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Billy Perrigo
Billy Perrigo is a Staff Writer for TIME
Recent Articles
DeepMind Shares Protein Structure Solution
CEO Demis Hassabis described the disclosure as a "gift to humanity" that would turbocharge the pace of scientific research
By Billy Perrigo
July 28, 2022
Facebook Urged to Drop ‘Racist’ Attempt to Silence Whistleblower
Facebook’s parent company Meta is facing strong pushback from human rights groups over its handling of a whistleblower who alleges in a Kenyan court case that the company benefits from exploitative working conditions and has...
By Billy Perrigo
July 20, 2022
Will Britain’s Next Prime Minister Be a Person of Color?
Of the four remaining candidates to replace Boris Johnson on Tuesday, two were from racial minority backgrounds.
By Billy Perrigo/London
July 19, 2022
Facebook Accused of ‘Whitewashing’ Long-Awaited Human Rights Report on India
The company commissioned the report to determine its role in the spread of hate speech online
By Billy Perrigo
July 14, 2022
Elon Musk Has Thrown Twitter Into Turmoil
The social network will emerge from its battle with Musk a very different company.
By Billy Perrigo
July 14, 2022
Why U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson Resigned
The embattled leader stepped down Thursday in the wake of ethics scandals
By Billy Perrigo / London
July 6, 2022
Facebook Attempts to Silence Black Whistleblower
A Facebook lawyer called on a judge to "crack the whip" against whistleblower Daniel Motaung
By Billy Perrigo
July 1, 2022
Why Copycat AI Tools Will Be the Internet’s Next Big Problem
Text-to-image tools have the potential to turbocharge harassment and spread misinformation
By Billy Perrigo
June 23, 2022
Two Facebook Whistleblowers in Conversation
Facebook whistleblowers Frances Haugen and Daniel Motaung came from very different parts of the social media platform’s ecosystem, but when they met for the first time in front of an audience in London Tuesday, they...
By Billy Perrigo/London
June 16, 2022
An AI Company Scraped Billions of Photos. Regulators Can't Stop It
More and more privacy watchdogs around the world are standing up to Clearview AI, a U.S. company that has collected billions of photos from the internet without people's permission. The company, which uses those photos...
By Billy Perrigo
May 27, 2022
How Breaking Up Big Tech Could Save Global Democracy, According to Proton Founder Andy Yen
This story first appeared in TIME's Leadership Brief newsletter on May 1. To receive weekly emails of conversations with the world’s top CEOs and business decisionmakers, click here. Andy Yen is the founder and CEO...
By Billy Perrigo/Geneva
May 20, 2022
Why Tech Companies Struggled to Stop Buffalo Terror Video
Three years after social media platforms committed to put an end to viral videos of terrorist attacks on their platforms, the attack in Buffalo, New York, has revealed that their efforts are still a work...
By Billy Perrigo
May 17, 2022
Proton's CEO Is Fighting Dictatorships and Big Tech
The company is pursuing profitability without surveilling users for ad dollars.
By Billy Perrigo/Geneva
May 12, 2022
Meta Accused Of Human Trafficking and Union-Busting in Kenya
The company faces allegations after a former outsourced content moderator filed a lawsuit Tuesday.
By Billy Perrigo
May 10, 2022
India Will Test Elon Musk’s Twitter Free Speech Pledge
Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter could give the Indian government extra leverage to crack down on critics—despite Musk’s stated aims to preserve free speech on the platform—due to Tesla’s business ambitions in the country. Under...
By Billy Perrigo and Suprakash Majumdar
April 29, 2022
Twitter Employees Are Worried About Elon Musk Ownership
Twitter employees told TIME that the billionaire's record bodes poorly for the company's anti-harassment efforts
By Billy Perrigo
April 26, 2022
Twitter Employees On Why Musk Is Wrong About Free Speech
Elon Musk offered to buy Twitter for $43 billion on April 14, in what he claimed was a move that would allow him to change the platform to promote more “free speech.” The world’s richest...
