Brandon Roberts
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bxroberts.org
Brandon Roberts
@bxroberts.org
8.8K followers 270 following 87 posts
Investigative journalist. News Apps Developer at @ProPublica.org. Occasional AI/ML researcher. Using data+code to hold power to account.
Web: https://bxroberts.org
Signal: brandonrobertz.01
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Reposted by Brandon Roberts
lisalsong.bsky.social
"Live insects crawled through the facility’s production workshop, while dead ones lay on the floor. Condensation from rust-covered pipes dripped into a water tank waiting to be mixed with raw ingredients."

🤢 😮 --> by @anniewaldman.bsky.social @bxroberts.org

www.propublica.org/article/fore...
Foreign Food Safety Inspections Hit Historic Low After Trump Cuts
The dramatic shift in oversight comes at a time when the U.S. has never been more reliant on foreign food, which accounts for the vast majority of the nation’s seafood and more than half its fresh fru...
www.propublica.org
November 6, 2025 at 3:17 PM
Reposted by Brandon Roberts
anniewaldman.bsky.social
NEW: Billions of pounds of food are imported to the U.S. each year.

The FDA inspects foreign producers to ensure what we're eating is safe from pathogens and dangerous manufacturing practices.

But now, after Trump's drastic staff cuts, these inspections have plummeted to a historic low.
🧵/
Foreign Food Safety Inspections Hit Historic Low After Trump Cuts
The dramatic shift in oversight comes at a time when the U.S. has never been more reliant on foreign food, which accounts for the vast majority of the nation’s seafood and more than half its fresh fru...
www.propublica.org
November 6, 2025 at 1:30 PM
Reposted by Brandon Roberts
josephcox.bsky.social
New incredible detail here: ICE says a match in its facial recognition app Mobile Fortify is a "definitive" determination of a person's status, and that this overrides birth certificates. This is an app ICE is using in the field to scan people

www.404media.co/ice-and-cbp-...
Ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee Bennie G. Thompson said in a statement “Mobile Fortify is a dangerous tool in the hands of ICE, and it puts American citizens at risk of detention and even deportation.” He also said “ICE officials have told us that an apparent biometric match by Mobile Fortify is a ‘definitive’ determination of a person’s status and that an ICE officer may ignore evidence of American citizenship—including a birth certificate—if the app says the person is an alien. ICE using a mobile biometrics app in ways its developers at CBP never intended or tested is a frightening, repugnant, and unconstitutional attack on Americans’ rights and freedoms.”
October 29, 2025 at 3:03 PM
Reposted by Brandon Roberts
josephcox.bsky.social
New: Videos show ICE/CBP agents are scanning peoples' faces on the street to verify citizenship. ICE has tool to instantly look up unprecedented number of databases with just a photo

“I’m an American citizen so leave me alone”

“Alright, we just got to verify that”

www.404media.co/ice-and-cbp-...
ICE and CBP Agents Are Scanning Peoples’ Faces on the Street To Verify Citizenship
Videos on social media show officers from ICE and CBP using facial recognition technology on people in the field. One expert described the practice as “pure dystopian creep.”
www.404media.co
October 29, 2025 at 2:42 PM
bxroberts.org
Great article. Archiving the internet is such a difficult thing without much of a financial motive, too. But reliance on a single entity has blown up in our faces so many times in the past.
andrewdeck.bsky.social Andrew Deck @andrewdeck.bsky.social · 23d
The Wayback Machine’s snapshots of news homepages have dropped off in recent months. Our analysis shows that since May 16, the number of captures available for 100 top news sites declined by 87%.

@hanaatameez.bsky.social and I report for @niemanlab.org.
www.niemanlab.org/2025/10/the-...
The Wayback Machine’s snapshots of news homepages plummet after a “breakdown” in archiving projects
Between May and October 2025, homepage snapshots fell by 87% across 100 news publications.
www.niemanlab.org
October 22, 2025 at 7:09 PM
Reposted by Brandon Roberts
micahloewinger.bsky.social
From @juddlegum.bsky.social’s newsletter this morning: “A Popular Information investigation reveals tens of millions in new ICE spending on guns, chemical weapons, and explosives.”

popular.info/p/ice-boosts...
October 20, 2025 at 12:32 PM
bxroberts.org
I feel like "generate new ideas" is pretty debatable here 🤣
October 7, 2025 at 4:01 AM
Reposted by Brandon Roberts
ericumansky.bsky.social
Top VA officials testified that they don’t know how many doctors and nurses have left.

We do.

The VA is down 600+ doctors and 1,900+ nurses this year.

