Cover story: How Telegram Became the Anti-Facebook
Hundreds of millions of users. No algorithm. No ads. Courage in the face of autocracy. Sound like a dream? Careful what you wish for.
Darren Loucaides
Writer in Barcelona/London.
WIRED, Financial Times, the Guardian, Slate
Cover story: Did Occupy Wall Street mean anything at all?
A deep-dive into the legacy of the movement that swept the world, ten years on
The Scammer Who Wanted to Save His Country
One sleepy Sunday morning in May 2019, Glenn Greenwald was sitting in his home office in Rio de Janeiro when he received a phone call from a number he didn't recognize
What Happens When Techno-Utopians Actually Run a Country
Direct democracy! Universal basic income! The end of left and right! The inside story of Italy’s Five Star Movement and the cyberguru who dreamed it up
‘Spreading like a virus’: inside the EU’s struggle to debunk Covid lies
Understaffed and underpowered, a Brussels taskforce tries to fight a fake news tide that threatens to undermine the union itself
How Germany became ground zero for the COVID infodemic
It was a warm evening in late summer last year when trouble began to brew in front of the Reichstag, the historic home of the German Parliament
Building the Brexit party: how Nigel Farage copied Italy's digital populists
The former Ukip leader forged an alliance with the Five Star Movement just as they bulldozed Italian politics using a tightly controlled digital operation. And now he’s putting their techniques to work in Britain
The information war eroding political reality in Brazil
After years studying the nation’s military hierarchy, one academic believes that he has uncovered a coordinated program to contaminate discourse and bolster the army’s power
How the EU’s Far Right Could Boost Big Tech
With right-wing populists expected surge in the European elections, legislation to rein in Silicon Valley could struggle to pass. Could Big Tech find itself depending on the far-right to defend its corner?
Democratic Socialists Lost, but Their Ideas Have Won
Even though Bernie Sanders didn’t win the U.S. Democratic nomination and Jeremy Corbyn was beaten badly in the 2019 election, the movements their campaigns created will live on
Will Bannonism Play in Spain?
Spain has mostly resisted the right-wing populist wave so far. One party, with links to the former White House strategist, is trying to change that.
'We are at war': How the Brexit Party's viral hit factory upended British politics
The Brexit Party has run amok in the European Parliament. Now it's gearing up for an altogether more serious campaign
Cover story: The Brexit revolutionaries
How Leave.EU, a self-styled guerrilla movement, infiltrated the Conservative Party and became the dominant digital powerhouse in British politics.
Here's why lockdown is Nigel Farage’s new target
Fresh from the US election campaign, the rebranded rightwinger intends to exploit Tory disunity over Covid-19
Spain’s Vox Party Hates Muslims—Except the Ones Who Fund It
The upstart far-right party is Islamophobic, but without donations from an exiled Iranian Islamist-Marxist group, which was on the US terror list until 2012, it may have never gotten off the ground
'It's about time': the black and Asian bands 'decolonising' British indie
Now in its second year, Decolonise festival gives a platform to musicians of colour looking to challenge prejudice and shake up a predominantly white genre
The radical populist party that shook Italy's establishment
Francesco Berti is showing me around Italy’s parliament, his new place of work. At 27 years old (“nearly 28,” he reminds me more than once), Berti has just been elected to the Chamber of Deputies as part of Five Star Movement — a radical populist party that shook the foundations of Italian politics in recent elections.
The Cyprus problem: how not to cover a protracted conflict
Officials talked up the chances of an agreement to put pressure on the two sides to seize the historic moment, a strategy that required journalists play a role. And they fell for it, lacing stories with optimism, and setting a cautionary example for journalists covering similar conflicts
What Drove a Group of Small-Town Spanish Young Men to Carry Out a Brutal Terrorist Attack?
Núria Perpinyà ran into two teenaged brothers who lived in her building. Three days later these normal young men committed the biggest terrorist attack in Spain since the 2004 Madrid train bombings
Italy Has Its Own Donald Trump-Style Movement
What would it take for a foul-mouthed celebrity to start a movement with the potential to turn a country’s political establishment upside down? This isn’t just a question that America is dealing with — Italy has its own version of Donald Trump.
