AI resistance: Who says no to AI and why?

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From protests to policy

In the report, we recorded numerous instances of AI resistance, including protests against the environmental impacts of data centers, opposition from big tech employees over military applications of AI, public outcry over the UK’s A-level grading fiasco. While not intended to be exhaustive, we surveyed six key areas where such resistance has been particularly active:

  • (i) creative industries
  • (ii) migration and border control
  • (iii) medical AI
  • (iv) higher education
  • (v) defense and security sectors and
  • (vi) environmental activism. 

Thereby, we highlighted key actors in AI resistance, with particular emphasis on the role of civil society in mobilising public opposition. The report also looks at how governments have turned some forms of resistance into law.  One example is the EU AI Act, which prohibits certain AI systems like deliberately manipulative AI practices.

https://www.hiig.de/en/ai-resistance/

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Günter Wallraff Explained

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Research methods

Wallraff came to prominence thanks to his striking journalistic research methods and several major books on lower class working conditions and tabloid journalism. This style of research is based on what the reporter experiences personally after covertly becoming part of the subgroup under investigation. Wallraff would construct a fictional identity so that he was not recognisable as a journalist.

In the German newspaper Die Zeit of 1977 Walraff formulates a sentence that is central to his work: “If I want to make myself the mouthpiece of the voiceless who have little to say even though they have a lot to say, that means to me that I am one of them, at least temporarily.”
Undercover journalism

Wallraff first took up this kind of investigative journalism in 1969 when he published 13 unerwünschte Reportagen (“13 undesired reports”) in which he described what he experienced when acting the parts of an alcoholic, a homeless person, and a worker in a chemicals factory.

He travelled to Greece in May 1974 at the time of the Ioannides military dictatorship. While in Syntagma Square, he protested against human right violations. He was arrested and tortured by the police as he purposely did not carry on him any papers that could identify him as a foreigner. After his identity was revealed, Wallraff was convicted and sentenced to 14 months in jail. He was released in August, after the end of the dictatorship.

https://everything.explained.today/G%c3%bcnter_Wallraff/

German Journalist Once Jailed in Greece During the Junta, Revisits Korydallos Prison

Wallraff traveled to Greece in May 1974. While in Syntagma Square, he protested against human right violations in the country and was arrested and tortured by the police. After his identity was revealed, he was convicted and sentenced to 14 months in jail. He was released in August, after the end of the dictatorship.

https://greekreporter.com/2017/02/24/german-journalist-once-jailed-in-greece-during-the-junta-revisits-korydallos-prison/

Günter Wallraff: Undercover journalist

His investigative methods have led to the creation of the Swedish verb ‘wallraffa’ meaning “to expose misconduct from the inside by assuming a role” which has been officially included in word list of the Swedish Academy.

https://circleof13.blogspot.com/2008/12/gunter-wallraff-undercover-journalist.html

GREECE Interrogation Department-Military Police, Bouboulinas, KEVOP, Leros: The junta’s torture chambers and the brutality of its interrogators

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According to official records, from 1967 to 1974 more than 90,000 people were arrested. The vast majority endured beatings, electric shocks, mock executions and every imaginable cruelty.

[Note: It is never mentioned that the Military Police torture facility at present-day ‘Liberty Park’ is a block away from the U.S, embassy. Or that former victims at the trials of their torturers testified that masked American interrogators would emerge from tunnel entrances to perform mock executions.]

https://en.protothema.gr/2025/11/16/interrogation-department-military-police-bouboulinas-kevop-leros-the-juntas-torture-chambers-and-the-brutality-of-its-interrogators/

A Trip Back to Bouboulinas Street, the Torture Prison During the Greek Junta [CIA daughter meets former inmate]

For seven years between 1967 and 1974 the Greek military junta used a building at Bouboulinas Street, Athens as a prison where thousands were tortured. Among them a Belgian national named Roland Baumann who recently returned to the infamous building.

https://greekreporter.com/2023/12/04/bouboulinas-street-greek-torture-prison-junta/

GREECE Why We Still Talk About the Polytechnic Uprising, 52 Years Later

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But the Polytechnic is not only the moment the tank entered. It is three days and a few hours during which tens of thousands of young people lived a revolutionary surge that swept the entire country away. Boys and girls who stood against the junta, overthrowing at the same time everything imposed on them until then by the oppressive society of their parents, with the harsh morals of the era.

