Author: Liz Pendleton

Media Revolution welcomes the ‘Letter to Sir Keir Starmer and Media Heads’ released at yesterday’s National Emergency Briefing in Westminster. The briefing was attended by over 1,200 people including around 150 Parliamentarians, senior civil servants, business leaders, faith voices, cultural and sport figures, community leaders and over 80 MPs where a call for an emergency national broadcast was made. 

The event on November 27 was billed as a climate conversation reset – and Media Revolution says the conversation must now go further.

The latest scientific evidence shows that — like many other countries around the world — the UK must urgently prepare for a cascade of serious societal impacts. The accelerating climate and nature crises are set to make the UK increasingly unstable, with extreme weather, food shortages, economic shocks, infrastructure strain, and rising geopolitical risk. The briefing also made a new critical intervention. For the first time, leading scientists and public figures named the media as a central driver of the crisis — and an essential part of the response.

“Our wider media is either far from independent, outwardly biased, or simply failing in its duty to explain to everyone the gravity of our predicament,” said Chris Packham, who opened the briefing and urged public support for a letter to Tim Davie (Director General of the BBC), Carolyn McCall (Chief Executive of ITV), Jonathan Allan (Channel 4), Sarah Rose (Channel 5), Geraint Evans (S4C), and Dame Melanie Dawes, (Chief Executive of broadcast regulator, Ofcom). 

The letter to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, the major broadcasters, and Ofcom warns:

“We are deeply alarmed by the scale of fossil fuel–funded disinformation that has flooded Westminster and the media. 

The lack of public access to accurate, science-based information has created a vacuum which has been filled by polarised headlines that deny and delay action.

“Under the Communications Act 2003, all public service broadcasters must inform the public on major national and international issues. The UK has so far failed to meet these obligations.

“We therefore ask the Government and all public service broadcasters to hold an urgent televised national emergency briefing for the public, and to run a comprehensive public engagement campaign so that everyone understands the profound risks this crisis poses to themselves and their families.”

YES — broadcasters must act. Regulators must do better. AND — the media system as a whole must be transformed.

The briefing centred on media responsibility firmly. But broadcasters are only one part of the system. The most influential media actors also include newspaper groups, disinformation-led channels such as GB News, and digital platforms whose algorithms frequently amplify polarisation, disinformation and delay.

To protect the public — and to protect those in the majority world already suffering the worst impacts of crises driven by wealthy nations — the UK must use its privilege, resources, and democratic infrastructure to transform the media landscape with accuracy, not complacency. That requires all media institutions to meet the same high standards of responsibility.

“If we want everyone to understand the risks we face, every media outlet must be required to provide accurate information. Many that were not present today regularly promote cynical disinformation about the climate and nature crises, contributing to years of delay and harm,” said Tom Hardy, Media Revolution core working group member, in attendance at the briefing.

Liz Pendleton, co-founder of Media Revolution, who also attended the briefing, said: “Listening to three hours of climate science, setting out the bleakest of futures for the UK and the world, was harrowing. The media are failing in their responsibility to report on this — and every day that passes where they don’t sort it out makes the emergency worse. People have a right to this information so we can make informed choices, but the media are gatekeeping. As media consumers, we must unite to defend our rights — and we must take action.”

Caspar Hughes, co-founder of Media Revolution, “Until we tackle the hugely powerful billionaire corporate media owners, the climate and nature crises will worsen, and our descent into fascism will accelerate. The short legacy we will leave our children is a rapidly destabilising and increasingly uninhabitable planet riddled with violent conflict. The first step to changing the future and giving our children a chance at a more peaceful future is to change the media.”

Yesterday’s briefing represents a watershed moment — the point at which leading experts finally said openly that the UK cannot protect its people, or play its global role, while its media system continues to obstruct public understanding. Misrepresentation and manufactured division are not limited to climate: the same media ecosystem has fuelled support for escalating wars, polarisation of communities, mindless consumption, and contributed to widespread anxiety and depression.

Other speakers at the briefing included: Professor Nathalie Seddon (nature crisis), Professor Hayley Fowler (extreme weather), Professor Hugh Montgomery OBE (health impacts), Lt General Richard Nugee CB CVO CBE (national security), and Angela Francis (economic transformation).

It’s clear that the Government and broadcasters must now work together with absolute urgency. And this must be only the beginning of a wider effort to ensure the whole UK and global media system meets basic standards of accuracy and public protection for people and planet.

You can support the call for an emergency broadcast by signing the public letter here:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScbdkcuPaw_Rz-CW8rqrXuBmLHMW5hNZ2juqpgjYsF_cxIXbg/viewform?pli=1

And you can join Touch Paper – media consumer union here: touchpaper.media

ENDS

Media contacts:
Liz Pendleton — Media Revolution — 07779341156
Caspar Hughes — Media Revolution — 07747041596

Media Liberation Day is finally here, and the Media Revolution has begun.