After years of growth, the number of docs has declined each month since Trump took office.

www.propublica.org/article/vete...
'You Don't Have An Answer?': Richard Blumenthal Stunned By VA Official's Response
YouTube video by Forbes Breaking News
youtu.be
September 26, 2025 at 1:34 AM
bxroberts.org
Office of Science and Technology Policy is requesting federal rules/guidelines/etc "that unnecessarily hinder" the development, deployment, and adoption of AI.

The list of "not appropriate" assumptions is interesting because AI experts will tell you many of these are critical to responsible AI use.
Quote from the Federal Register document "These assumptions include, but are not limited to: • Decision-Making and Explainability – Decisions are made, documented, and explained, in ways where the processes and rationale are traceable to a human actor. • Liability and Accountability – Allocation of legal responsibility and remedial frameworks rests with human actors or clearly identifiable organizational decision points. • Human Oversight and Intervention – Prescriptive requirements for human oversight, review, intervention, or continuous supervision in operational processes. • Data Practices – Data collection, retention, provenance, sharing, and permitted uses cases that do not account for the scale, reuse, or training dynamics characteristic of AI systems. • Testing, Validation, and Certification – Approaches to testing, approval, and post-market oversight designed for static products or human-delivered services, rather than adaptive or continuously learning systems." Quote from the Federal Register document: This RFI seeks to identify Federal regulations that hinder AI development, deployment, or adoption, particularly due to rules established before current AI capabilities were anticipated. OSTP is especially interested in regulations that, while serving important purposes, contain requirements or assumptions incompatible with how AI systems function or could function. Respondents are encouraged to identify regulations across all sectors where the underlying assumptions, technical requirements, or compliance frameworks may create unnecessary barriers to beneficial AI applications, even if the core policy objectives remain valid
September 25, 2025 at 10:47 PM
bxroberts.org
Love seeing a local AI story. This one can be replicated anywhere too. 🔥

www.knkx.org/government/2...
Washington city officials are using ChatGPT for government work
Records show that public servants have used generative AI to write emails to constituents, mayoral letters, policy documents and more.
www.knkx.org
September 22, 2025 at 4:33 PM
Reposted by Brandon Roberts
propublicaguild.org
We ❤️ @ire.org! @propublica.org employees wore buttons & flyered at the IRE gala to rally support for our fight for a fair contract.

The future of investigative journalism depends on protecting the workers who make it possible.

You can help by signing our petition: actionnetwork.org/petitions/te...
People wearing union shirts stand outside a red carpet at the entrance of an event as people walk in. People wearing union shirts and stickers smile and hand out ProPublica Guild buttons. Five people sit at a table for an event wearing stickers and buttons supporting the ProPublica Guild. Two people walking into an event wear stickers in support of the ProPublica Guild.
September 15, 2025 at 11:46 PM
Reposted by Brandon Roberts
themorrancave.bsky.social
🚨JOURNALISM JOB ALERT🚨
@propublica.org is looking for our next Ancil Payne Reporting Fellow.

Some key details:
•For journos with 3-7 yrs professional experience
•Two-year fellowship; starts Jan. 2026
•Based in our DC office
•$75K/year + Benefits
•Apply before 10/13 9am ET

More here:
Ancil Payne Reporting Fellowship
New York City, United States
job-boards.greenhouse.io
September 12, 2025 at 8:16 PM
bxroberts.org
FDA's Digital Health Advisory Committee are accepting comments in advance of their meeting around "Generative Artificial Intelligence-Enabled Digital Mental Health Medical Devices" aka AI therapists (cringe every time I write that)
Quote from the federal register There is an increasing demand for mental health services in the US and insufficient access to mental health care providers. These new devices may be one way to help address this gap in care for people, potentially improving outcomes and access.
September 11, 2025 at 11:31 PM
Reposted by Brandon Roberts
lighthousereports.com
When Assad’s security state collapsed, locked doors opened, spilling decades of secrets.

Among them: 100s of stolen children, hidden in orphanages & used to blackmail parents. We’ve done the deepest dive yet into this cruel system. Here’s what we found 🧵

www.lighthousereports.com/investigatio...
Syria’s Stolen Children
Under the Assad regime, hundreds of Syrian children were hidden in orphanages to extort their parents. Families still have few answers from the new government or the international charity that kept it...
www.lighthousereports.com
September 11, 2025 at 6:26 AM
bxroberts.org
In case you needed more evidence you can't just blindly copy and run code written by AI:

I just asked a llama3.2 model how to sort by create date and it gave me a command which would have deleted every file from the directory (after sorting) 😅
Screenshot of a LLM session. LLM was asked "wow to sort a directory in linux by create date?" Response: "find /path/to/directory -type f -print0 | sort -t '-' -k 1,1n -r | xargs -0 rm" This would have deleted all the files in the dir
September 10, 2025 at 9:44 PM
bxroberts.org
US Coast Guard partnering with AI voice transcription + analytics company VoiceBrain in a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA). "Eliminating human error and fatigue" but nothing about the new machine errors it will introduce.

public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2025-17361.pdf
Additionally, VoiceBrain's integration into existing and future multicast communication systems provides an opportunity to streamline and enhance the process of maritime response by eliminating human error and fatigue.
September 9, 2025 at 10:59 PM
bxroberts.org
GIJN piece detailing how we covered DOGE using AI at the Dept of Veterans Affairs to try and cut contracts. Includes some tips for reporters working to investigate other uses of AI.

