The sudden shuttering of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) by DOGE in 2025 is associated with a rise in violent conflicts across Africa, according to a study published on Thursday in Science. 

Days into Donald Trump’s second term, his administration began rapidly dismantling USAID, which had, up until that point, been the world’s largest national humanitarian donor. Elon Musk, who spearheaded the Department of Government Efficiency, announced that his team had fed the agency “into the woodchipper” in February 2025. Tracking models suggest the collapse of USAID may have already caused 762,000 preventable deaths, of which 500,000 are children, and the cuts could lead to more than nine million preventable deaths by 2030, according to a study published in February 2026.

Now, a team reports “the earliest evidence of the impact of cuts to USAID on the incidence of violent events” which suggests that “the radical cuts…led to an increase in conflict in the regions that received the most aid from the United States,” according to the new study. 

“What we find is that with the USAID shutdown, there was a rapid increase in the likelihood of violence, the severity of violence, and the lethality of violence across nearly one thousand subnational administrative units across Africa,” said Austin L. Wright, study co-author and associate professor and director of strategic initiatives at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago, in a call with 404 Media.

In regions that received the most support from USAID, the cuts were associated with a 6.5 percent probability of any conflict event, compared to regions that received no aid. To get a sense of the devastating impact of that statistic, here’s what the study reports:

Between 2021 and 2024, USAID is estimated to have saved 91 million lives, about a third of which are children under 5 years old. The agency was created by John F. Kennedy in 1961 and, in the years preceding Trump’s shutdown of the agency, accounted for less than 1 percent of total U.S. federal spending. 

The impact of aid on communities is complex and context-dependent. Aid may reduce conflicts in cases where the opportunity costs of violence are mitigated by an influx of resources, known as the “opportunity cost effect.” But aid can also fuel conflicts over the handling and distribution of those resources, known as the “rapacity effect.” 

The collapse of USAID, which is unprecedented in its scale and speed, has produced the worst of both worlds, according to the new study.

“When those funds rapidly go away, it's a shock to the opportunity cost, and now it becomes more and more attractive to participate in what we might call the unproductive part of the economy, which is participating in violence, engaging in crime, and other activities,” Wright said. “But because the shutdown was so rapid, it didn't really have an opportunity to bind on the rapacity effect, because it's not as if the bridges, roads, or full-on infrastructure went away. The things that individuals or groups might fight over were still present.” 

“It’s a bit of a ticking time bomb, because you're both removing the conflict-reducing side of aid, while leaving behind the conflict-enhancing part of aid,” he added. 

To quantify the impact of the cuts on violence, Wright and his colleagues examined the Geocoded Official Development Assistance Dataset (GODAD), which monitors geolocated information regarding foreign aid disbursements, alongside the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED), which tracks violent events. 

The overlapping datasets revealed macro-level patterns between aid distribution and violence in the wake of the cuts, including significant upticks of violence in areas that had previously received large amounts of aid, or where the population had less control over their government due to weaker executive constraints. 

Moreover, this increase in conflict has persisted over the course of months and may continue in areas that fall into “conflict traps” defined by self-perpetuating cycles of violence.

These impacts are catastrophic for people who had relied on USAID, as evidenced by the estimated death tolls, and the increased risk of violent conflicts and upheavals. They also present new vulnerabilities for the United States and its allies. Though USAID had an altruistic mission, the agency also served as a vector of soft power and an early-warning system for tracking public health risks, like pandemics. The loss of the agency has already caused national security issues for the U.S., such as the seizure of discarded USAID supplies by Iran-backed Houthi groups in Yemen.  

“Those insecurities don't stay where they're created; they travel,” Wright said. “That unfortunately means that the vulnerabilities that are being created at the moment will likely have long-run consequences of creating insecurity that directly impacts the safety of Americans.”

Moreover, Trump’s demolition of USAID prompted many allies in Europe to pull back on their own foreign aid, exacerbating the effects. Though other humanitarian organizations are struggling to mitigate the consequences, the loss of trust caused by the shutdown of USAID is likely permanent, with ominous long-term consequences.  

“Even if you reactivated USAID and pretended as if it never went away, you can't reverse these effects because you've already communicated your bad faith behavior,” Wright said. “There is nothing quite like the reputational bomb of simply shutting down an agency, and what that does to the reputation that the U.S. might have if it ever wanted to reinitiate its interventions.”

