Dispatch #28

Read about the decline of groundwater in Greece, university protests in Poland and the deceptive, AI-generated adverts being used on Facebook in Brazil to sell fake natural cures

Hello and welcome to Translator’s weekly Dispatch, where we bring you summaries of compelling stories written beyond the Anglosphere.

First up, a thought-provoking read from Brazil about deceptive, highly manipulative AI-generated Facebook adverts exploiting colonial tropes and beliefs in natural cures for monetary gain.

From Poland, an essay about university protests across Poznan, Krakow and Warsaw, and the struggle for public space.

And lastly, a dispatch from Greece highlighting new research which raises the alarm about dwindling groundwater levels.

We hope you enjoy the read.

P.S.: In the meantime, tell us what you like and dislike, themes you’d like to see explored from the perspective of different linguistic media landscapes. And, as ever, feel free to recommend specific pieces we should summarise for our Dispatches, or translate in full for the magazine.

Here’s what we’re looking for and how to let us know.

AI-generated Indigenous elders and Facebook’s false promise of natural cures

Aos Fatos uncovers a digital deception that combines artificial intelligence with colonial mythmaking, all in the name of profit

What happens when ancient wisdom is faked by machine learning and monetised on social media? In this in-depth investigation, Aos Fatos exposes how false Indigenous personas that are generated by artificial intelligence and promoted through Facebook ads are being used to sell unverified “natural cures” to a largely Brazilian audience, manipulating both cultural imagery and public health discourse.

The piece begins by presenting the profile of a supposed cacique, or leader, of the Tupinambá – a man with facial features generated by AI tools and given a backstory as a wise Indigenous elder offering herbal remedies. This particular individual, as represented, does not exist; but the ailments his supposed cures promise to fix are very real for the vulnerable communities being targeted. The scam doesn’t end with the generation of a fake persona. The products sold in his name are unregulated, unproven and potentially dangerous.

According to Aos Fatos, these ads rely on longstanding colonial tropes: the “noble savage”, the mystical healer, the proximity to nature. They are all reappropriated and distorted by marketing teams who use AI not only to generate faces but also to write testimonials, create fake user reviews and even simulate customer service chats. “It’s a complete fictional ecosystem built with one goal: profit”, the authors note.

The ads, which appear to be professionally produced and often cite fake scientific studies or invented university endorsements, have reportedly reached tens of thousands of users. Some use manipulated or stolen images of real people; others invent characters entirely. All rely on Facebook’s ad infrastructure to hyper-target audiences by age, health interests and region.

A key revelation of the investigation is how these scams exploit the limited digital literacy of many users. “We spoke to elderly people who believed they were receiving advice from a real healer,” says one researcher quoted in the article. “They ordered these products thinking they were helping their arthritis or diabetes, but there was no medical oversight, no real guarantee of safety.” In some cases, users were charged repeated hidden fees or locked into subscription traps with no clear opt-out.

The article also highlights the complicity or indifference of platforms like Facebook, where these ads continue to circulate despite repeated user reports and the platform’s supposed content moderation protocols. In a damning critique, Aos Fatos outlines how Meta’s algorithmic moderation has repeatedly failed to catch these AI-generated deceptions, even after independent watchdogs flagged them.

AI ethics specialists interviewed in the piece warn that this type of content is only the beginning. “We’re entering an era where identities, especially those from marginalised or colonised cultures, can be entirely fabricated and commercialised by those with the right tools,” one expert notes. The threat is not only financial or medical, but cultural: when AI is used to simulate Indigenous speech, dress and beliefs, it erases real communities and replaces them with digital caricatures.

Some of the language used in these campaigns deliberately mimics that of traditional medicine, blending “ancestral knowledge” with pseudoscientific claims. One product claims to “rebalance energy fields” and “reverse chronic fatigue” through an herb supposedly harvested only in sacred forests – forests which, the investigation notes, do not actually exist.

Beyond the deception, the investigation brings attention to the broader public health implications. By positioning these fake cures as alternatives to medically-proven treatments, the ads risk steering people away from professional care. Brazil’s health system is already strained, especially in remote or underserved regions, and the proliferation of these AI-boosted scams only deepens mistrust between communities and health providers.

The article ends with a call for stronger digital regulation, platform accountability and media literacy education. “As AI technologies become more accessible, so too will the ability to fabricate trust. If platforms won’t police this, civil society must,” the authors argue. They also advocate for more Indigenous voices in tech governance, noting that the communities being imitated had no say in how their images or myths were being used.

Ultimately, the story is about more than just fake ads: it is a stark portrait of how AI is being used to exploit cultural trust, health fears and platform loopholes for profit, with consequences that ripple far beyond the digital screen.

Original article (“Anúncios no Facebook criam falsos indígenas com IA para vender ‘curas naturais’ sem eficácia”) by Gisele Lobato was first published in Portuguese on 15 May 2025.

It is available here.

Aos Fatos is an independent Brazilian fact-checking and investigative journalism organisation founded in 2015. It specialises in exposing misinformation, holding public officials and tech platforms accountable, and fostering transparency through rigorous, accessible reporting.

Summary by ZN

Polish students are getting smarter

Student protesters in Poland are using direct action to force universities to make small – but significant – changes

Poland’s radical student movement has become increasingly effective in fighting for change, writes philosopher and academic Mikołaj Ratajczak in an op-ed for the leftist site Krytyka Polityczna.

