mastodon 4.8.0-nightly.2026-10-06Cofounder of indicator.media, your essential guide to understanding and investigating digital deception. Sign up for free! Investigative journalist and OSINT trainer.
I spent a good part of this year investigating Google's ad business. Today we published a story about trying to crack open its black box ad network.
Unlike its competitors, Google conceals nearly all publishers it works with and where billions of ad dollars flow. We found that Google's vast ad network contains manga piracy, porn, fraud and disinformation.
Give it a read: https://www.propublica.org/article/google-display-ads-piracy-porn-fraud
VC-backed bot farms, oceans of AI slop, industrial level scams, abusive AI nudifier apps, Meta paying for hoaxes... 2025 saw digital deception legitimized, institutionalized & shoved down the public’s throat.
Our look at the year tech embraced fakeness:
https://indicator.media/p/2025-the-year-tech-embraced-fakeness
A few months ago, I approached CBC News with a pitch about crypto ATMs, which are a preferred way for fraudsters to extract money from victims. Canada has the most crypto kiosks per capita, but it lags on regulation.
Our first story, with more to come: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/feeding-fraud-crypto-atm-problem-part-one-1.7647402
I dug into +12 free tools that can help with investigating YouTube, including:
📍Verifying/geolocating vids
📍Searching for videos, channels/creators
📍Investigating channels
📍Identifying related channels/videos
📍Analyzing trending content
https://indicator.media/p/free-tools-to-investigate-youtube-videos-channels-and-comments-osint
Sensitive, confidential & interesting docs are sitting out in the open on the internet. Do you know how to find them? My new Indicator Guide dives into Google dorks and tools that can uncover publicly available docs on websites and in unsecured buckets:
https://indicator.media/p/guide-to-hunting-documents-files-in-open-buckets-servers-and-directories
For years, I’ve been obsessed with a number.
What’s the #? It’s the amount Meta earns per year from scam ads. Thanks to Jeff Horwitz at Reuters, we know it: $16 billion.
Our free Indicator Briefing looks at what needs to happen now that we know the #: https://indicator.media/p/briefing-meta-multi-billion-dollar-scam-ad-business
Sympathy scams have proliferated across platforms this year, especially TikTok. I looked at the latest iteration, which uses fabricated racial slurs & insults to bait people into buying cheap products. We IDd ~200 TikTok accounts w/ millions of views: https://indicator.media/p/tiktok-sympathy-scams-use-racial-slurs-and-insults-to-sell-products
There are lots of ways to make money on social networks, but creators are increasingly being paid directly by platforms. Meta, TikTok, Snap, & X have programs that pay people based on engagement.
My latest piece shows how to identify monetized accounts: https://indicator.media/p/how-to-tell-if-a-social-media-account-is-monetized-meta-tiktok-youtube-x
I found +3,000 Meta ads for nudifiers & AI girlfriend apps that featured bare breasts, simulated sex acts etc.
Meta said in June that it had deployed new methods to block nudifier ads. Indicator will continue to report on its progress, or lack thereof: https://indicator.media/p/explicit-ads-for-nudifiers-and-ai-girlfriend-apps-continue-to-plague-meta
I spent the last 12 months collecting and testing a wide range of digital investigative/OSINT tools. You can learn about my favorites in my rundown of more than 45 new, updated, or new-to-me tools from 2025:
https://indicator.media/p/osint-2025-new-and-updated-digital-investigative-tools-of-the-year
Meta set off a bit of a panic in the OSINT community a few weeks ago by removing the “Posts” filter from Facebook native search.
I contacted the company and got the lowdown on what happened. It's in today's free Indicator Briefing (plus lots more info!): https://indicator.media/p/sloppy-sora-surges-measuring-disinformation-scam-ads
TikTok & Instagram have been deluged by thousands of videos from female students that praise Jenni, an AI study app. They say it's better than ChatGPT. They say it can improve your grades.
What don't they say? That they were paid to promote Jenni.
https://indicator.media/p/thousands-of-undisclosed-ads-tiktok-ai-study-apps-jenni-mindgrasp
We published an investigation into YouTube vids that falsely claim to show police racially profiling and arresting a person that turns out to to be an FBI agent. They've earned hundreds of millions of views.
In response, YouTube terminated 13 channels: https://indicator.media/p/youtube-cop-comeuppance-videos-claim-to-expose-police-for-arresting-fbi-agents
A few OSINT tips in our new, free Briefing :
📍 How to set up a free, private AI system
📍 What the new Tools of War database can help you find
📍How to identify an X profile w/ the new "About this account" info panel
Subscribe to get it every Friday: https://indicator.media/p/fake-images-of-an-x-feature-that-hasnt-launched-llm-brain-rot
If you're in Toronto on Oct 29, I'm doing a free talk & discussion at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema, "The New Age of Digital Deception: What's Changed and How to Fight Back."
It's presented by the Canadian Journalism Foundation and MediaSmarts: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/the-new-age-of-digital-deception-whats-changed-and-how-to-fight-back-tickets-1758668327309
The latest about OSINT & digital deception:
📍X may add info to profiles that can help w/ verification
📍A new WordPress Finder Bookmarklet was inspired by our guide to investigating WP sites
📍Research shows it's easy to "poison" a LLM
Read for free: https://indicator.media/p/x-tests-new-way-to-fight-inauthentic-activity-scam-compound-takedown
Latest edition of our Indicator Briefing looks at:
📍Could YouTube bring Alex Jones back?
📍The latest in Sora manipulation
📍OSINT tools for tracing sketchy ships, viewing JSON files
Free to subscribe and to read:
https://indicator.media/p/youtube-gives-banned-channels-a-second-chance-sora-watermarks
Today's Indicator Briefing is full of insight and tips:
📍How YouTube bent the knee to the Trump admin
📍Anti-slop policies at Spotify & new Community Notes research
📍Inside a viral prompt injection trick that exposed an AI recruiter
Subscribe for free: https://indicator.media/p/youtube-bends-the-knee-jim-jordan-spotify-ai-slop
Millions of websites run on WordPress. That's good news for investigators, as there are some useful OSINT techniques for WP sites. Here's how to find author accounts, extract images, files, and plugins — and maybe even find something before it's published: https://indicator.media/p/osint-tips-for-investigating-wordpress-sites
I believe this is the most comprehensive guide available anywhere about how to link websites together in order to uncover ownership, connections, and funding.
Check out the Indicator guide to connecting websites together using OSINT tools and methods:
Today's free Briefing has new data about Meta's Community Notes program and a look at how X's program is stagnating. Plus:
📍 Tools for archiving YouTube, and to search for archived vids
📍 Manhole covers and OSINT
📍How AI is being used for fact checking
https://indicator.media/p/data-about-meta-community-notes-youtube-archiving
