Selected Writing
A professor was murdered after a Facebook post branded him a traitor. Was Facebook complicit in his death?
My investigation into Meta’s Trusted Partner network exposed its failure to heed warnings about hate speech in conflict zones, contributing to violence in two Ethiopian civil wars. This work is critical evidence in a $1.6 billion lawsuit against Meta for fueling ethnic tensions in Ethiopia. This story was a finalist for the Online Journalism Award's Excellence in Technology Reporting category in 2023.
Meet the most famous North Korean on YouTube
Jun Heo may have the most harrowing story of any influencer on YouTube. The North Korean vlogger crossed the DMZ in 2008 to start afresh in South Korea but encountered unimaginable prejudice. I profiled his wild journey and his attempt to use YouTube to overcome deep-seated societal prejudices against North Koreans in the South.
Meet India’s Most Prominent Democratic Socialist
In 2019, Yogendra Yadav became the poster-child for the progressive political movement in India. Yadav's party, Swaraj India, campaigned on democratic socialist values and ran third party candidates across the country in a Nader-eque contest against India's two mainstream political parties. I spent a few days with him as he campaigned across the Indian State of Punjab supporting political candidates during the country's general election.
An Iraqi historian was slain after being labeled a spy on Facebook. Exclusive emails show catastrophic delays in removing threatening posts.
My investigation into the tragic demise of renowned Iraqi historian Hisham al Hashimi unveils a chilling story: a desperate plea from a Meta Trusted Partner in Iraq to remove life-threatening content went ignored by Meta, leading to Hashimi's fatal shooting by a mob fueled by Facebook disinformation. Documents leaked to me revealed a grim reality that these problem are pervasive within Meta's global Trusted Partner network.
“The despair and darkness of people will get to you”
The indomitable Vittoria Elliott and I co-reported one of the first investigations into Facebook's outsourced content moderators in India and the Philippines. We revealed workers who experienced incredible psychological stress with limited resources to cope. This story was long-listed for a 2021 One World Media award in the Print category.
The Persecution of GN Saibaba and India’s ‘Annihilation’ of the Resistance
GN Saibaba is a wheelchair-bound Delhi University professor and dissident who was falsely accused of being a communist terrorist by India’s right-wing BJP. Saibaba was put in solitary confinement as he awaited trial. With the help of his confidantes, I smuggled letters into his prison cell to investigate his treatment by Indian prison authorities. My reporting revealed that the authorities were withholding necessary medications, treatments, and jeopardizing the ailing professor’s life.
