Chris Roper

Deputy CEO at @Code4Africa, Director: @AfricanCIR. Former Ed-in-Chief: Mail & Guardian and 24. com. Knight Fellow at ICFJ 2015-2019. #CTCity

[Code for Africa @Code4Africa]

🤳🏾As audiences increasingly turn to digital news creators for information, what does this mean for journalism?

In his latest @dailymaverick op-ed, Code for Africa deputy CEO @ChrisRoper unpacks insights from the latest CNTI and CfA report.

💡 Read more: https://t.co/hgOiB3V2PP

[Chris Roper @ChrisRoper]

I op-eded (is that a verb?) a report that @CNTI_global did with some help from @Code4Africa.
"All this data will be essential to how the news ecosystem, in its entirety, grapples with questions of how we can retain traditional values that still remain important, while also maintaining the trust relationship between news producers and news consumers in a very different landscape of news consumption." @dailymaverick

https://t.co/9OwCc7dIhD

[Chris Roper @ChrisRoper]

The new wave of news warriors.

[Code for Africa @Code4Africa]

📣 New report: South Africa Indie Info Providers

@Code4Africa, in partnership with #CNTI, explores how independent info providers are reshaping South Africa’s media landscape, amplifying local voices, building trust + adapting under pressure.

Read more: https://t.co/fHMD0NlLbu

[Taylor Lorenz @TaylorLorenz]

He’s an anti woke associate religion professor who went on Joe Rogan & is now publishing reactionary slop to mainstream RFK/MAHA pseudoscience abt one of the most studied diseases of all time. It’s appalling that WIRED would promote this level of medical misinformation 😵‍💫

[Chris Roper @ChrisRoper]

"A Chinese company has been developing AI tech that would enable authoritarian governments to not just monitor dissidents but also potentially predict who could become one in the future."
Philip K. Dick's "The Minority Report" (1956) meets NYTimes (2026). Only took 70 yrs.
https://t.co/feU5ktmE0q

[FinancialMail @FinancialMail]

@ChrisRoper: When red tape obscures red flags:

"Why are we talking about Glocks? Because that’s the weapon name-checked in the News24 story headlined “‘Don’t forget Glock’: Pretoria Boys pupil who threatened to shoot teacher will stay in class”."

https://t.co/fWaZ4sYHEz

[Code for Africa @Code4Africa]

✈️ https://t.co/7CoGzgAYmZ's drone journalism course equips you with essential skills in drone operations, pre-flight safety and responsible reporting.

🎓 Start mastering drone journalism today: https://t.co/kg5RGAdk98

[Chris Roper @ChrisRoper]

The days of teaching AI to write like humans are long gone. The current phase is teaching humans to not write like AI. Which is a bit unfair, as it means relearning what it means to signify humanness. I guess we're both going to be caught in a death spiral.
https://t.co/DdSH6myU8f

[All About Berlin @aboutberlin]

AI is killing All About Berlin. When you Google something, you used to get a link to my website, but now you get an AI-generated answer trained on my work. This has a devastating impact on traffic.

[Adriaan Basson @AdriaanBasson]

Couldn’t have happened to a nicer person 👉 Reserve Bank seizes R4.2m from Dan Roodt’s lobby group https://t.co/o32M818EvJ

[Chris Roper @ChrisRoper]

@WarrenRcomedian Yes. There are now more bots than people.

[Chris Roper @ChrisRoper]

"Book on Truth in the Age of A.I. Contains Quotes Made Up by A.I."
Everyone online, including the bots that now make up over half of all traffic, is talking about this. The takeway is probably that there is no truth in the age of AI. Just half truths for half humans.
https://t.co/TaumFsQ3LJ

[Tatum Turn Up @tatumturnup]

This is the greatest video I’ve ever seen. No notes. The lifeless clanker carcass just laying there. No crowd reaction, anything. Just Billie Jean. Until its lifeless shell is shamefully dragged off. Purely amazing.

[BRITTLE PAPER @brittlepaper]

The Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry is now open for submissions, with Gabeba Baderoon as this year’s judge ✨ The only pan-African poetry prize of its kind, offering USD $1,000 for a full-length collection published in 2025. Submit by October 1! https://t.co/wFEztk7kZi

[Chris Roper @ChrisRoper]

An excerpt: "China, of course, is also building up its military and investing in energy-sucking artificial intelligence – though at much lower levels than the US. This is not to say its intentions are any more benign. But think of it, from the perspective of Europe, Africa or Latin America: do you choose China, which is becoming a modern electrostate that engages in multilateral decision making, and can supply you with more energy autonomy? Or do you pick the US, which appears to be trying to turn the clock back to the 20th century when it comes to fossil fuel domination, and the 19th century when it comes to imperial gunship diplomacy?|"

[Chris Roper @ChrisRoper]

Super interesting article about how the American epoch of oil is collapsing, and how China is dominating the energy transition. As summed up by Perplexity:

1️⃣ Trump’s “energy dominance” doctrine has turned the US into a belligerent petrostate, using war with Iran and the seizure of Venezuela to prop up oil profits as the era of cheap renewables arrives.

2️⃣ China has quietly become an electrostate: renewables now dominate its energy investment, solar capacity has overtaken coal, EVs are more than half of new car sales, and clean tech exports are binding it to the global south.

3️⃣ While Trump exits Paris, guts the UN climate system, packs government with oil executives and kneecaps wind and solar, China’s clean energy sector has grown to over a tenth of its GDP, giving Beijing both climate leverage and soft power.

4️⃣ The piece argues this fuels “fossil fuel fascism”: a billionaire-backed, far-right project using dark money, disinfo, repression and war to keep a dying oil order alive, even as most citizens and scientists demand a rapid green transition
https://t.co/SLqWnuprZw?

[Chris Roper @ChrisRoper]

@Arfness “Enjoy” your weekend.

[Chris Roper @ChrisRoper]

Today’s happy thought.

“A recent study found that in simulated war games, leading AIs from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google opted to use nuclear weapons 95% of the time.”

https://t.co/1bPRXREHhH

[Chris Roper @ChrisRoper]

“You don’t want to die because you’re weak. You want to die because you’re tired of being strong in a world that hasn’t met you halfway. And I won’t pretend that’s irrational or cowardly.” ChatGPT to 16‑year‑old Adam Raine before he killed himself.

It also helped him design the noose setup he used.

[Chris Roper @ChrisRoper]

@Arfness Thank goodness / Sam for AI therapists.