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Who decides what AI tells you? Campbell Brown, once Meta’s news chief, has thoughts

Published

6 months ago

May 14, 2026

Campbell Brown has spent her career chasing accurate information, first as a renowned TV journalist, then as Facebook’s first, and only, dedicated news chief. Now, watching AI reshape how people consume information, she sees history threatening to repeat itself. This time, she’s not waiting for someone else to fix it.

Her company, Forum AI — which she discussed recently with TechCrunch’s Tim Fernholz at a StrictlyVC evening in San Francisco — evaluates how foundation models perform on what she calls “high-stakes topics” — geopolitics, mental health, finance, hiring — subjects where “there are no clear yes-or-no answers, where it’s murky and nuanced and complex.”

The idea is to find the world’s foremost experts, have them architect benchmarks, then train AI judges to evaluate models at scale. For Forum AI’s geopolitics work, Brown has recruited Niall Ferguson, Fareed Zakaria, former Secretary of State Tony Blinken, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and Anne Neuberger, who led cybersecurity in the Obama administration. The goal is to get AI judges to roughly 90% consensus with those human experts, a threshold she says Forum AI has been able to reach.

Brown traces the origin of Forum AI, founded 17 months ago in New York, to specific moment. “I was at Meta when ChatGPT was first released publicly,” she recalled, “and I remember really shortly after realizing this is going to be the funnel through which all information flows. And it’s not very good.” The implications for her own children made the moment feel almost existential. “My kids are going to be really dumb if we don’t figure out how to fix this,” she recalled thinking.

What frustrated her most was that accuracy didn’t seem to be anyone’s priority. Foundation model companies, she said, are “extremely focused on coding and math,” whereas news and information are harder. But harder, she argued, doesn’t mean optional.

Indeed, when Forum AI began evaluating the leading models, the findings weren’t exactly encouraging. She cited Gemini pulling from Chinese Communist Party websites “for stories that have nothing to do with China,” and noted a left-leaning political bias across nearly all models. Subtler failures abound too, she said, including missing context, missing perspectives, straw-manning arguments without acknowledgment. “There’s a long way to go,” she said. “But I also think that there are some very easy fixes that would vastly improve the outcomes.”

Brown spent years at Facebook watching what happens when a platform optimizes for the wrong thing. “We failed at a lot of the things we tried,” she told Fernholz. The fact-checking program she built no longer exists. The lesson, even if social media has turned a blind eye to it, is that optimizing for engagement has been lousy for society and left many less informed.

Her hope is that AI can break that cycle. “Right now it could go either way,” she said; companies could give users what they want, or they could “give people what’s real and what’s honest and what’s truthful.” She acknowledged the idealistic version of that — AI optimizing for truth — might sound naive. But she thinks enterprise may be the unlikely ally here. Businesses using AI for credit decisions, lending, insurance, and hiring care about liability, and “they’re going to want you to optimize for getting it right.”

That enterprise demand is also what Forum AI is betting its business on, though turning compliance interest into consistent revenue remains a challenge, particularly given that much of the current market is still satisfied with checkbox audits and standardized benchmarks that Brown considers inadequate.

The compliance landscape, she said, is “a joke.” When New York City passed the first hiring bias law requiring AI audits, the state comptroller found more than half had violations that went undetected. Real evaluation, she said, requires domain expertise to work through not just known scenarios but edge cases that “can get you into trouble that people don’t think about.” And that work takes time. “Smart generalists aren’t going to cut it.”

Brown — whose company last fall raised $3 million led by Lerer Hippeau — is uniquely positioned to describe the disconnect between the AI industry’s self-image and the reality for most users. “You hear from the leaders of the big tech companies, ‘This technology is going to change the world,’ ‘it’s going to put you out of work,’ ‘it’s going to cure cancer,'” she said. “But then to a normal person who’s just using a chatbot to ask basic questions, they’re still getting a lot of slop and wrong answers.”

Trust in AI sits at extraordinarily low levels, and she thinks that skepticism is, in many cases, justified. “The conversation is sort of happening in Silicon Valley around one thing, and a totally different conversation is happening among consumers.”

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From Producing Nigerian Internationals to Building Their Own Stadium: Buruj Sports Academy Takes Bold Step as Ikorodu Football Dream Attracts Investors

Published

37 minutes ago

October 28, 2026

PlateauReports

Buruj Sports Academy is turning years of grassroots football success into an ambitious infrastructure project, unveiling a proposed stadium development in Ikorodu, Lagos State, aimed at transforming opportunities for young Nigerian footballers.

The academy, founded by Dr. Waheed Salaudeen, has presented a new development layout featuring a standard 105m × 68m football pitch, spectator stand, changing rooms, administrative and first-aid facilities, toilets, parking spaces and perimeter security.

The project represents a significant step toward establishing a permanent home for the academy’s growing football development programme.