By Billy Perrigo
April 14, 2022
Navalny's Chief of Staff on What War In Ukraine Means For Russia
Alexei Navalny, the de-facto leader of the Russian opposition, has been languishing in a Russian prison since February 2021. He was jailed after surviving an assassination attempt, by poisoning, from the Russian security forces while...
By Billy Perrigo
March 30, 2022
Why YouTube Has Survived Russia’s Social Media Crackdown
The platform's popularity may have helped to shield it
By Billy Perrigo
March 23, 2022
Syrians Show Support for Ukraine After Russia Invasion
When Raed Al-Saleh first watched the video from Ukraine of an ambulance on fire and an injured paramedic lying on the ground, he immediately thought of his fallen colleagues in Syria. Al-Saleh is the leader...
By Billy Perrigo
March 3, 2022
Facebook Moderators in Kenya to Receive Pay Rise Following TIME Story
Facebook content moderators based in Kenya will receive a salary increase of between 30% and 50%, in a move announced two weeks after a TIME investigation drew attention to low pay, poor working conditions and...
By Billy Perrigo
March 2, 2022
Ukraine’s Secret Weapon Against Russia: Turkish Drones
In a video that went viral on Twitter Sunday night, a massive explosion rips through what appears to be a Russian convoy, scoring a direct hit on a surface-to-air missile system. The black-and-white footage, posted...
By Billy Perrigo
March 1, 2022
How Open Source Intelligence Verified Ukraine Attack Videos
As Russian troops attacked Ukraine, a decentralized community of online researchers worked together to track and verify video evidence.
By Billy Perrigo
February 24, 2022
How Putin's Denial of Ukraine's Statehood Rewrites History
Analysts say Putin’s remarks are a mischaracterization of history intended to justify Russian claims over Ukraine
By Billy Perrigo
February 22, 2022
Inside Facebook's African Sweatshop
Workers in Sama's Nairobi office are among the lowest-paid workers for the platform anywhere in the world
By Billy Perrigo
February 14, 2022
Why Timnit Gebru Isn’t Waiting for Big Tech to Fix AI's Problems
Three hundred and sixty-four days after she lost her job as a co-lead of Google’s ethical artificial intelligence (AI) team, Timnit Gebru is nestled into a couch at an Airbnb rental in Boston, about to...
By Billy Perrigo
January 18, 2022
Frances Haugen Is 'Super Scared' About the Metaverse
Documents show Facebook knew far more about the harms of its products than it ever let on. Will it take safety in the metaverse seriously?
By Billy Perrigo
December 16, 2021
Inside Frances Haugen's Decision to Take on Facebook
Blowing the whistle against a multibillion-dollar tech company is no small feat
By Billy Perrigo/Paris
November 22, 2021
Why Facebook Employees 'Deprioritized' a Misinformation Fix
In May 2019, a video purporting to show House Speaker Nancy Pelosi inebriated, slurring her words as she gave a speech at a public event, went viral on Facebook. In reality, somebody had slowed the...
By Billy Perrigo and Vera Bergengruen
November 10, 2021
Facebook Failed to Remove Islamophobic Content in India
Facebook is aware of the danger and prevalence of the Love Jihad conspiracy theory on its platform but has done little to act on it, according to internal Facebook documents and former employees
By Billy Perrigo
November 1, 2021
Why Working at Facebook Is Like Playing Chess with an Alien, According to Leaked Documents
Internal documents paint a unique picture of the internal culture at Facebook
By Billy Perrigo
October 27, 2021
Why Frances Haugen's European Facebook Testimony Matters
Haugen is seeking to ensure new laws around the world reflect the internal reality of how social media companies work
By Billy Perrigo/London
October 26, 2021
Journalist Rana Ayyub's Fight to Expose the Truth in India
For the last several months, every time Rana Ayyub’s phone or doorbell rings, she has felt a pang of fear. Could this be the day the Indian government finally throws her in prison—or worse? In...
