Tech

‘We have a $1tn company acting desperate’: Frances Haugen on The Social Reckoning, Zuckerberg, and Facebook's growing fragility

Oct 6, 2026

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12 min read

‘We have a $1tn company acting desperate’: Frances Haugen on The Social Reckoning, Zuckerberg, and Facebook's growing fragility

The whistleblower whose explosive revelations about her employer inspired Aaron Sorkin’s new film tells Carole Cadwalladr that, despite Silicon Valley’s power, ‘we have the ability to change a lot of things’

Carole Cadwalladr

Revealed: Britain's contracts with Palantir hit £1bn

Oct 2, 2026

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9 min read

Revealed: Britain's contracts with Palantir hit £1bn

Newly surfaced disclosures reveal the government has spent or agreed to spend at least £992m with Peter Thiel’s controversial AI company – as pressure mounts on Andy Burnham to block them. Max Colbert reports

Max Colbert

Sleepless in Slough: the residents who fear for their failing health in Europe’s data centre capital

Sep 29, 2026

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7 min read

Sleepless in Slough: the residents who fear for their failing health in Europe’s data centre capital

With an estimated 40 facilities packed tightly together in the town, local people say their quality of life is being ruined by strange and unsettling noise pollution. Brenna Spain reports

Brenna Spain

Sep 18, 2026

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4 min read

Cory Doctorow: AI’s big beasts aren’t really scared of their products. They’re scared of their competition

The US giants would love to stop battling each other and be protected from China – and they might have hit on just the narrative to make that possible, writes our tech columnist

Cory Doctorow

Natasha Walter: The end-times oligarchs are weary of Earth. But we should stand and fight for our home

Sep 15, 2026

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4 min read

Natasha Walter: The end-times oligarchs are weary of Earth. But we should stand and fight for our home

In answer to the question ‘what can I do?’ in the face of Trump, the tech bros and their apocalyptic visions – we can come together in the love and support of our communities

Natasha Walter

Meta helped destroy my generation’s sense of self. An $18bn settlement is not punishment enough

Aug 28, 2026

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3 min read

Meta helped destroy my generation’s sense of self. An $18bn settlement is not punishment enough

For those, like me, who have lost loved ones to online harms, the spectacle of a historic lawsuit against a social media company has been bittersweet, writes Adele Walton

Adele Walton

ICE’s tech enablers are already embedded in the British state

Aug 28, 2026

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9 min read

ICE’s tech enablers are already embedded in the British state

Palantir, Anduril, Cellebrite and others supply America’s deportation machine. They also hold UK contracts with the Home Office, MoD and police – offering surveillance capabilities that a Reform government would inherit. Max Colbert reports

Max Colbert

Ellen E Jones: AI can already create films. What it can’t create is art

Aug 7, 2026

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4 min read

Ellen E Jones: AI can already create films. What it can’t create is art

A machine-made movie has premiered at Tribeca and virtual actor Tilly Norwood is about to star in a feature. But if there’s no soul, no emotion, or no attempt at human connection ... who cares? By Ellen E Jones

Ellen E Jones

Cory Doctorow: The people who tell you ‘AI is changing everything’ are lying

Aug 4, 2026

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6 min read

Cory Doctorow: The people who tell you ‘AI is changing everything’ are lying

It has become impossible to tell managers mesmerised by artificial intelligence that the tools are not, in fact, helpful. So employees just play along with the fiction to keep their jobs, writes our tech columnist

Cory Doctorow

‘We go where the silence is’: Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! on Trump, violence and the power of bearing witness

Jul 31, 2026

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10 min read

‘We go where the silence is’: Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! on Trump, violence and the power of bearing witness

The pioneering independent reporter, now the subject of a documentary, talks to Carole Cadwalladr about surviving a massacre and the current threats to the media

Carole Cadwalladr

Adele Walton: The Online Safety Act is supposed to make Britain’s internet a safe space – yet it can’t touch the site linked to my sister’s death

Jul 22, 2026

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5 min read

Adele Walton: The Online Safety Act is supposed to make Britain’s internet a safe space – yet it can’t touch the site linked to my sister’s death

Ofcom says it has used all its powers and can do no more against a pro-suicide forum. For bereaved families like mine, only a public inquiry can explain why

Adele Walton

Peter Thiel, precogs and ‘non-human corporations’ – welcome to the wild world of AI Argentina

Jul 14, 2026

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5 min read

Peter Thiel, precogs and ‘non-human corporations’ – welcome to the wild world of AI Argentina

President Milei’s plans to turn my country into an anarcho-capitalist tech paradise makes him just the latest character in the nation’s long history of chancers and dictators, writes Uki Goñi

Uki Goñi

We’re being asked to save two buckets of water a day. Meanwhile data centres drink a town’s worth

Jul 7, 2026

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3 min read

We’re being asked to save two buckets of water a day. Meanwhile data centres drink a town’s worth

