So how do we even begin to fix this?
Social media companies need to have the responsibility—like, legislatively—to have AI detection and flagging as part of the posting process. Not just as something that’s a fact-check layer, because that’s not going to matter at all. I don’t think a voluntary system is going to work. There need to be consequences for not doing it. I think my worry is that we’re only going to figure this out when something really terrible has happened.
“What happens to a lot of people is they have this kind of compulsive witnessing, where they’re like, ‘I have to witness this thing.’ Because, in history, people have turned their backs, right?”
Do you still do a lot of investigative work yourself now?
No. If I’ve got a gap in my day to do a quick geolocation or something like that, I’ll do it. I’m involved with a lot of the work we do on our production company side of things, so that’s keeping me busy. I do a lot around PR and comms.
Is that easy for you? Somewhere you’d said that when you were younger, you were slightly socially anxious?
I was cripplingly socially anxious. I’ve had to beat it out of me. When I first started doing this, I had loads of anxiety, really serious levels. The idea of speaking on stage was terrifying to me. The first time I did a big event on stage was at a 2013 Google Ideas summit. I don’t remember anything about that. Just dripping with anxiety. But doing this again and again, about something I really care about, has helped balance that out.
How do you spend your spare time online? What do you do on holiday?
I’ve removed Twitter from my phone, because that was one of the worst things. Arguing with people …
You don’t do that anymore, I noticed. You used to do it a lot, and in such good faith.
It was kind of like testing my own knowledge. If someone can come up to me and say, “Oh, you’re wrong because of this,” and I can’t argue against that, then I’m the one in the wrong. It used to be worthwhile having those debates, even if they were arguing in bad faith. But it got to the point where the mythology around Bellingcat that existed in these echo chambers became crystallized. When someone now says, “Oh, Bellingcat is the CIA,” it’s always the same nonsense.
OK, you’re not arguing as much. What else are you doing?
I use AI a lot for my own entertainment. Do you know Suno AI, or Udio? These are music-creation tools—and in the past six months they’ve taken huge, huge leaps.
Oh, Suno. It’s the Hindi word for “listen.”
Yeah. Have you used these at all?
No.
I’ll show you. I have a SoundCloud where I upload my music. You can put in style prompts. You can also put in custom lyrics.
This is how the founder of Bellingcat spends his spare time.
Yeah. I like it especially when the AI generator really gets weird, goes completely off the rails. I write loads of songs about things like filter bubbles online and stuff. If you can condense an idea into a lyrical form, I find that helps process it into a simpler form to explain it to people in articles and books.
When you’re giving these prompts, are you giving them influences or are you just giving them genres?
Oh, I’ve got a whole process for this now! It used to be that I’d say, “OK, let’s do an ambient song.” But then I was thinking: How do I get the exact sound of certain bands? Because you can’t put in “Make a Beastie Boys song.” It won’t let you prompt it that way; they’re clearly trying to avoid getting sued. But I go to ChatGPT and explain the scenario: I’m giving prompts for a music-generation program that requires style tags and types of music, so what are the style tags for, like, Kraftwerk? It will break down styles into separate tags, and you can take those tags and put them back in.