It’s time to celebrate support, achievements, actions and our continued commitment to collaborate, coordinate and remove the control of the billionaire owners corrupting our media system and build one that works in favour of people and planet!

Change the Media – Change the Future.

5 achievements for 5th November – and 5 ways for you to take part.

1. UNITE!
   One of the most significant milestones of Media Liberation Day is the formation of a brand new Media Consumers Union.
   
   Research shows that consumer unions have driven higher standards for many of today’s consumables – including food, medicines and transport – but they are a forgotten and neglected tool, and up until now the rights of the media consumer have been overlooked.  Touch Paper  is set to become a powerful and influential organisation standing up for our right to accurate information and protection from disinformation and division. The union will be a collective force of members who challenge media outlets to do better. It will campaign for effective media regulation, and do so by deploying the power of resistance: public boycotts and digital divestment from the attention economy.
   
   Take part: Join the union here
   
2.  NEW PLATFORM
   Media Revolution has worked with one of our supporters – Newsmast – a charity working in social media – to set up Mo-Me – a new news and social networking platform offering ‘consensual content’.
   
   Mo-Me – short for Movement Media – provides a free news feed from independent, well regulated media and grassroots campaigns, with no ads or algorithms. It’s built on the open web, so the software is shared – meaning it’s interconnected to millions of other users around the globe who are already working on better media – and there are no billionaire owners.
   
   Take part: Join Mo-Me here
   
3. GET TOGETHER
   As well as challenging it at source, we’re improving media literacy for people and reducing social isolation through the creation of a network of News Clubs.
   
   People are getting together to analyse newspaper reports, TV news and social media posts, identifying manipulative content to ask ‘who’s behind this? And what do we do about it?
   
   Take part: Find out about News Clubs here
   
4. SUPPORT THE SUPPORTERS
   We’ve brought together a coalition of diverse supporters from around the world:  independent media, campaign organisations and the tech sphere, who – up until now – have been fighting their own battles against the dominance of billionaire owners and influential lobby groups. We’re the start of a co-ordinated, collaborative response to the complex media problem: using the core responses of ‘replace, regulate, radicalise and resist’. 2026 will be a year to grow the supporter network further, and to work on the interconnectedness of our efforts.
   Take part: View the supporters and join as a supporter here
   
5. TAKE ACTION
   The mobilisation of resistance and grassroots defiance is growing too; the Cover Story campaign has inspired people to hit back at toxic headlines, while the Media Revolution penguin activists have directly targeted UK newspaper and social media HQs to demand better.
   Take part – in cover story here

All these activities are part of an active pushback against what the malignant media is doing to our minds –  menticide. 

Very simply, it means that instead of our brains receiving and processing helpful content, the billionaires are brainwashing us. The confusion, unease and alienation we feel are deliberately induced. But they’re also a kind of immune response; a sign that something is wrong, triggering a defence mechanism we need to act upon.  

So let’s keep working together – to challenge, remove or replace the billionaire owners who are corrupting our media systems and build alternatives together. 

We’re so glad you’re with us on Media Liberation day and we’re hoping you’ll join us in saying #ByeByeMenticide

Welcome to the nightmare that is the intentional killing of the mind through psychological manipulation that erodes autonomy, critical thinking, and consent. Manipulation from our mainstream, malignant media. Commonly we’re used to using the term brainwashing – almost casually – when we sense it. We know the constant barrage of framing or narrative, relentless adverts, the aggressive onslaught of divisive language — and we clock it, but we often dismiss it as just part of the system we live in. But menticide is next-level. Crucially, menticide happens without consent, and with nefarious intent… at scale. Corporate and state-aligned media systems are wiring us into short form content addicts, with shocking headlines, sound bites, rage bait, scroll, scroll, scroll – eroding the autonomy and the kind of critical thought we need to navigate complexity and nuanced information – and it’s strategic.

The mechanisms are many: algorithmic programming, echo chambers, filter bubbles, sensationalism, AI narrative farms and synthetic media. Have you heard of cyber troops?  If you thought troll farms were bad – they’ve scaled  up. Oxford Internet Institute researchers have documented organised social media manipulation in 81 countries and growing. Professionalised banks of phones are running multiple AI accounts each. Seeding, steering and swamping comment sections and trends to manufacture consent or chaos. The call it an “industrial scale problem” – but that misses a point – it’s an intentional act at an industrial scale. This is by design. 

Research shows media construct rather than reflect reality. Inventories of these operations across dozens of countries show just how industrialised the manipulation has become.

