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Reposted by Marché Arends

Global Investigative Journalism Network @gijn.org · Sep 5

This week’s Top 10 Data Journalism column highlights, curated by Hanna Duggal for GIJN 🧵👇

Full story:

gijn.org

Where Plane Crash Survivors Sit, African Labor Fueling AI Hype, DOGE Guts US Health Agency, Syria’s Most Feared Prison

twp.ai

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Marché Arends @marche.bsky.social · Sep 6

Thanks @gijn.org and Hannah Duggal for including our story in this week's Top 10 Data Journalism column!

Global Investigative Journalism Network @gijn.org · Sep 5

Africa Uncensored exposes how companies hire thousands as AI 'tutors' to train large language model responses (LLMs) — not to sustain livelihoods, but to look scalable to investors. In South Africa, many workers had no steady income despite the hype.

https://twp.ai/kuqEIn @marche.bsky.social

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Pulitzer Center @pulitzercenter.org · Sep 2

Thousands of workers promised digital jobs are being used as collateral in Big Tech’s race to build “super-intelligent AI.”

AI Fellows @marche.bsky.social and Kathryn Cleary reveal how workers are lured into jobs with no pay and no work.

Story for Africa Uncensored.
👉 bit.ly/4ncZ7lQ

Fuelling the AGI Hype: The Recruitment Playbook To Land Big Tech Contracts

On the surface, the South African job market looks busy; scrolling through jobs on LinkedIn reveals hundreds, sometimes thousands, of job postings for “AI tutors” or “AI trainers” from micro-tasking.....

pulitzercenter.org

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Jack Tripper @chadstanton.blacksky.app · Aug 27

“Our investigation reveals that despite thousands of job postings, these companies offer no promise of work, but instead leverage digital workers as collateral to win Big Tech contracts.“

Marché Arends @marche.bsky.social · Aug 26

Today, the investigation my reporting partner Kathryn Cleary and I have been working on for over a year is finally out in Africa Uncensored!

africauncensored.online/blog/2025/08...

Fuelling the AGI hype: The Recruitment Playbook to land Big Tech contracts - Africa Uncensored

An investigation into the mass recruitment of "AI Tutors" and "AI Trainers" by micro-tasking companies reveals the deceptive and exploitative practices that these companies use, with false promises of...

africauncensored.online

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Marché Arends @marche.bsky.social · Aug 27

Thank you so much!

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Tan Hui Yee @tanhuiyee.bsky.social · Aug 27

"We employ the unemployable so be grateful you have a job." Great work by @marche.bsky.social on the hype behind "AI trainers"
africauncensored.online/blog/2025/08...

Fuelling the AGI hype: The Recruitment Playbook to land Big Tech contracts - Africa Uncensored

An investigation into the mass recruitment of "AI Tutors" and "AI Trainers" by micro-tasking companies reveals the deceptive and exploitative practices that these companies use, with false promises of...

africauncensored.online

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Marché Arends @marche.bsky.social · Aug 27

12) If you have any questions feel free to reach out! We'll also be publishing our methodology soon and are keen to engage.

Marché Arends @marche.bsky.social · Aug 27

11) A thousand thank-yous to our wonderful @pulitzercenter.org colleagues who believed in us even when we struggled to believe in ourselves.

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Marché Arends @marche.bsky.social · Aug 27

10) Thank you to every single digital worker we spoke to who made time for us and our questions, who trusted us with the vulnerable stories of their lived experience, and who reminded us that the revolution will be worker-led.

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Marché Arends @marche.bsky.social · Aug 27

9) Consider reading our story if you want to learn about what's underneath the hype, understand what's happening to you or someone close to you working as an 'AI Trainer', and perhaps even if you want to take informed action (you can't dismantle the machine if you don't know how the machine works).

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Marché Arends @marche.bsky.social · Aug 27

8) There is a big chance that you already know, or will soon know, an 'AI Trainer'. But even if you don't, this high-risk-high-reward betting sport being played by billionaires on the global stage affects everyone who doesn't have a front-row seat to the game.

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Marché Arends @marche.bsky.social · Aug 27

7) ...hire en-masse despite knowing there is no work, to create the illusion of scale. Why? Because scale is a signal to investors to keep investing, to keep pouring huge sums of money at an unprecedented rate into the AI machine.