For as long as the occupation lasted, the students lived a form of direct democracy. They cooked together, slept together, sang and discussed politics, and co-decided everything. At the same time, they risked everything for freedom.

https://www.tovima.com/society/why-we-still-talk-about-the-polytechnic-uprising-52-years-later/

Polytechnic Uprising 1973: The First Sparks of Defiance

In November 1973, a wave of student unrest swept through Greek universities, setting in motion the events that would ignite the Athens Polytechnic uprising and mark the beginning of the end for the military dictatorship.

https://www.tovima.com/vima-history/polytechnic-uprising-1973-the-first-sparks-of-defiance/

Who are Italy’s FAI/FRI anarchists — now designated as terrorists by the U.S.?

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Why it matters: The move targets a transnational ecosystem of anarchist cells active across Europe. The designations restrict access to the U.S. financial system and expose individuals and entities to primary and secondary sanctions.

The groups targeted:

Antifa Ost (Germany): linked to assaults on individuals identified as “fascists” or part of the far-right scene; accused of attacks in Budapest in 2023; labelled a terrorist organisation by Hungary in 2025.

FAI/FRI (Italy) is the most structured and long-standing of the designated groups, with two decades of insurrectionist activity.

Armed Proletarian Justice (Greece): responsible for attempted and successful IED attacks against government targets, including a 2023 explosive device near Greece’s riot police headquarters.

Revolutionary Class Self-Defence (Greece): claimed two IED attacks between 2024 and 2025, citing anti-capitalist motives and solidarity with Palestine.

https://decode39.com/12412/who-are-italys-fai-fri-anarchists-now-designated-as-terrorists-by-the-u-s/

The Original Jeffrey Epstein

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This is the story of George Huntington Hartford II, a friend of Hod Dibben and Stephen Ward, and a billionaire who was closely related to the intelligence-linked propaganda creators who were behind the invention of James Bond.
[…]
Huntington Hartford, Ivar Bryce and James Bond

By 1960, Huntington Hartford’s marriage to Marjorie was coming to an end, and he was celebrating by organising elite sex parties, as well as becoming a regular at Hod Dibben’s sordid London-based events. At the famous, sometimes satanic themed, sex parties held by Hod Dibben and Mariella Capes, aka Mariella Novotny, George Huntington Hartford mingled with the elites of London, gangsters such as the Kray twins, as well as many of the main characters involved in the Profumo Affair, an event which saw the downfall of the British government. One of the people who sometimes attended these gatherings was Stephen Ward, who was to become the main patsy in the Profumo scandal, resulting in his death by overdose while in custody during one of the most high profile court cases Britain had ever seen.
[…]
In 1950, Ivar Bryce married into the Huntington Hartford family and wed Josephine Huntington Hartford. Like George Huntington Hartford II, his sister, Josephine Bryce, had inherited wealth from their grandfather. Yet, unlike George, she invested it well, concentrating on owning racehorses and becoming very successful in her own right. During the late-1950s, Ivar Bryce, Ian Fleming, and George Huntington Hartford also began producing films together. In April 1953, Fleming had published a novel entitled Casino Royale, which introduced his readers to a British secret agent, serving Queen and country, who went by the name James Bond. The book was successful and soon Fleming began working with Ernest Cuneo to develop scripts for James Bond’s cinematic debut. Cuneo had been an important, if not vital, figure in the operations of the aforementioned BSC during World War II. He also admitted to passing information about American decision-making onto British spies, during a time where the Brits were intent on manipulating US actions.
[…]
Also in April 1959, Ian Fleming wrote a letter to McClory concerning potential James Bond movie ideas, with that letter also being used in a 1963 court case between Bryce and McClory after their business relationship eventually broke down. However, in August 1959, McClory and Bryce were still on agreeable terms and were reportedly about to start work on their new studio in the Bahamas.

Basing the production company and much of the development of the James Bond franchise in the Bahamas made sense for many reasons. The Huntington Hartford children had both purchased homes in the Bahamas, with George’s “Paradise Island” being located very close to Ivar and Josephine Bryce’s Xanadu villa. But the main reason for Bond being based in the Bahamas was McClory himself, who claimed that he was responsible for a large part of Ian Flemings novel, Thunderball, being set in the Bahamas. McClory claimed in the previously mentioned 1963 court case that Bryce and Fleming had tried to oust him as the producer of the proposed Bond film. Eventually, like the relationship between McClory and Bryce, the plans to build a studio in the Bahamas began to unravel.

