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Daniel Howden

@daniel-howden.bsky.social
1.6K followers 519 following 15 posts

Founder & director at Lighthouse Reports, focused on migration, tech, surveillance. Previously at Economist, The Independent

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Reposted by Daniel Howden
Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
🔴 BREAKING: BP, Uber, Amazon and more paying Tony Blair's think tank $25,000 for “networking” opportunities with politicians and policy makers at party conferences Experts say "looks and smells like cash for access" Full story on Democracy for Sale democracyforsale.substack.com/p/breaking-t...
democracyforsale.substack.com
BREAKING: Tony Blair Institute’s $25,000 corporate network “smells like cash for access”
Exclusive documents show Tony Blair's think tank offers corporate members such as BP and Uber "networking" at party conferences and "a stronger voice" in policy debates.
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The Maybe @themaybe.org · 30/01/2026
For our third installment of our Vaporstate series, @alixdunn.com spoke with two phenomenal journalists from @lighthousereports.com: @daniel-howden.bsky.social and @bearamalhosilva.bsky.social about their months-long investigation into TBI and Oracle. They’ve got the goods. Check it out:
themaybe.org
The Maybe
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Clara Jeffery @clarajeffery.bsky.social · 14/10/2025
1/Stop everything and read/watch/bookmark this massive investigation between @motherjones.com @lighthousereports.com Le Monde, Der Spiegel, Paper Trail Media a vast global surveillance empire used to target politicians, journalists, tech CEOs, and... Jared Leto. ow.ly/2LUF50Xb7KE
ow.ly
The surveillance empire that tracked world leaders, a Vatican enemy, and maybe you
We uncovered a massive data trove. It revealed the hidden world of First Wap, whose untraceable tech has targeted politicians, journalists, celebrities, and activists around the globe.
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Gabriel Geiger @gabrielgeiger.bsky.social · 14/10/2025
On a Saturday night I stumbled across something on the internet that made me feel like ****** my pants. A giant dataset of real surveillance operations targeting 1000s of people across nearly every country. Unraveling it and the mysterious company behind it has consumed 1.5 years of my life
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Dhruv Mehrotra @dmehro.bsky.social · 14/10/2025
Legendary work from @gabrielgeiger.bsky.social. He and a team uncovered a trove of data from a surveillance firm — location data from thousands of phone numbers from nearly every country on Earth. The firm had been tracking everyone from Erik Prince to journalists to Jared Leto.
motherjones.com
The surveillance empire that tracked world leaders, a Vatican enemy, and maybe you
Inside the hidden world of First Wap, whose untraceable tech has targeted politicians, journalists, celebrities, and activists around the globe.
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Ron Deibert @rondeibert.bsky.social · 14/10/2025
The surveillance empire that tracked world leaders, a Vatican enemy, and maybe you www.motherjones.com/politics/202... A stunning investigation by @lighthousereports.com of what I call "despotism as a service"👇
motherjones.com
The surveillance empire that tracked world leaders, a Vatican enemy, and maybe you
We uncovered a massive data trove. It revealed the hidden world of First Wap, whose untraceable tech has targeted politicians, journalists, celebrities, and activists around the globe.
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Lighthouse Reports @lighthousereports.com · 15/10/2025
🧵What’s the biggest lie the surveillance industry tells? That they only sell to legal clients. That there are red lines. But what do these companies say when they think nobody is watching? We went undercover to find out
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Crofton Black @cr0ft0n.bsky.social · 15/10/2025
People often ask what it's like behind the scenes at the world's top spy tech trade fair, ISS World. Turns out it's like this bsky.app/profile/ligh...
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Lighthouse Reports @lighthousereports.com · 24/09/2025
Revealed: How Tony Blair is lobbying on behalf of tech billionaire Larry Ellison We expose former PM’s unprecedented influence over the UK govt & how this is shaped by the interests of his Institute’s largest donor & one of the world’s richest men www.newstatesman.com/politics/202... Thread
newstatesman.com
Inside the Tony Blair Institute
Who really benefits from the former PM’s tech evangelism?