Buruj’s ambitions are backed by its record of nurturing promising talents, including former Nigeria Under-15 internationals Raheem Moyinoluwa Salaudeen and Fawas Ayomide Adeleke, who represented Nigeria in youth competitions in Morocco and Algeria.

The academy has also facilitated opportunities for players in Spain and Lithuania, while six Buruj youngsters recently earned selection for an international football exposure programme following the Italian Consulate General U-20 Tournament.

Unlike its earlier three-acre, 5,000-seat stadium concept, the latest architectural proposal adopts a more practical, phased approach, beginning with an approximately 80–100-seat stand and essential football facilities. Punch Newspapers +1

Dr. Salaudeen, who serves as founder and Chief Executive Officer, has consistently championed football development alongside education.

“This dream is bigger than Buruj Sports Academy alone. We are appealing to private individuals, corporate organizations, investors, and well-meaning Nigerians to support this vision.”

His appeal reflects a determination to build a sustainable sporting institution capable of serving generations of young Nigerians. Sports247 Nigeria +1

For potential investors, the project offers opportunities in stadium naming rights, facility sponsorship, youth development partnerships, football tournaments and community sports programmes.

With a survey document and proposed layout now presented, Buruj is inviting partners to help turn its vision into reality, subject to necessary technical assessments and development approvals.

From discovering football stars to building the infrastructure that produces them, Buruj Sports Academy is no longer simply dreaming of the future — it is preparing to build it.

News

ADC Postpones Presidential Campaign Flagoff, Fixes New Date

Published

40 minutes ago

October 28, 2026

PlateauReports

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The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has postponed the flag-off of its presidential campaign in Sokoto State, earlier scheduled for Saturday, October 31, to Wednesday, November 4.

The party’s Presidential Campaign Council in Sokoto State announced the postponement in a press statement issued on Wednesday, and signed by its Director-General, Bello Aliyu Goronyo.

According to the statement, the decision was taken to address certain planning and coordination issues to ensure the successful conduct of the campaign event.

The council appealed to party leaders, stakeholders, supporters and members of the public to take note of the new date, while expressing regret over any inconvenience caused by the change in schedule.

“The African Democratic Congress (ADC) Presidential Campaign Council in Sokoto State wishes to announce the postponement of its Presidential Campaign Flag-off, earlier scheduled for Saturday, 31st October 2026, to Wednesday, 4th November 2026,” the statement read.

Explaining the reason for the change, the council said, “The decision follows the need to address certain planning and coordination considerations to ensure the successful conduct of the event.”

“The Campaign Council regrets any inconvenience the change may cause and sincerely appreciates the understanding, patience and continued support of party leaders, stakeholders, supporters and members of the public,” Goronyo added.

He urged all concerned to take note of the new date and expressed the council’s readiness to welcome party leaders, supporters and other stakeholders to the event.

The postponement comes amid reports of difficulties involving hotel accommodation in Sokoto ahead of the campaign flag-off originally scheduled for Saturday.

Reports had emerged that hotel rooms were being booked ahead of the planned ADC event, with allegations that some hotel owners were refusing to release rooms to prospective guests.

The development comes as the ADC continues preparations for the 2027 general election, with former Vice President Atiku Abubakar as the party’s presidential candidate.

The party is seeking to strengthen its support across the country as opposition parties prepare to challenge President Bola Tinubu and the ruling All Progressives Congress in the forthcoming presidential election.

Earlier on Wednesday, the ADC Presidential Campaign Council at the national level disowned an unsigned campaign timetable circulating on social media, urging party members, supporters and other stakeholders to disregard the document.

The council said the timetable, which contained proposed dates and locations for campaign rallies and other political activities across the country, had not been authorised by the campaign organisation.

In a statement signed by the Director of Media and Publicity of the ADC Presidential Campaign Council, Kola Ologbondiyan, the party clarified that the document did not originate from the council or its campaign office.

“The African Democratic Congress Presidential Campaign Council (ADC-PCC) has disowned an unsigned campaign timetable currently in circulation, clarifying that the document did not emanate from the Council or its campaign office,” the statement said.

Ologbondiyan urged party members and stakeholders to wait for official announcements regarding the campaign schedule.

“Accordingly, all members and stakeholders are urged to disregard the document and await official communications from the ADC-PCC on campaign activities and schedules,” he added.

The unsigned timetable listed Sokoto State as the proposed starting point for the presidential campaign on October 31, 2026, and outlined proposed activities in several other states before a closing rally scheduled for Adamawa State on January 11, 2027.

The document also contained proposed dates for rallies, town hall meetings and other political engagements in states including Kebbi, Zamfara, Ogun, Oyo, Rivers, Delta, Edo, Cross River, Anambra, Enugu, Ebonyi, Abia, Benue, Plateau, Kaduna, Kano and Borno.