England is heading for a 5bn-litre daily water shortfall by 2055 – so why is the government fast-tracking one of the most water-hungry industries there is, and letting it keep its consumption private, asks campaigner Adele Walton

Adele Walton

Jul 3, 2026

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7 min read

‘If these social media apps were an air fryer, they would have been recalled’: digital campaigner Beeban Kidron on Big Tech

The acclaimed film-maker and peer has made it her business to represent the rights of children and creators against Silicon Valley’s ‘giant compulsion machine’. She talks to Lucia Osborne-Crowley

Lucia Osborne-Crowley

‘It’s like this was made up by a schoolkid’: Reform’s vanishing crypto bill

Jun 30, 2026

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9 min read

‘It’s like this was made up by a schoolkid’: Reform’s vanishing crypto bill

Nigel Farage launched it in Las Vegas and promised to make it law. Now, as his links to cryptobillionaire Christopher Harborne are under scrutiny, Reform’s flagship policy has disappeared. When you understand who would benefit from its proposals – and from other policies Farage has lobbied for since – this is perhaps no surprise. By Ian Tucker

Ian Tucker

Scan your eyeballs, think of the children: how Britain sells surveillance as safety

Jun 16, 2026

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3 min read

Scan your eyeballs, think of the children: how Britain sells surveillance as safety

Keir Starmer's under-16 social media ban can only work if everyone proves who they are. It is the natural conclusion of the Online Safety Act – and of a Brexit that was always about control, says digital rights advocate Heather Burns

Heather Burns

At last, the fool’s bargain that the media struck with AI may be over

Jun 9, 2026

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5 min read

At last, the fool’s bargain that the media struck with AI may be over

In a thunderous speech last week, the boss of the New York Times sounded a rallying call to news organisations to rise up against the theft of their work by Big Tech – and not before time, writes Branko Brkic

Branko Brkic

Jun 5, 2026

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6 min read

‘Her silence was more powerful than words’: how I interviewed a Facebook whistleblower who wasn’t allowed to speak

The Nerve’s Carole Cadwalladr was all set to talk to Sarah Wynn-Williams, author of the explosive memoir Careless People, at the Hay festival when Meta’s lawyers intervened ... and turned the event into ‘absurdist theatre’

Carole Cadwalladr

‘What’s happening is horrifying’: the rebel film-maker challenging AI’s march into Hollywood

Jun 5, 2026

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4 min read

‘What’s happening is horrifying’: the rebel film-maker challenging AI’s march into Hollywood

While pro-Silicon Valley documentaries got major distribution deals, Valerie Veatch had to struggle to get her film, about Big Tech’s dark past and future, into the world. She talked to Charlotte O’Sullivan about what some attendees called ‘the scariest movie playing at Sundance’

Charlotte O'Sullivan

Cory Doctorow: Hell is other people – so billionaires are using AI to replace them

Jun 2, 2026

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4 min read

Cory Doctorow: Hell is other people – so billionaires are using AI to replace them

The tech elite are pouring billions into dispensing with inconvenient humans. Now governments want the same trick to wish away the migrants their economies desperately need, writes the author and Nerve columnist

Cory Doctorow

May 29, 2026

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7 min read

‘They are weapons of war’: Gisèle Pelicot on the tech platforms that facilitate rape

The woman whose courage at trial transformed the debate around abuse talks to Lucia Osborne-Crowley about survival, reclaiming confidence – and shutting down the tools of sexual exploitation

Lucia Osborne-Crowley

‘It’s not progress, and we can stop it’: journalist Karen Hao on big tech, protest and the preventable AI future

May 26, 2026

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8 min read

‘It’s not progress, and we can stop it’: journalist Karen Hao on big tech, protest and the preventable AI future

The US reporter and bestselling author was one of the first journalists to get inside OpenAI – and was alarmed at what she found. Six years on, she tells Carole Cadwalladr, a coalition of resistance is growing to oppose the new Silicon Valley ascendancy

Carole Cadwalladr

‘They can shape the outcomes they claim to forecast’ – could Polymarket influence an election?

May 15, 2026

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9 min read

‘They can shape the outcomes they claim to forecast’ – could Polymarket influence an election?

A platform backed by Peter Thiel and advised by Donald Trump Jr. is taking anonymous crypto bets on UK elections, missile strikes and the death of world leaders. In Britain no regulator will touch it, writes Ian Tucker in this in-depth guide to so-called "prediction markets"

Ian Tucker

New fears over spread of Palantir’s influence after ‘Big Brother’ Met police project extended

May 15, 2026

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6 min read

New fears over spread of Palantir’s influence after ‘Big Brother’ Met police project extended

The programme, designed to expose officer misconduct, was due to expire last month. The Nerve has established that it was extended to today, May 15, with no indication what happens next. Officers fear they will be under long-term surveillance, while it’s also emerged the project could be rolled out to more staff. Report by Max Colbert and Lucia Osborne-Crowley

Max Colbert, +1