By @dwindelspecht.bsky.social

gijn.org/stories/how-...
How ProPublica Exposed a Flawed AI Tool “Munching” Hundreds of Veteran Contracts
The reporting team used leaked documents and an interview with the AI tool's developer to reveal numerous mistakes behind the Trump administration's cost-cutting measures of veterans' care.
gijn.org
September 9, 2025 at 9:34 PM
bxroberts.org
The AI fake journalist saga continues ... Business Insider alone has retracted 40 articles now wapo.st/4p9E7hz

Editors who've published a pitch from someone they never talked to nor saw and paid via PayPal have been put on notice 😅
Quote from the story: Nine essays with the byline Tim Stevensen also contain contradictions. In one article, he claims his daughters are in their twenties and his son is a teenager; in another one published this year he says they’re 11, 13 and 15. Quote from story: Wired only discovered that piece was fraudulent because the person who submitted the work was unwilling to provide information sufficient for its payment system, insisting to be paid through PayPal or check. Wired wrote that it has taken steps to ensure this doesn’t happen again, without specifying what they were.
September 6, 2025 at 11:38 PM
bxroberts.org
There's an opening on the News Apps team at ProPublica! If you're a journalist who knows how to code and build things, apply below
👇👇
grnh.se/k5crh6ph6us
News Applications Developer
Remote, United States
grnh.se
September 5, 2025 at 4:58 PM
Reposted by Brandon Roberts
propublica.org
A federal employee directory helped us figure out just how many workers have left federal health agencies since the beginning of President Donald Trump’s second term.

Here’s how we crunched the numbers.

By @pratheekrebala.bsky.social @anniewaldman.bsky.social @bxroberts.org
How We Tracked Workforce Reductions at Federal Health Agencies
When the Trump administration refused to reveal how many workers had left federal health agencies, ProPublica turned to a federal employee directory to quantify the impact. Here’s how we did it.
www.propublica.org
August 30, 2025 at 10:50 PM
bxroberts.org
Our latest -- The gutting of the Department of Health & Human Services. We provide a first look at the raw numbers of who has departed, where they worked and what it means for the country.
anniewaldman.bsky.social Annie Waldman @anniewaldman.bsky.social · Aug 21
NEW: In March, the Trump administration announced a massive purge of workers at the nation's health agencies.

We asked them how many workers were laid off, pushed out or left.

They refused to give us numbers.

So we conducted our own analysis... 🧵

projects.propublica.org/federal-heal...
In March, the Trump administration announced a massive purge of workers at the nation's health agencies. We asked them how many workers were laid off, pushed out or left, and the admin refused to give us numbers. So we conducted our own analysis, a thread...
August 21, 2025 at 3:01 PM
bxroberts.org
Consistent and clear internal processes result in better journalism!
propublicaguild.org ProPublica Guild @propublicaguild.org · Aug 12
Members in Chicago, Seattle, Berkeley and across the country are lunching out to show support for Just Cause protections that apply to every ProPublica Guild worker, every time.
August 12, 2025 at 4:51 PM
bxroberts.org
I just can't with this
jimacosta.bsky.social Jim Acosta @jimacosta.bsky.social · Aug 4
At 4p ET/1p PT, I’ll have a one of a kind interview with Joaquin Oliver. He died in the Parkland school shooting. But his parents have created an AI version of their son for a powerful message on gun violence. Plus TX Rep. @jamestalarico.bsky.social - see you soon on Substack and later on YouTube.
August 4, 2025 at 9:37 PM
bxroberts.org
Finally some good news

www.niemanlab.org/2025/07/alde...
Alden Global Capital fails in its attempt to get its tentacles on The Dallas Morning News
A late bid to disrupt its sale to Hearst is foiled by a fourth-generation newspaper owner turning down more money.
www.niemanlab.org
July 29, 2025 at 1:10 AM
bxroberts.org
Proposed Dept of Education rule change around "Advancing Artificial Intelligence in Education". Is this backed by anything other than vibes?
www.federalregister.gov/public-inspe...
From a Department of Education proposed rule change: "AI tools have the potential to support personalized instruction, increase classroom engagement, and improve student outcomes."
July 18, 2025 at 10:14 PM