Effie Webb

Effie Webb is a reporter on The Bureau of Investigative Journalism’s Big Tech team, where she investigates AI’s role in political influence and online harms, with a particular focus on its impact on young people. Her reporting has exposed a far-right AI-generated influencer paid to produce political campaign material, risks to children from AI companion chatbots, and developers building intimate AI services with weak age protections and access to users’ private conversations. Her work has reached international audiences, appeared in Le Monde, NPR, and Bellingcat, and has driven parliamentary scrutiny and contributed to proposed legislative changes on AI in political campaigning and child safety.

Before joining TBIJ, Webb covered AI at Business Insider, where she investigated the hidden workforce training and testing AI systems, including workers moderating harmful content and producing data for major technology companies. She previously worked in health technology policy and co-researched the award-nominated non-fiction book Bad Influence: How the Internet Hijacked Our Health (2026).