We know they’re there, we have an inkling that they’re a problem, but we barely understand the algorithms that now filter our every day reality. Our daily eco-system of information is gate-kept by billionaire owners, hell bent on a particular kind of coercion. All of which is increasingly boosted by a commercial system where whoever pays most, reaches the most people, regardless of the message.

A 2025 analysis of 91,452 misleading posts on X found AI-generated misinformation is more likely to go viral. This is a direct threat to the integrity of our information system.

So what do we do? Start by naming it. We need the word menticide to become common knowledge, for it to circulate, for people to understand it, start spotting who is complicit, how it spreads, and how to protect ourselves. Collectively we can refuse the confusion and crucially — we can divest our attention economy from the places where it poisons content. Building personal and community protection is important — media hygiene, narrative literacy, slow your feed, community curation, explore alternative platforms — but that only mops up the mess. We also have to address the deluge. If menticide continues unchecked, we can expect to keep watching the collapse of democracy, society and the environment in real time. Access to accurate information is a human right that needs defending. 

The first time I came across the word, originally coined by Dutch psychiatrist Joost Meerloo – author of the book ‘Rape of the Mind’ – written after he treated victims of Nazi brainwashing in the 1940s and I fully understood it – it was more than a light going of off in my mind it; was 1000 blinding dawns. My thoughts raced back through my years, suddenly seeing the incredible influence and impact on my life. The steer from the invisible hand, the sense that there are forces controlling the collective story – not reflecting it, curating it. My intuitive feeling solidified into a crystal clear knowing. I felt like I had potent power in just one word to describe so much.

“The modern techniques of brainwashing and menticide—those perversions of psychology—can bring almost any man into submission and surrender. Many of the victims of thought control, brainwashing, and menticide that we have talked about were strong men whose minds and wills were broken and degraded. But although the totalitarians use their knowledge of the mind for vicious and unscrupulous purposes, our democratic society can and must use its knowledge to help man to grow, to guard his freedom, and to understand himself”

Joost Meerloo 1956

Imagine what Meerloo would have thought of half the world’s media being owned by just a handful of billionaires, who can control what content we see and don’t see – and who curate that content to suit their political ideologies. 

I explored my new understanding of menticide to someone close to me and, immediately they breathed a huge sigh of relief. They said recently they thought the world had gone mad — their social feed had become a doom loop with a comments section that made them despair in humanity. Once they knew it had a name, realised how intentional this was, they could see the pattern too –  and once they saw the pattern, they felt they could choose a response.

Here’s mine. I’ve learned about menticide this year, and it’s already changing my life. I can see how I’ve been nudged to think the worst of others and the least of myself — to judge quickly, to fear first. I grew up in systems that taught me to stay small, stay quiet, and stay obedient. Standard social programming told me to avoid politics – especially “at the dinner table” for some obscure reason, that there’s one (white) version of history, there’s one religion, and to distrust difference. I was bullied at school for being different – something I now consider a result of menticide of others – and felt forced to subscribe to the latest trend, be it tech or fashion, lifestyle ‘norms’ and other ways of living. That wasn’t “normal life” — it was engineered existence – avoidance and extraction. It shaped how others saw me, how I saw the world, and how I saw myself. Not well. It’s taken me years of deprogramming and self-work to relearn and think differently – I’m still learning and I see it in others. This isn’t our natural way. It’s been programmed into us.

So now, I’m drawing another new boundary. Consent of content is my new super power, and I want it to be available to others too. For us to decide what comes into our minds with intention. Starve the rage loop. Feed what within us that is human, not allow what is harvesting us to take what it pleases and mess with our minds. I’ll seek out grassroots voices, prioritise platforming marginalised groups and indigenous wisdom and share and honour them.

As well as continuing to study menticide – and how to be free of it – I’m also committing to divesting my attention economy from the algorithms and ads  – and helping others do the same. One of my first significant steps is to head towards a decentralised social network, and there, build a way to find and easily access media from unlikely places.

We need to do this work together. There are free, open source systems out there, there are millions of users are heading for the fediverse – with others. Since understanding menticide, the Media Revolution work – growing a movement media that coordinates many responses to the media madness has made more and more sense. If this sounds confusing, I get it – but I promise I’ll do everything I can to make it clearer.

Together? We can make it collective. Imagine the power of readers, watchers, makers — moving away from the covert manipulation and towards collective action.

No consent? No attention.
No attention? No business.

That’s how we turn off the tap of manipulation and reclaim our brains. Access to accurate information is a human right – and freedom from menticide is the missing key we need to face the world’s crises – together.

AUTHOR: Liz Pendleton is one of the co-founders of Media Revolution.