By Billy Perrigo
October 22, 2021
Why Dmitry Muratov's Nobel Peace Prize Matters for Russia's Journalists
Muratov is founder and editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, which has reported extensively on government corruption in Russia
By Billy Perrigo
October 8, 2021
How Frances Haugen’s Team Forced a Facebook Reckoning
Facebook's civic-integrity team, where whistle-blower Frances Haugen worked, pledged to put people ahead of profits. Facebook shut it down, but some former members are still honoring their promise.
By Billy Perrigo
October 7, 2021
How Can We Fix Facebook?
“Facebook over and over again has shown it chooses profit over safety”
By Billy Perrigo
October 4, 2021
A New Campaign Asks Facebook Users to Pledge to Log Off
The campaign comes in the wake of a series of damning reports last week from the Wall Street 'Journal'
By Billy Perrigo
September 22, 2021
Instagram's Body Image Problem May Be Unfixable
The features within Instagram that cause teenage girls to develop negative feelings about their body image may be baked into the very core of the platform
By Billy Perrigo
September 16, 2021
Brazil's New Social Media Rules Explained
Brazil’s new rules appear to be the first in the world to make certain types of content takedowns illegal under national law.
By Billy Perrigo
September 10, 2021
What China's Tech Crackdown Means for the U.S.
New regulations include: only three hours of video games per week allowed for kids, limits on social media algorithms, and a ban on online celebrity fan clubs
By Billy Perrigo
September 1, 2021
AI Wrote This Play. It May Contain Racism
'AI' is the world’s first play written and performed live with an artificial intelligence. But what do you do when the AI begins to reflect humanity’s darker side?
By Billy Perrigo
August 23, 2021
Are Facebook's Top Posts Really Low-Effort Memes?
One of the most popular links was for a shop selling CBD vapes, which was shared dozens of times by Jaleel White, who played Steve Urkel in Family Matters.
By Billy Perrigo
August 19, 2021
The Fall of Afghanistan Divides Britain's Ruling Party
Taliban fighters took control of Kabul on Monday, bringing an end to a period of almost 20 years when the country was run by a national government supported by the United States. The rout of...
By Billy Perrigo
August 16, 2021
Twitter Offers Transparency on Racist Abuse, but Few Solutions
The social media platform poured cold water on the idea that anonymity is a significant driver of racism online.
By Billy Perrigo
August 11, 2021
What to Know About the Pegasus Spyware Hack
An international media effort reports that governments tracked the phones of activists, politicians and journalists
By Patrick Lucas Austin and Billy Perrigo
July 20, 2021
Why the Pegasus Revelations Matter
Activist groups are calling on governments to step in to regulate the sale of spyware after data was leaked to major news outlets showing hundreds of journalists, activists, dissidents and lawyers around the world likely...
By Billy Perrigo
July 19, 2021
The Inside Story of WhatsApp Content Moderators
“I sold my soul for $16.50 an hour," says one content moderator who works for Accenture, a third-party contractor
By Billy Perrigo
July 15, 2021
How Can Social Media Firms Tackle Racist Abuse of Soccer Players?
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was set to urge social media companies to take action to stamp out racial abuse on their platforms on Tuesday, after the profiles of Black England soccer players were bombarded...
By Billy Perrigo
July 13, 2021
What Facebook's Legal Win Means for Antitrust Reform
Critics of Big Tech hope the rulings will be just the leverage they need to update antitrust laws
By Billy Perrigo
June 30, 2021
Facebook Tried to Ban Myanmar’s Military. But Its Own Algorithm Kept Promoting Pages Supporting Them, Report Says
Facebook promoted pages that shared pro-military propaganda in Myanmar, even after it banned accounts linked to the military from the platform due to human rights abuses and the risk of violence, according to a report...
By Billy Perrigo
June 24, 2021
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