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Marché Arends @marche.bsky.social · Aug 27

6) For a year, we studied the mass recruitment strategies of micro-tasking companies, like Mindrift, aimed at winning training contracts with Big Tech firms, like OpenAI. It was tricky to figure out at first, but once we did, we realized it was a pretty copy-paste strategy:

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Marché Arends @marche.bsky.social · Aug 27

5) Millions of digital workers spend hours "training" Large Language Models like ChatGPT without credit, humane working conditions or fair pay (in some cases, no pay at all). But the truth is, without them, there would be no AI.

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Marché Arends @marche.bsky.social · Aug 27

4)These digital workers, also known as 'AI Tutors' or 'AI Trainers', are not "invisible" as much reporting on AI describes them. Nope, these are real people with real lives, real families, real bills to pay, real skills, talents, needs, and very real dreams of a stable future.

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Marché Arends @marche.bsky.social · Aug 27

3) The answer to who loses is unsurprising but disturbing nonetheless: our investigation shows, in granular detail, how the bubble is growing off the back of exploited human labour from the Global South.

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Marché Arends @marche.bsky.social · Aug 27

2) We've been watching this bubble grow, asking ourselves: How? We were interested in what the scaffolding supporting the growth of this bubble looks like. More importantly, we wanted to know who loses when it all comes crashing down.

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Marché Arends @marche.bsky.social · Aug 27

1) You may have heard people talking about the 'AI bubble'. What started as a whisper is now a growing rumble as the world wakes up to the reality that the AI hype is exactly that -- hype. Dangerous, reckless and unsubstantiated hype.

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Marché Arends @marche.bsky.social · Aug 27

Yesterday, our investigation dropped in Africa Uncensored about how human labour from the Global South is being leveraged by Big Tech as collateral in a gambling game of epic proportions.

How? Through the mass recruitment of 'AI Trainers' or 'AI Tutors'.

🧵

africauncensored.online/blog/2025/08...

africauncensored.online

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Marché Arends @marche.bsky.social · Aug 26

Today, the investigation my reporting partner Kathryn Cleary and I have been working on for over a year is finally out in Africa Uncensored!

africauncensored.online/blog/2025/08...

Fuelling the AGI hype: The Recruitment Playbook to land Big Tech contracts - Africa Uncensored

An investigation into the mass recruitment of "AI Tutors" and "AI Trainers" by micro-tasking companies reveals the deceptive and exploitative practices that these companies use, with false promises of...

africauncensored.online

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Marché Arends @marche.bsky.social · Feb 23

Any other neurodivergent peeps with strong pattern recognition and a pretty good general knowledge of world history freaking out right now?

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The Continent @thecontinent.org · Feb 21

All Protocol Observed

Welcome to Issue 191 of The Continent

The Sudanese army is closing in on the Republican Palace in Khartoum – but the war is far from over.

Get your copy, for free, here: bit.ly/TC191

Issue 191 of The Continent (22 February 2025) shows a Sudanese army soldier scanning the frontline with binoculars in Khartoum North, through a broken window, on November 3, 2024. Beneath the photo are the words: "Sudan's distant peace" and the photo credit: Amaury Falt-Brown / AFP

#Sudan #Africa #AfricanJournalism #TheContinent

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Ebony Elizabeth Thomas @ebonyteach.blacksky.app · Feb 18

Definitely! See this 🧵 for links.

Experts @timnitgebru.bsky.social & @xriskology.bsky.social have talked about TESCREAL for years.

Here's a quick explainer from Dr. Torres: www.truthdig.com/articles/the...

Plus a YouTube of TESCREAL ideas in tech billionaires' own words:
youtu.be/5RpPTRcz1no?...

Marché Arends @marche.bsky.social · Feb 13

I think we need to be talking about TESCREAL more...

Spoiler: Eugenics is back. 🧵

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Marché Arends @marche.bsky.social · Feb 18

“The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.” - Steve Biko.

Read. Listen. Watch. Learn. ===> RESIST.

#TESCREAL #TESCREAL #TESCREAL #TESCREAL

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Marché Arends @marche.bsky.social · Feb 16

In summary: TSEK!

#CapeTownHousingCrisis #DigitalBedBugs