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 01/10/2025
🔴 Tony Blair's ties to Larry Ellison should disqualify him from any role in Gaza - or in Britain's tech future. New by me and @daniel-howden.bsky.social on Democracy for Sale and @lighthousereports.com democracyforsale.substack.com/p/tony-blair...
democracyforsale.substack.com
Tony Blair - Larry Ellison's man in Gaza?
Blair's ties to the Oracle founder and Trump booster should disqualify him from any role in Gaza - or in Britain's tech future
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Daniel Howden @daniel-howden.bsky.social · 18/03/2025
Breaking ‘shouldn’t happen to white people’ immigration news. Canadian actress detained by ICE. Follows ridiculous blow up in Uk over couple fined for stowaway. No mention of non white detainees or context on racist dragnet catching human whitebait www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
theguardian.com
Canadian actor detained at US border in ‘inhumane conditions’ for nearly two weeks
Entrepreneur and actor Jasmine Mooney, who had a role in an American Pie sequel, says she was arrested at southern border and held in detention over an incomplete work visa
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Lighthouse Reports @lighthousereports.com · 01/02/2025
Norway’s criminal justice system ranks as one of the most impartial in the world. Yet with partner NRK, we found that people are on trial not only for what they may have done, but for who they are.
lighthousereports.com
Inequality Before the Law
Investigating bias in the world’s most vaunted criminal justice system.
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Gabriella Sanchez @gesanchez.bsky.social · 20/12/2024
What is happening at Europe's borders, and how can human rights be protected? Come to WORM Rotterdam on TUE 21 JAN 25 & join the De Dependance's Nuria Ribas Costa, @lhreports.bsky.social Klaas van Dijken, @gesanchez.bsky.social & local activists. 🕣19:30 📍Boomgaardstraat 71 Tickets: dedependance.eu
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Lighthouse Reports @lighthousereports.com · 19/12/2024
Across Europe college-educated migrants are locked out of the skilled workforce due to policy failures. @publico.pt & @lhreports.bsky.social reveal how Portugal mitigated brain waste, as well as the limits of this success
publico.pt
A worthless diploma: In Brazil, Gianna is a teacher; in Portugal, she struggles to teach | PÚBLICO
Across Portugal, thousands of foreign teachers are trapped in a bureaucratic maze, suffering from ‘brain waste’ as they are barred from professional positions that go unfilled
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Lighthouse Reports @lighthousereports.com · 17/12/2024
The Premium Times reveals how the US government program on GMOs in Nigeria steamrolled resistance from health+environmental advocates. We discovered derogatory profiles of Nigerians who raised concerns about GMOs, the activist Nnimmo Bassey + Labour Party candidate Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour among them.
premiumtimesng.com
INVESTIGATION: Toxic Tactics: US govt funds pesticide/GM propaganda in Nigeria
Celebrated activist Nnimmo Bassey and political candidate Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour were profiled as part of a US government-funded campaign to undermine global critics of pesticides and GMOs.
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Lighthouse Reports @lighthousereports.com · 13/12/2024
The Rio Grande on the Texas-Mexico border has become a graveyard for migrants. In the latest episode of Backlight, we speak to @mdelbosque.bsky.social about the human toll of US border militarization and untold stories of those who drowned. 🎙️ Listen now: www.lighthousereports.com/investigatin...
lighthousereports.com
Investigating border deaths in the shadow of US election
In this episode we take you behind the scenes of our latest U.S.-Mexico border investigation, Drownings and Deterrence in the Rio Grande.
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Daniel Howden @daniel-howden.bsky.social · 13/12/2024
To hear from Jesse and Melissa and go behind the scenes of this investigation listen to the latest Backlight podcast from @lhreports.bsky.social www.lighthousereports.com/investigatin...
lighthousereports.com
Investigating border deaths in the shadow of US election
In this episode we take you behind the scenes of our latest U.S.-Mexico border investigation, Drownings and Deterrence in the Rio Grande.