George Huntington Hartford had promised that his redevelopment of Hog Island into “Paradise Island” was to see the creation of a “dignified vacation resort.” In 1960, the New York Times reported that the island at Nassau in the Bahamas was to be a place for “artists and writers, socialites, and diplomats, teachers and scientists, sportsmen and students” in an atmosphere of “cultural enjoyment.”

https://unlimitedhangout.com/2023/03/investigative-series/the-original-jeffrey-epstein/

Flame of liberation theology still flickers despite the rise of the religious right

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A counter-tradition of emancipation

In stark contrast to the top-down, identitarian project of the religious right stands liberation theology. Born in the slums and base communities of Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s, it represented a radical rereading of the Christian gospel through the eyes of the poor.

Its foundational text was lived experience; its method was a “hermeneutic of suspicion” that questioned how traditional theology had been used to justify the status quo. It required a reading of the Bible from the perspective of a “preferential option for the poor”.

Liberation theology insisted that salvation was a holistic process of liberation from all that dehumanises – including structural sin embodied in poverty, oppression and violence. It drew heavily on Marxist social analysis to understand the mechanisms of economic exploitation, arguing that to love one’s neighbour required a fundamental transformation of unjust social structures.

Liberation theology’s power lay in its grassroots, emancipatory praxis. It was a theology not just to be studied, but to be lived and acted upon.

It empowered laypeople, fostered base ecclesial communities where the poor could read and interpret scripture for themselves, and inspired countless priests and nuns to stand in solidarity with marginalised communities, often at the cost of their lives.

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2025-11-10-flame-of-liberation-theology-still-flickers-despite-the-rise-of-the-religious-right/

Romanian Neo-Nazis, Antisemites, Ultranationalists Mock, Defame, Incite Violence Against ‘Elie Wiesel’ Holocaust Research Institute And Its Staff

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While the Elie Wiesel Institute itself is the focus of Romania’s extreme-right, so are its employees, who are also frequently targeted. Alexandru Florian, director of the institute, and Adina Marincea, a researcher with the organization, are subject to online abuse on a regular basis. In Florian’s case, this abuse often features antisemitic elements, as he is Jewish; posts defaming Marincea usually take on a sexist character or attack her left-wing positions.

Sometimes, animosity against the Elie Wiesel Institute moves into violent territory. Although most of the institute’s detractors refrain from inciting violence, a number of posts have surfaced featuring threats against Florian and Marincea.

https://www.memri.org/reports/romanian-neo-nazis-antisemites-ultranationalists-mock-defame-incite-violence-against-elie

The clandestine (and copied) talent of Christopher Marlowe: “Shakespeare would not have existed without his presence”

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Marlowe was recruited by the State to carry out secret operations in hot spots. Greenblatt finds evidence in the contacts that facilitated his entry and exit from university life. His entry and exit from artistic life.

Marlowe was a spy. “At the end of his sixth year of study at Cambridge, he applied for his degree. The University authorities denied it to him. He had not met the residency requirements. He had been absent for long periods of time. They suspected he had gone to France, where exiled Catholics were preparing to attack the throne. Since he did not receive the degree, at the end of the month, a letter signed by all the important men of the Elizabethan Government arrived at the University explaining the Queen’s displeasure at such an important person not receiving the degree. There are no such letters for a nobody. This intervention greatly influenced what happened later with his work. For example, it influences The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, who makes a pact with the devil.”

“He had very uncommon talents. And he had no limits. He always walked very close to them. That’s why he lived a very short life”

There was another passage in his biography that excites Greenblatt. “For some reason, a year before his assassination, Marlowe was in Flanders”. The English were fighting the Spanish there. Marlowe tried his luck in counterfeiting coins with a couple of underworld friends. They weren’t very smart either: someone discovered the fake shilling they used to test the business. “They suspected he was counterfeiting because he was going to defect to the Catholic side and help the Spanish. Anyone else would have been hanged. However, the military governor wrote a message to London with the recommendation of two of the most important nobles in the country. Marlowe was returned with his guard. It’s amazing. These two very important characters in England at that time offered protection to the son of a cobbler who was counterfeiting money. And they released him. It’s amazing,” the author repeats. “He was involved in something clandestine and complicated.”

https://www.mundoamerica.com/news/2025/11/11/69131163fc6c8300738b459d.html

No, ancient Hebrew Slaves didn’t Build the Giza Pyramids

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Hebrews or “Jews” did not help build the pyramids because there were not yet any Jews at that time. The three Giza pyramids were constructed during the 4th Dynasty (c. 2575–c. 2465 BCE). Moses was a mythical figure imagined by Jewish scribes in Achaemenid Iran in the 500s BCE and after, based on circulating folk tales of a branch of the Canaanites, and it isn’t clear whether he really existed or when. If as tradition holds, his dates were 1391–1271 BCE, that was some 11 centuries after the pyramids were built.

https://www.juancole.com/2025/11/ancient-hebrew-pyramids.html