“From the soft power lens, and a global lens, the reputational effects, I think, are tremendous and will create a bunch of wedges and inefficiencies,” he concluded. “If one simply wanted to restart USAID, it's going to cost much more to rebuild than simply the same budget all over again.”

A who’s who of the Iranian diaspora will meet at Uber HQ on Saturday to discuss tech and the future of Iran, according to an email about the event viewed by 404 Media. The guest list includes venture capitalists, angel investors, tech CEOs, and the son of Iran’s former leader who was deposed almost 50 years ago.

On Friday afternoon, people representing the group of Iranian business leaders cold-emailed invitations for the event to journalists. “This Saturday, a private conference on the future of Iran will take place at Uber Headquarters in San Francisco, bringing together leaders in technology, finance, and geopolitics for an off-the-record discussion on Iran’s future and regional developments,” the email said. “Featured speakers include Reza Pahlavi, Dara Khosrowshahni, Shervin Pishevar, and Hamid Moghadam. The event waitlist has already surpassed 2,000 applicants.”

Khosrowshahi is the CEO of Uber; Moghadam is the CEO of San Francisco based investment trust Prologis; Pishevar is the former CEO of HyperLoop and an angel investor who put money into Uber, Airbnb, Slack, and Robinhood; and Pahlvani is the former Crown Prince of Iran, the son of the Shah deposed during Islamic Revolution in 1979. Also in attendance will be a SpaceX engineer, a Tesla engineer, and the senior global commodity manager at Nvidia, according to the invite.

It’s unclear what, exactly, these elite members of the Iranian diaspora will discuss on Saturday morning. The schedule calls for a 9:30 reception followed by 30 minutes for “strategic rebuild,” 30 minutes for “future tech,” and 30 minutes for “internet” followed by “open dialogue.”

The meeting is called the “Tech X Future of Iran” and the flyer with the guests and schedule included a pre-Islamic Republic version of the Iranian flag. Pahlavi is a complicated and controversial figure who has lived most of his life outside of Iran. He has said, repeatedly, that if he returned to lead he would only do so as a bridge to democratic rule. 

“Millions of Iranians inside Iran and outside of Iran are calling my name,” he told 60 Minutes earlier this year. “They recognize in me the person uniquely placed to play a role of transitional leadership. Not running for office, because that's not what I'm doing, but to be a bridge to that destiny.”

But for Pahlavi to enter Iran or any of these tech moguls to see their ambitions fulfilled, a lot has to happen. Iran would have to lose the war and the Islamic Republic and its military would need to fall. Neither seem like a possibility at the moment.

The war isn’t over and it’s unclear when it will be. Iran is in control of the Strait of Hormuz and has been hitting US allies and military bases in the region. Reports from U.S. intelligence agencies indicate that Tehran still has 70 percent of its missile launchers and pre-war missile inventory meaning it can fight the US for months. It also still has all its nuclear material and recovering it without a peace deal would be a deadly and costly operation.

A representative for “Tech X Future of Iran” did not return 404 Media’s request for comment.

Gestern Abend gesehen und für empfehlenswert empfunden. Können andere Vereine gerne nachziehen.

Der FC St. Pauli steht für Antifaschismus und gesellschaftliches Engagement im Fußball. Doch hinter dem Image des Kiezklubs steckt eine komplexe Geschichte – auch mit dunklen Kapiteln. Die Dokumentation zeigt, wie die Nazizeit und die Ausländerfeindlichkeit im Stadion in den 1980er und -90er Jahren den Verein bis heute beschäftigen. Wie St. Pauli seine braune Vergangenheit aufarbeitet, exemplarisch an der tragischen Biografie des jüdischen Spielers Selig Cahn, der mit seiner Familie in Auschwitz ermordet wurde. Die Geschichte des FC St. Pauli ist kein abgeschlossenes Kapitel – sie ist ein lebendiger Teil der Vereinsidentität.

(Direktlink)

So. Ich habe gerade mein Google-Ads-Konto hierhin gekappt und bin damit nach gut 13 Jahren wieder komplett frei von Werbung.

Was im Jahr 2012 mit etwas Werbung über damals Stilanzeigen in der Sidebar begonnen und mir ein paar Jahre später mitunter wahnsinnig viel Geld eingebracht hatte, endet damit. Jetzt. Hier. Die Diskussionen damals; Puh…

Weil Werbung eh allen auf den Saque geht (mir auch), für mich aber über einige Jahre doch sehr erträglich war und jetzt nicht mehr ist, fliegt sie raus. Ich muss dafür noch einige Code-Fetzen entfernen und anpassen, aber es sollte hier, nachdem ihr euren Cache geleert habt, schon jetzt deutlich angenehmer aussehen. Guckt mal.