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Daniel Howden @daniel-howden.bsky.social · 13/12/2024
This theatre of deterrence looked like a recipe for drowning deaths. Which is exactly what it is A year on & Lighthouse Reports, Washington Post & El Universal revealed the scale of drowning deaths brought about by militarization and politics on the river www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/...
washingtonpost.com
Border drownings rose as migrants rushed to cross and Texas clamped down
An investigation found more migrant drowning deaths than the U.S. or Mexico have reported. Many were in Eagle Pass, where Texas’ border crackdown is focused.
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Daniel Howden @daniel-howden.bsky.social · 13/12/2024
Jesse's livelihood is not its only victim. We paddled on the fast moving river watching families with small kids wading across from the Mexican side to be met with fortifications and bull horns, while bored looking guys in uniforms cruised the river with nothing to do.
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Daniel Howden @daniel-howden.bsky.social · 13/12/2024
Once on the water, Jesse lamented the fact that Texas' Operation Lone Star -- a multibillion dollar effort to pick a fight with the White House and provide border content for the election cycle -- had killed his kayak tour company.
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Daniel Howden @daniel-howden.bsky.social · 13/12/2024
We hauled the kayaks past a shrill right-wing cable TV reporter setting up that day's camera position with the help of Florida Fish and Wildlife agents. She had them in a circle, running through a shot list to ensure she got the footage needed to capture the "border invasion"
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Daniel Howden @daniel-howden.bsky.social · 13/12/2024
These days it's a mess of churned mud and razor wire. The park, like much of the US bank, has been occupied by a cacophony of state, out-of-state troopers, border patrol and any number of Feds.
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Daniel Howden @daniel-howden.bsky.social · 13/12/2024
A year ago, I pushed off with a kayak down the Rio Grande in the great company of Jesse Fuentes and @mdelbosque.bsky.social We entered the water from what used to be the park in Eagle Pass, Texas
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Daniel Howden @daniel-howden.bsky.social · 08/12/2024
The speed with which the powerful and merciless are reduced to small, pathetic fugitives prompts a kind whiplash
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Daniel Howden @daniel-howden.bsky.social · 08/12/2024
Thinking today of Syrian friends & so many other amazing Syrians met over the last decade on the reporting trail. Hard to comprehend the scale of damage wrought by the despicable and belatedly deposed Assads
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Ariadne P @ariadni.bsky.social · 02/12/2024
amazing work by my colleague @gabrielgeiger.bsky.social in a series that exposes the racism built into algorithms used by govt agencies and its real, human consequences.
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Daniel Howden @daniel-howden.bsky.social · 02/12/2024
Trying to follow closely what’s happening in Syria & Georgia where there’s a news lag. Twitter lists were brilliant for this, curious if Bsky can provide. Recommendations for follows v welcome
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Lighthouse Reports @lighthousereports.com · 30/11/2024
Serious impact in Sweden where the welfare agency has been called before parliament to answer questions over discriminatory algorithms used to profile benefits recipients www.svd.se/a/63VOxo/eft...
svd.se
Efter SvD:s granskning – MP kräver AI-garantier
Miljöpartiet kritiserar Försäkringskassan efter att SvD avslöjat om hur myndigheten använt AI för att hitta misstänkta fuskare. Partiets tidigare språkrör Märta Stenevi (MP) vill nu kalla myndighetens...
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Nico Schmidt @nicoschmidt.io · 20/11/2024
Come, work with us at @investigate-eu.bsky.social and help take investigative cross-border journalism to the next level. Apply now (until 6 December 2024) or share if you know someone who knows someone. Happy also to answer any questions. Link: www.investigate-europe.eu/en/opportuni...
investigate-europe.eu
Coordinating Editor
Investigate Europe
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Justin Braun @jusbraun.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
Amazing work by @gabrielgeiger.bsky.social on the latest @lhreports.bsky.social suspicion machines investigation. This is a crazy tale of AI ethics washing: The welfare agency had been told that it's tool was crappy. It responded by making up a ludicrous fairness definition.
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Daniel Howden @daniel-howden.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
So we have a podcast, it’s good. The latest Backlight is about how to get sources to talk. The least I can do is get people to listen www.lighthousereports.com/how-to-get-s...
lighthousereports.com
Backlight: How to get sources to talk
Essential skills and techniques on building sources and getting them to open up.
