@davidgilbert
Reporter @WIRED covering disinformation, online extremism, and election hucksters. https://www.wired.com/author/david-gilbert/ Got a tip? Get in touch • Email: david.gilbert@wired.com • Signal: @DavidGilbert.01
🚨 OUT TODAY: State of HATE 2026
Our annual deep dive into the British far right.
The groups. The networks. The money. The rhetoric. The public mood.
🔎 Explore the report:
hopenothate.org.uk/state-of-hat...
NEW
At 2.30am on Saturday morning Donald Trump announced he had decided to attack Iran
Two hours later, he shared a link suggesting Iran rigged the 2020 election
Here's why
www.wired.com/story/heres-...
NEW
Within minutes of Trump announcing the launch of Operation Epic Fury, X was flooded with disinformation.
Almost all of the accounts sharing fake videos of the attack on Iran featured blue checkmarks, meaning X is profiting from this.
www.wired.com/story/x-is-d...
👇
“MAGA media is a personality cult that revolves around the president’s whims, and the closer a right-wing commentator is to power, the more likely they are to follow Trump’s directives and talk about anything else,” @mattgertz.bsky.social
www.wired.com/story/maga-i...
"For a bunch of ‘free thinkers,’ they're the most easily led people you can imagine," - @rothschildmd.bsky.social
www.wired.com/story/maga-i...
NEW:
MAGA supporters are very angry about the lack of arrests over Epstein—to the point one Trump supporter went to Mar-a-Lago with a shotgun and can of fuel.
But rather than blaming Trump, they's blaming figures like Bannon, Bondi and Kash Patel
www.wired.com/story/maga-i...
Incredible....
As Tommy Robinson continues to tour America and meet up with prominent figures on the far-right, here's another example of just how intertwined the extremist movements on both sides of the Atlantic have become
(Jared Taylor heads up the white supremacist American Renaissance group)
A reminder to always wipe metadata and don't forget to remove comments before publishing something online 🤦
Scoop from @regret.bsky.social
www.wired.com/story/metada...
DHS now has a $1 billion tab with Palantir
Another incredible scoop from @makenakelly.bsky.social
www.wired.com/story/depart...
Within minutes of Prince Andrew being arrested, the conspiracy channels are lighting up with speculation that he a "scapegoat", will "be dead within a few weeks" and is proof that the "whole country is satanically fuelled on black magic kabbalah secret society occultism."
Okay, this is quite outstanding from Bedford Council.
Last week, we reported that Elon Musk was likely violating US sanctions by allowing Iranian leaders to pay for blue checkmarks.
X quietly removed the checkmarks and now Iranian lawmakers are pissed because parody accounts are impersonating them
www.wired.com/story/elon-m...
The Trump admin is threatening Iran with military action, and Elon Musk has vocally supported Iranian protesters.
Meanwhile, X appears to be providing dozens of Iranian officials and agencies with paid premium accounts -- giving them a social media bullhorn and potentially violating US sanctions.
X did not respond to our requests for comment about Elon Musk allegedly violating US sanctions on Iran.
But within hours of us contacting them, they began removing blue checkmarks from the accounts we flagged.
www.wired.com/story/elon-m...
“By failing to take basic steps to enforce our sanctions, the Trump Administration continues to undermine our national security and the integrity of the financial system,”
— @warren.senate.gov tells WIRED about Elon Musk
www.wired.com/story/elon-m...
EXCLUSIVE
Last month, Elon Musk publicly claimed to support the protesters in Iran
But a new @ttp-updates.bsky.social report shows how X appears to have been violating US sanctions by allowing dozens of Iranian government accounts subscribe to its Premium service
www.wired.com/story/elon-m...
New Uncanny Valley pod up today! Come listen to me, @brbarrett.bsky.social, and @zoeschiffer.bsky.social talk about ICE's expansion plans, AI bots taking over your life, Palantir, and our undying love for the Olympics. Wherever you get your podcasts!
I asked TPUSA about this and they said there are no plans for Erica Kirk to visit Belfast or for TPUSA to hold an event there....
FYI subscribe as @wired.com under @katie-drummond.bsky.social is killing it
ICE has secretly secured leases at over 150 locations in nearly ever state in the US as it races to expand its footprint.
Read @leahfeiger.bsky.social's incredible scoop about how the campaign came about, efforts to keep it a secret and where ICE is going next
www.wired.com/story/ice-ex...
“How a prominent white supremacist leader came to work for a federal security contractor is unclear.”
www.theguardian.com/world/2026/f...
• A doc sued for prescribing a debunked autism therapy
• A man who says vaccines are “poisoning children”
• A woman boosting autism "treatments" using stem cells from rabbits
This is not a QAnon conference line-up, it is the people now guiding US autism research
www.wired.com/story/rfk-jr...
“We’ve fought so hard to protect our community, but they want to experiment on us. We are guinea pigs. When you are autistic, like me, and a mother to autistic children, I see this as a way to end us. That's what it is.” autism activist Fiona O'Leary
www.wired.com/story/rfk-jr...
NEW: Records reviewed by WIRED show DHS’s facial recognition app (Mobile Fortify) isn’t designed to actually "verify" identity—despite DHS claims and its agents relying on its matches to support probable cause in the field.
Journalism is a great industry to go into if you want to become speedrun becoming a Marxist.
Inside the ICE Forum Where Agents Complain About Their Jobs
Another excellent scoop from my @wired.com colleague @telliotter.bsky.social
www.wired.com/story/inside...
The Oireachtas Media Committee 🔔
Alan Kelly notes the “disrespect” shown by X in refusing to attend but also takes aim at the “bizarre” and “worrying” conditions requested by other social platforms - he says at least one company said “if three of the four platforms attend, we’ll be there”.