iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Paul Bouchaud @paulbouchaud.com · 25/11/2025

Meta's new computer vision model was trained on three times more military equipment than sports and medical combined, but don't worry—their license says you can't use it for military purposes.

020

Paul Bouchaud @paulbouchaud.com · 02/09/2025

Last week, 5 major porn sites rolled out “age verification” in France to comply with regulators. 3 of them — xvideos, xnxx, tnaflix — use AgeGO. AgeGO: • Collects the exact video URL before consent • Sends webcam streams directly to Amazon • Forces users to give an email via an unskippable step

Diagram of AgeGO's age verification system.

232

Paul Bouchaud @paulbouchaud.com · 19/06/2025

Vous pouvez aussi juste déposer les fichiers de pub et rien d'autre ! Aussi si vous mettez votre zip, la décompression se fait dans votre navigateur en local pour y extraire les fichiers de pub. [Le code de la page et ce qui est envoyé et disponible en un clic de manière transparente]

110

Paul Bouchaud @paulbouchaud.com · 19/06/2025

Wanna check if you've been targeted by ads based on sensitive data? Just drop your X portability archive to find out haveibeentargeted.online

Screenshot of the website haveibeentargeted.online displaying the result of the analysis. We observe that the user was served ads based on their inferred similarity with political accounts.

073

Paul Bouchaud @paulbouchaud.com · 18/06/2025

Through the X Ads repository, mandated by the DSA, we exported the ads run by major companies, and checked their targeting criteria. What we found is concerning:

"Conversation topics" curated by X for advertisers. Among those we find "political affiliation - Rassemblement National" alongside other parties

100

Paul Bouchaud @paulbouchaud.com · 18/06/2025

How X enables major brands to target your most sensitive personal data - from health conditions to political beliefs - check out our new report! aiforensics.org/work/sensiti...

122

Paul Bouchaud @paulbouchaud.com · 14/04/2025

"This is a highly adversarial space, we are investing a lot in our detection systems..." Meanwhile, our latest report at @aiforensics.org found Meta reviewed, approved, and displayed fake medicine advertisements over 292 million times to EU users since the DSA took effect.

Meta's Failing Ad Moderation: Health Scams Targeting EU Users

1105

Paul Bouchaud @paulbouchaud.com · 27/06/2024

The French discussion channel, “S-ф”, was open, revealing a conversation on the right. Алина and colleagues shared a link to a fake @le_Parisien article and messages that seem to read: “Changed the text of the task to 'You [… ] that Ukraine can win […] the war? I don’t'.”

100

Paul Bouchaud @paulbouchaud.com · 27/06/2024

Their choice of logos is quite telling: a beer for Germany, cheese for France pizza for Italy and Winnie-the-Pooh for their channel dedicated to websites and animations 🧸.

100

Paul Bouchaud @paulbouchaud.com · 27/06/2024

In the foreground, we see the image they likely wanted to use, sent by an "Алина Малинина" on June 8 via their VK Teams . On the left, there are distinct discussion channels for the countries targeted by the Doppelgänger operations: Ukraine, Germany, France, Israel, US, Italy, and Poland.

100

Paul Bouchaud @paulbouchaud.com · 27/06/2024

Instead of uploading the desired image, they accidentally uploaded a screenshot of it, took last Friday, revealing their VK Teams interface in the background. After a loooong process of enhancing the compressed image, I managed to decipher it 👀

100

Paul Bouchaud @paulbouchaud.com · 27/06/2024

While skimming through tens of Doppelgänger propaganda ads approved by Meta, for a total reach over 200k people in France, Germany, Italy, and Poland over the past two weeks, I stumbled upon an interesting slip-up in one of their ads 👇

120

Paul Bouchaud @paulbouchaud.com · 03/06/2024

In posts about Russia-Ukraine, the presidential majority and left-leaning parties condemn Russian aggression. Meanwhile, both the far-left and far-right advocate for a ceasefire and oppose sending French troops to Ukraine.

010

Paul Bouchaud @paulbouchaud.com · 03/06/2024

In posts about Israel-Palestine: the left condemns the action of Israeli military and demands adherence to international law, while the presidential majority and (far)-right-leaning groups echo messages from the Israeli embassy and criticize pro-Palestine protests at SciencesPo.