Ich nehme jetzt die letzten 100 Euro von Google Ads und verabschiede mich dann von der Monetarisierung im Blog. Ciao, Kakao! Es war eine wirklich wilde Zeit, die mich nach New York, nach Budapest, nach Montenegro, nach Sotschi und nach London brachte. (Alle Fotos nach gefühlt 138 Abmahnungen und einer damit verbundenen Privat-Insolvenz gelöscht.) Wenn die Zeit meines Lebens es zulassen sollte, werde ich mal irgendwann noch ein Buch darüber schreiben. Glaubt ihr ohne alles gar nicht.

Und wenn Ihr jetzt denken solltet, dass ihr jetzt deshalb Euren Steady-Support einstellen könntet, damit Ihr keine Werbung mehr seht: bitte nicht. Schließt eher einen neuen Deal ab. Für nichts, außer für das hier. Auf jene, die jetzt ob der nicht mehr vorhandenen Werbung kündigen, werde ich ein bisschen sauer sein. Und das ganz zu Recht auch.

Bis gleich.

A few weeks ago, I came across a wild post on Reddit’s r/DHExchange, a subreddit for trading large datasets: “I hoarded a large database of something valuable, just not what’s [sic] you expect…150k stools images.” 

The post, made by a user called Ill_Car_7351, was advertising exactly what it sounds like: A database of poop images, collected from an AI poop analyzing app that he had launched several years ago. Basically, 25,000 people had been taking images of their poop and uploading them to his app. He’d been collecting, analyzing, and annotating these images and now wanted to sell access to them: “I’ve got 150k+ labeled and classified images of 💩 from roughly 25K different people. Jokes aside, I know there’s a lot of value in it (hard to obtain, useful for ML [machine learning] training, cancer studies etc) but not sure on how to move about it. Feels like I’m sitting on a pile of shi..ny coins but can’t find who wants them.” The poster added that “the images are extremely rare,” and that he was trying to figure out how much money he could sell them for.

The comments were from people who were mostly horrified: “When I was 5 the teacher taught me how to read. I now regret that happened,” one read. “What in the fuck,” another read. “How to delete someone else’s post,” a third said. 

I messaged the poster and told him I was interested in obtaining the database. Thus began my journey into the Internet of Shit and, by extension, the unpleasant world of the underground sale of highly sensitive, app-collected user data for AI training. 

The poop database comes from an app called PoopCheck, an app made by a company called Soft All Things that purports to use AI to analyze images of one’s stool in order to give you a “daily gut health score.” 

“Our AI analyzes your poop using the Bristol Stool Scale and advanced pattern recognition. Get insights on consistency, color, shape, and what they mean for your digestive health,” the app advertises. The Bristol Stool Scale classifies stools into one of seven types ranging from “separate hard lumps, like little pebbles” to “watery with no solid pieces.”

The app also features a “community,” of 151,317 “shared stools” at the time of this writing and a “leaderboard,” where people can share images of their poop for commentary from other users and earn points for participating. I found the posts in the community a bit hard to stomach, with titles “like play dough,” “Concerned,” and “Dealing with this on and off for the past 3 weeks.” Pictures are not automatically shared to the community; when you take a photo it asks if you want to share it.

“Popular” posts on the app include people speculating as to whether their fellow community members have parasites or colon cancer; in the comments section of a few posts I saw people recommending ivermectin to the original poster. 

Though users have the option to share their poops with other users, the app provides mixed messages about the fact that the data uploaded to the app will be analyzed, annotated, and packaged with other poops into a commercial database to be sold to AI companies. 

On the App Store page for PoopCheck, it says “The developer does not collect any data from this app.” The link to the privacy policy from within the App Store download page does not mention anything about selling or sharing the data and says “your health data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Photos are processed securely. We implement industry-standard security measures to protect your data.” 

The PoopCheck website’s About page states “Privacy First.” And “Health data is sensitive. That’s why privacy isn’t a feature, it’s our foundation. Your photos are encrypted. You can delete everything at any time. We built PoopCheck the way we’d want our own health apps built.” The FAQ also notes “your privacy is our priority.”