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Lighthouse Reports @lighthousereports.com · 27/11/2024
Secretive algorithms deployed in Sweden's vaunted welfare system cast suspicion on innocent women & migrants while ignoring men & the affluent. We reveal with @SvD how Sweden built this system then stonewalled journalists
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Daniel Howden @daniel-howden.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
How FOIA actually works, as opposed to how it’s meant to work, in model Sweden
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Gabriel Geiger @gabrielgeiger.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
I do a lot of FOIA and I’m used to stonewalling. But Sweden surprised me. After 3 years of telling me no, a high level official at Sweden’s welfare agency Försäkringskassan accidentally left me on cc, writing “Now we must hope that we are done with him.”
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Global Investigative Journalism Network @gijn.org · 25/11/2024
The 2024 class of GIJN Board members are: 🇧🇷 @guilherme-https://twp.ai/1IXE2Y 🇺🇸 @branthouston.bsky.social 🇳🇱 @daniel-howden.bsky.social 🇷🇴 @paulradu.bsky.social 🇿🇦 Rana Sabbagh 🇧🇫 Elza Sandrine Sawadogo 🇺🇸 Marina Walker Guevara Learn more about the results: gijn.org/stories/gij...
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Daniel Howden @daniel-howden.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
Delighted to be joining some incredible journalists on the board of the Global Investigative Journalism Network (hopefully soon to join Bluesky). It’s going to be an incredibly intense period for the community doing this work gijn.org
gijn.org
Global Investigative Journalism Network
GIJN is an international association of nonprofit organizations that support, promote, and produce investigative journalism. GIJN hosts conferences and provides training, resources, and consulting.
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Maud Jullien @maudjullien.bsky.social · 15/11/2024
Daily life in Kinshasa's tallest residential tower, the "Presidential Galeries", built in the 1970s by Mobutu with luxurious marble floors and escalators. My film will be screened at the beautiful Dakar biennale on Nov 30.
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Rachel Coldicutt @rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social · 14/11/2024
Newsletter from me on the democratic implications of Labour's desperation for Big Tech investment, the chilling effects of message discipline, and why the UK needs a progressive tech movement (clue: it's to balance out the fascists) buttondown.com/justenoughin...
November 14, 2024
Let's make technology work for 8 billion people not 8 billionaires
The case for progressive tech policy in the UKIf technologies are going to help us shape our futures, more of us need to be a part of creating and steering them. A more diverse technology landscape will increase our democratic, economic and social resilience – and that’s far too important to leave up to a handful of billionaires. Let’s build it together.And while Lisa Nandy has warmly welcomed civil society into DCMS, Peter Kyle has taken the new economic focus of DSIT to heart and turned towards business to shape the brief – so much so that The Times has reported he has promoted the very biggest of the tech companies to nation status: 

“I’m probably the first secretary of state that is dealing with companies which are outspending our entire British state when it comes to investment in innovation. So let’s just act with a bit of sense of humility. We are having to apply a sense of statecraft to working with companies that we’ve in the past reserved for dealing with other states.”

It’s fairly shocking Kyle said this out loud to a national newspaper.
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Lighthouse Reports @lighthousereports.com · 13/11/2024
Hello Bluesky friends! We'll be posting here more often going forward In the meantime, sharing a starter pack of current/former staff and contributors to Lighthouse Reports investigations. Will update as we go! go.bsky.app/J6a68Yg
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Cori Crider @coricrider.com · 11/11/2024
Hey y'all! No time like the present to head to BlueSky. 🕊️ On freedom, I wrote for Project Syndicate about how the EU must now shore up its independence - and how Teresa Ribera, the new competition commissioner, can make it possible by breaking up big tech: www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/b...
project-syndicate.org
The EU Must Break Up Big Tech | by Cori Crider - Project Syndicate
Cori Crider explains how reining in digital giants’ outsize power would boost competition and help combat climate change.
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Daniel Howden @daniel-howden.bsky.social · 13/11/2024
Breaking up with Twitter hasn’t been easy. 15yrs of fascination with direct access to almost everyone worth following on everything that interests me. Holding on recently I’d bypassed the algorithm using lists to curate a defence against waves of shit. So now we start again
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