110

Paul Bouchaud @paulbouchaud.com · 03/06/2024

As the EU elections are coming up this Sunday, let's take a closer look at the French political discussion on X. By pulling together reposts from politicians and activists, we see a similar structure as the one reported in 2023 by ISCPIF politoscope.org

120

Paul Bouchaud @paulbouchaud.com · 01/06/2024

After publishing its Adversarial Threat Report on Wednesday, Meta approved new pro-Russian propaganda ads to run on Thursday, which linked to spoofed domains impersonating news media. No systemic measures appear to have been implemented to moderate political advertisements, days before the elections

000

Paul Bouchaud @paulbouchaud.com · 29/05/2024

Better late than never, I guess... But moderating propaganda ads before they go live would certainly be more impactful than after they become inactive

000

Paul Bouchaud @paulbouchaud.com · 24/05/2024

Les propagandistes pro-russes exploitent la situation en Nouvelle-Calédonie pour affaiblir le soutien français à l'Ukraine, et Meta approuve les publicités sans avertissement politique.

001

Paul Bouchaud @paulbouchaud.com · 20/05/2024

Less than 3 weeks to the EU elections and Meta is still letting foreign interference slide on its ads platform! If we can detect these campaigns, so should Meta. Time to step up and act on the commitment to "preserve the integrity of these elections on our platforms."

000

Paul Bouchaud @paulbouchaud.com · 28/04/2024

Meta fails to apply moderation decisions across duplicated ads. Meta considers the content of this ad to be against their Advertising Standards, yet this pro-Kremlin propaganda ad has been shown to 252,528 accounts, and is still running.

011

Paul Bouchaud @paulbouchaud.com · 17/04/2024

Weeks before the EU elections, the European Commission published guidelines under the DSA for the mitigation of systemic risks online for elections. In these regards, as well others, our findings are deeply concerning.

000

Paul Bouchaud @paulbouchaud.com · 17/04/2024

We observe an all-time high activity, when the German governing coalition agreed to double the country’s military aid for Ukraine next year to 8 billion euros. Between Nov 12-30, Meta massively delivered propaganda ads to 1.7 million German accounts.

100

Paul Bouchaud @paulbouchaud.com · 17/04/2024

In Germany, the pro-Russian ads reached 37k accounts daily, on average, 2.8 times less than in France. Interestingly, the number of unique ads is only 1.5 times smaller, propagandists seem to invest more in ads targeting in France.

100

Paul Bouchaud @paulbouchaud.com · 17/04/2024

Less than 2 days later the Crocus City Hall attack ads relaying the Kremlin's allegations of Ukrainian and Western involvement were launched in France, none were moderated as political by Meta.

100

Paul Bouchaud @paulbouchaud.com · 17/04/2024

In January 2024, during the farmers protest, the ads advocated against the integration of Ukraine into the EU, arguing it would create unfair competition for French farmers.

100

Paul Bouchaud @paulbouchaud.com · 17/04/2024

After the Hamas-led attack, Meta allowed ads accusing the Ukrainian President of embezzling weapons from the Ukrainian army for personal gain, weapons allegedly used against Israelis. Such ads total a reach of 2.1 million accounts in France 624k in Germany.

100

Paul Bouchaud @paulbouchaud.com · 17/04/2024

In France, the pro-Russian ads reached 140k accounts daily, on average. Days after Sec. Blinken announces a $1B aid package for Ukraine, ads suggesting that the US. instigated the conflict to bolster arms sales reached 132k French accounts in few days.

100

Paul Bouchaud @paulbouchaud.com · 17/04/2024

The narratives and volumes of the campaign adjust with the (inter)national events. The propagandists weaponize news events, such as the farmers protests and military aid packages, to undermine support for Ukraine and institutional support in the EU.

100

Paul Bouchaud @paulbouchaud.com · 17/04/2024

Since August 2023, I detect nearly 4k ads relaying pro-Russian propaganda, with a total reach over 38 million accounts in France and Germany. Less than 20% of such pro-Russian propaganda ads were moderated by Meta as political, despite falling fully under its policy.

100

Paul Bouchaud @paulbouchaud.com · 11/12/2023

Misleading search results, user confinement, and the recommendation of sexual content, with @checkfirst.network and @aiforensics.bsky.social we analyzed Amazon's bookstore algorithms within the DSA framework. Check it out! aiforensics.org/work/amazing-library

030

Paul Bouchaud @paulbouchaud.com · 11/12/2023

🔍 We've identified a large community of books co-recommended by Amazon, promoting climate denialism, COVID-19 conspiracy theories, and conservative views on gender. Explore Amazon's recommendation landscape for yourself at explore.multivacplatform.org

120

Paul Bouchaud @paulbouchaud.com · 11/12/2023

🚨Influential, yet unexplored. I'm thrilled to share my preprint exploring Amazon's recommender systems! Mapping the book recommendation landscape, we spot tight communities, making it tricky for users to break free. hal.science/hal-04308081

130

Paul Bouchaud @paulbouchaud.com · 30/08/2023

New Preprint exploring Members of Parliament reach in algorithmic timelines using engagement predictive models! Do right-wing parties benefit more from engagement-based recommender than left-wing parties ? It depends on how you measure amplification! hal.science/hal-04189507

040