Once mass spam texts were made legal, younger donors vanished, leaving a grassroots fundraising machine that subsists on squeezing vulnerable seniors, some of whom give hundreds of times a day. It’s a horrific model. Consultants get generationally wealthy, and the party hollows out its future.
Jake Grumbach
We found that as of right now 73% of your campaign donation goes back to the consultants and vendors (!!!), four times more than just 20 years ago. Only 13% to ads. Even I was shocked.
Oct 22, 2026 at 10:18 PM
My Journey to the Center of America’s Political Spam Text Hell
I’ve gotten nearly 2,000 campaign fundraising texts that were meant for someone else. I tried to find out why—and uncovered a labyrinth of politicians, data brokers, and shady tactics.
Inside the Democrats’ Campaign Spam Machine | KQED
We talk about the system behind campaign fundraising texts, how it works, who profits and why changes could be on the horizon.
Beset
I am not breaking any news when I share the following trenchant insight: spam is back, and it's worse than ever. I'm seeing it across pretty much every front...
Newsweek and the Rise of the Zombie Magazine
How a decaying legacy magazine is being used to launder right-wing ideas and conspiracy theories.
Give Lively - A Free Fundraising Platform For Nonprofits
We built and support a powerful and practical fundraising platform that is free for nonprofits and intuitively easy to use for donors. Sign up today for Fundraising Pages, Text-to-Donate, Peer-to-Peer, Event Ticketing, and more!
Big Tech tried to get young people addicted. Now we’re fighting back
Two seismic court decisions in the US have intervened where legislators have failed to defend social media users from exploitation, writes campaigner Zamaan Qureshi
Hundreds of ‘pink slime’ local news outlets are distributing algorithmic stories and conservative talking points
<p>Editor’s Note: This is the first of our four pieces on this network. In August 2020, we found that the size of the network had nearly tripled to over 1200 sites. In October 2021, we found that the network had received funding from multiple dark money groups as well as collaborated with advocacy groups on topics to […]</p>
The Effective-Altruism Comeback
Out of the spotlight, the movement has been preparing for the soon-to-be AI rich to donate billions.
Could this be the beginning of the end for the billionaire-owned media propaganda blitz?
A campaign to free our national press from foreign billionaires like Rupert Murdoch is gaining momentum and attracting big-name support
Hey ChatGPT, write me a fictional paper: these LLMs are willing to commit academic fraud
Mainstream chatbots presented varying levels of resistance to deliberate requests for fabrication, study finds
Loper OS » No Formats, no Format Wars.
Computer users are forever being misled, successfully lied to, sold "old wine in new bottles," bamboozled in a myriad ways large and small. Why? Simply because we are, to use the technical term, suckers. Not always as individuals, but certainly collectively. The defining attribute of the sucker is, of course, an inability to learn from experience. And it seems that meaningfully learning from our mistakes is a foreign concept to us. Nay, it is anathema. The darkest heresy imaginable. Something no one would bring up in polite company. Something only spoken of by rabid crackpots, on their lunatic-fringe blogs, during full moon.
How Bronze Age Pervert Built an Online Following and Injected Anti-Democracy, Pro-Men Ideas Into the GOP
A modern story of shitposting, self-publishing and how an anonymous persona can help your ideas take off — and take root at the highest levels.
Who Makes Money From Social Media?
Investigate platforms' revenue redistribution schemes.
Ten more unintuitive things about impact philanthropy fundraising
some more lessons I’ve learned, for the $free.99
Hey ChatGPT, write me a fictional paper: these LLMs are willing to commit academic fraud
Mainstream chatbots presented varying levels of resistance to deliberate requests for fabrication, study finds.
