “massive online harassment campaigns” against European leaders as he took aim at foreign efforts to destabilise the country before next year’s presidential election.

Speaking at an Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development conference on Tuesday, Jean-Noël Barrot pointed to the role that social media had come to play in the global battle over democracy. “The forces seeking to undermine democracy now dominate the information landscape, where they employ tactics designed to polarise public debate,” he said.

I was seduced by creators hawking passive income hustles. Like the language used in MLMs, it seemed too good to be true

A very specific kind of content began taking over my social media feeds at the end of last year.

I had just finished a short-term contract and returned, with some reluctance, to the financial masochism of freelancing. As I mourned the end of steady paychecks and paid days off – as well as finally having enough money for regular haircuts – I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the glow of the screen.

Amid worries about children’s relationship to tech, the solution is often spending more time talking openly with each other

We have become obsessed with the idea that screens are destroying human connection.

The evidence seems to be everywhere. Each week headlines warn of teenagers addicted to phones, a loneliness epidemic and the dangers of AI. The release of The Social Reckoning leads us to ask, “How bad were those guys at Meta?” and then ultimately wonder, “How bad am I if I still use Instagram?” In our day-to-day, we observe workers eating lunch alone while scrolling and friends choosing online games over offline gatherings.

Our cartoonist looks at the battle for eyeball and earhole supremacy in the game’s rapidly changing media landscape

• Buy a cartoon | Some of David’s favourite works

• And his latest book, Chaos in the Box: get it now

When influencer/singer/content creator Chiara King visits Copenhagen all the trips to trendy shops and fancy restaurants soon take a turn for the worse

British influencer/singer/content creator Chiara King stars as influencer/singer/content creator Chiara King, or some kind of parafictional version of herself, in this quease-inducing thriller exercise. The ick gets generated not necessarily by the eventual gore that erupts in the last reel, but by the tacky weirdness of the way the film apes the mannerisms of social media reels and streaming nonsense to both satirise the ugly side of the business but also exploit and profit off it at the same time. On one level, it’s an eerily clever exercise in bad faith, like a poor Michael Haneke film (think Funny Games) for gen-Z kicks; on another, maybe it’s just a crappy ripoff of online tropes that have been way overexposed already. Or both.

Anyway, here’s what happens: influencer Chiara gets invited to visit Copenhagen by a tourist organisation, a deal set up by her avaricious manager Alice (Jazmine Summer). Of course, this means practically every moment of her time awake in the city will be filmed, both by Chiara herself on her trusty smartphone, or a camera crew led by director Mike (played by Mike Nybroe, who is also director of The Influencer Project, ha ha); Mike is supported by sound man Daniel (Daniel Parmo) and cameraman Victor (Luca Storm). The early sections turn in all the influence-slop you would expect, with shopping trips to trendy merch vendors such as Baum und Pferdgarten, and meals at fancy local restaurants, and then a livestreamed visit to a “haunted house,” which is the big thing on Instagram and TikTok these days.

Instagrammers have upended the British restaurant scene and amassed followings in the millions. But has their moment already passed?

By Stephen Buranyi. Read by Josh Berry

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The model, actor and influencer is known for making her own frozen yoghurt, bubblegum or even toothpaste while dressed in immaculate haute couture. But she insists she is not who the internet thinks she is

Nara Smith is not a tradwife, she wants you to know that. Nor is she an ex-tradwife – pace the New York Times who included her in a feature on how ex-tradwives are as popular a movement now as the tradwives were in the first place. Nor was she peddling a tradwife-adjacent lifestyle choice by marrying at 18, having four children by 24, and devoting hours to cooking and documenting it online. Nor is she Mormon, by the way. Although, yes, her husband, the model and former teen heart‑throb Lucky Blue Smith, was raised Mormon, but we’ll get to that. Nor was she telegraphing subliminal religious messages in her content: “There is no secret agenda.” Nor was she abandoning her biracial heritage by wearing her hair in a sleek little bob. Nor was she leaning into a 1950s housewife archetype – even when dressed in a pink and red polka-dot minidress to batch-cook sourdough.

Smith wants you to scrap everything you think you know about her and start again. She also doesn’t care if you don’t. As with her content: “Those that get it, get it. Those that don’t, don’t. And that’s totally fine. I tell people: ‘If you don’t like my content, I won’t see you scroll past me.’ ‘If you need to block me for your own sanity, please do. I promise I won’t know.’ And if you want to stick around, that is beautiful, I’m grateful, welcome.”

Jeremy Strong’s portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Reckoning shows how public opinion has changed around billionaire CEOs since The Social Network’s release

When The Social Network came out, Mark Zuckerberg organised a staff viewing of a film he described as “fun”.

A group corporate outing to the sequel is unlikely.

Skits and parodies making fun of the trillion-dollar industry have taken over social media, racking up millions of views

Johnny Hilbrant Partridge kept getting stuck next to the same kind of finance guy at weddings – the one bragging about his family’s full-time nanny and lavish vacations while name-dropping elite club memberships and private schools.

To Partridge, a former fitness instructor, their shameless knack for self-promotion felt ripe for comedy. Using a filter that puts an exaggerated sneer on his face, Partridge donned a puffer vest and created “The PE Guy”, a caricature of the men who work in the private equity industry.

Thinking Allowed, The Artificial Human and Free Thinking among other programmes hit by £500m cuts

BBC Radio 4’s consumer rights show You and Yours is to be axed after more than 50 years, becoming one of the latest victims of the corporation’s £500m cuts plan.

The programme, once described by the former Radio 4 controller Mark Damazer as “one of the most important” on the station, is one of a handful to be cut as the BBC searches for shows that can be more easily adapted as podcasts.

In ad to be shown before The Social Reckoning, Ian Russell will say ‘too little has changed’ since death of Molly, 14

Molly Russell’s father will tell UK cinemagoers that “Instagram helped kill my daughter” in an advert to be shown before screenings of a new film about Mark Zuckerberg’s social media empire.

In the 30-second ad before The Social Reckoning, released on Friday, Ian Russell says “too little has changed” since the death of his 14-year-old daughter, who took her own life in 2017 after viewing harmful content on Instagram.

Matt Brittin fields questions on whether ‘bloated’ senior ranks are being spared and lays out iPlayer overhaul

Matt Brittin, the BBC’s director general, has faced a barrage of accusations that frontline staff are being laid off instead of those from the “very bloated” senior ranks.

In an all-staff call, Brittin conceded the BBC was “going to be smaller” but said it could still have a bigger impact. He said it needed to be “a bit more Elvis – a little less conversation, a little more action”.