Protesters are securing not just practical concessions like improved housing and canteens, but also sparking a wider conversation about the role of universities in an increasingly neoliberal environment.

Since early summer, the University of Warsaw’s main building has been occupied by a group of students demanding affordable accommodation, a meal they can buy on campus and a say in what their education looks like. The occupation is the third in a string of direct actions organised by a relatively new but impressively focused movement.

In December 2023, students at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań took over Jowita, an ageing dormitory threatened with closure. Jowita was symbolic: many students relied on its accommodation, but the university planned to sell or demolish the building, without any guarantee that housing elsewhere would remain affordable.

So students moved in, stayed put, and forced the authorities to promise repairs and a halt to evictions.

Then came Kamionka, a dormitory of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, occupied in May 2024. Students camped out, brought in supporters and made themselves impossible to ignore. Once again, authorities backed down, promising renovations.

Now, in Warsaw, students want more than just a single dorm fixed up. They want public canteens restored – places to eat on campus, cheap enough that students don’t have to choose between lunch and rent. They want dormitories maintained as public goods, not closed and outsourced. And they want university managers and ministries to understand that student life is not separate from education but the very condition that makes study possible.

Their method is as important as their message. They occupy, but they also organise: printing texts, running meetings, inviting lecturers to hold classes inside the protest space. They see themselves not as radicals in the margins but as caretakers of what public education should be. They have already achieved some success. The University of Warsaw’s rector has committed to opening a canteen in the Library building – a symbolic step, but a concrete one.

Polish public universities are officially free, but students know that tuition-free degrees do not mean equal access. Housing shortages, hidden fees and daily costs make studying impossible for many.

At a moment where Poland’s political winds threaten privatisation in the sector, these students are making clear that the university’s future is a question of public interest, not just individual ambition. And they are doing so with a clarity that has already forced authorities to negotiate, showing that radical student action – far from being a relic of the past – may yet shape what Poland and its universities will become.

Original article (“Radykalny ruch studencki coraz skuteczniej walczy o przyszłość polskich uniwersytetów”) by Mikołaj Ratajczak was first published in Polish on 27 June 2025.

It’s available here.

Krytyka Polityczna is a Polish leftist publication and activist network focusing on progressive politics and culture.

Summary by TM

The “invisible” degradation of Greece’s groundwater

Under pressure from climate change and overuse, a precious but overlooked resource is at risk of being permanently depleted

Life on Earth depends on water, yet preserving this vital resource is anything but straightforward. In Greece, as in many parts of the world, water scarcity is becoming an urgent concern. A growing focus of the debate is groundwater; a hidden resource often misunderstood as abundant and self-replenishing, but now at risk of serious decline in many places.

“When we talk about groundwater, our minds usually go to huge underground water reservoirs that provide us with practically inexhaustible quantities of good quality water,” explains Alexandra Gemitzi, a professor at the Democritus University of Thrace. In an interview with journalist Dimitra Triantafyllou for the Greek newspaper Kathimerini, Gemitzi highlights how far this common perception strays from reality.

Her research tells a different story. For over two decades, Gemitzi and her team have been collecting data on groundwater across Greece. Their findings are deeply troubling, revealing a steep and ongoing decline in groundwater levels across large regions. Now, Gemitzi is sounding the alarm.

She expresses concern over the public’s limited understanding of what groundwater actually is. Unlike rivers or lakes, groundwater is invisible to most people, only revealed through wells and springs. “This particularity makes it more protected but also more difficult for humans to comprehend compared to surface waters,” she explains.

Responsible water management must be based on the sustainable use of renewable reserves, Gemitzi warns: not letting the rate of use get ahead of the rate of natural replenishment. As she notes, any resource can become “non-renewable if overexploited.”

But estimating the actual rate of replenishment of underground aquifers is complex. There’s a dearth of reliable data. But Gemitzi and her team have developed innovative methods to assess groundwater recharge across Greece from 2001 to 2024, combining traditional hydrological models with open-access data sets, remote sensing, even measuring changes in the gravitational field across Greece (a proxy for unseen water mass).

The conclusions are stark. Groundwater reserves have been diminishing for years. The rate may now be accelerating. Gemitzi explains: “Beyond known spatial differences – for example, western Greece receives nearly twice as much rainfall – the data shows a gradual decline in both rainfall and groundwater replenishment, with a peak in rates over the last five years.”

This trend is driven by several factors: the rising rate of evapotranspiration (the process by which water returns to the atmosphere from soil, water surfaces and plant transpiration) due to higher temperatures and a drop in rainfall, especially the increasing number of rainless days. A few heavy days of rain aren’t sufficient.

And while there’s uncertainty about whether climate change will mean Greece has more or less rainfall in the future, higher temperatures – and therefore higher evaporation – are highly likely. Less snowfall and snow thickness in the Greek mountains is also a factor.

As Greece faces a hotter future, understanding and protecting its unseen water reserves is not just a scientific issue, it’s a societal imperative.

Original article (“Η «αόρατη» υποβάθμιση των ελληνικών υπόγειων υδάτων”) by Dimitra Triantafyllou was first published in Greek on 26 June 2025.

It’s available here.

Kathimerini is a daily political and financial newspaper based in Athens, Greece.

Summary by TMH

That’s all for now – we hope you’ve enjoyed the read. Keep an eye out for our next Dispatch of summaries this time next week!

The Translator team