This is completely different from the “Service Agreement” and “Terms and Conditions” people agree to when they actually open the app and make an account. The Service Agreement states that “by uploading stool images or any health-related data to the App, you grant Soft All Things LLC a worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual, unconditional, royalty-free, fully-paid, transferable, sub licensable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, distribute, sell, license, and create derivative works from such content for any lawful purpose, including but not limited to research, commercial exploitation, product development, and third party licensing. You acknowledge that your images and data may be used to create, train, improve, and commercialize AI technologies and machine learning models, and that such models and any outputs derived from your data may be licensed or sold to third parties, including medical organizations, research institutions, and commercial partners.”

It adds that “your data may be irreversibly incorporated into AI models and aggregated datasets. Deletion of your account will remove your personal profile data but does not require the removal of anonymized, aggregated, or derivative data already processed or incorporated into AI models.” Under a section called “Sharing of Information,” it adds that the company reserves the right to share or sell the data “for any business purpose,” including “AI and Data Licensing.” 

On Reddit, I messaged Ill_Car_7351 and said “Hi - am interested in this database you posted about. Can you share any more info about what you're looking for / details about the app where it was collected? also any chance there's like, a sample of what the data looks like etc?” They responded quickly and said “Hey! The db was gathered by real users, we had 25k users over the last couple years, since we launched the app. It’s called PoopCheck btw if you wanna see it. Let’s maybe talk via email? I’ll be happy to share a sample of the data if that interests you.”

I sent an email to someone named “Marco” at Soft All Things, who identified himself as one of the founders of PoopCheck. I said I had reached out on Reddit and was interested in a sample of the data. I used my real email address and real name.

“We can surely send you a sampling of the dataset, would a Google Drive link containing an image folder and JSON data work? We can also figure out other ways if you prefer,” Marco said. “In terms of the actual dataset you need, what would be the size of it for your needs? And what would you be using it for? Just so we can make sure it’s actually a good fit for your use case.”

I told Marco that I wanted 10,000 pieces of data and said I would use it for AI training. I asked him for pricing and what type of data was included. 

Marco responded:

“You'll find a folder with images and JSON metadata covering the key fields we capture per entry. Let us know if you have any questions about it.

To give you a better idea of the dataset and pricing options: we currently have over 150,000 images validated by AI. Around 5,000 of these have also been manually reviewed by a member of our team, who verified the AI output and labeling, making this portion more valuable and priced accordingly. It's also worth noting that certain types on the Bristol Stool Scale are rarer than others, so availability may vary depending on your specific needs.

With that in mind, here there is an estimation of pricing options:

• 10,000 unreviewed images (AI-validated) — $3,000

• 5,000 fully human-reviewed & annotated (on top of AI validation) — $4,000

• 5,000 reviewed + 5,000 unreviewed — $5,000

It would be great to have a quick call to take this further as there are a few things about the dataset's structure and coverage that are easier to walk through live.” 

The sample dataset Marco sent me included 20 images of poop from four specific users (five poops each). Each image was tied to a series of user-reported data points as well as AI analyses of each image. AI-analyzed datapoints included the time the poop was taken, the Bristol Type of each poop, whether it was “healthy” or “unhealthy,” the “shape” and “consistency,” whether there was blood or mucus in the poop, and the quantity (“large,” “normal,” or “small”), and whether it was “floating” or not. Each of these data points also had a “confidence” score for how confident the AI was in its analysis. Each image also had user-reported information, which included the answers to a series of questions including “when did you have your last meal,” “any discomfort while pooping? (“Hard to pass;” “burning”; “sharp pain” etc); “How long did it take?” “Did it smell stronger than usual?” “Coffee or alcohol in the last 12 hours?” The data also included demographic information, which includes age ranges, sex, height, weight, and sensitivities such as “lactose intolerance” or “irritable bowel syndrome.”  Each image is tied to a specific user through a field called “externalIndividualID.” 

Soft All Things is not exactly quiet about the database that it has created. On the Poop Check website, it has a page called “For Business,” which advertises its database. It sells access to both the “Stool Analysis API,” which “turns a stool photo into a structured health report,” as well as the “Annotated Dataset,” of 140,000+ images to “train your own models.” It advertises this as the “largest consumer stool image dataset we know of.”

It maybe should not be terribly surprising that a free app in which you upload images of your poop to a random company would have a business model focused on packaging and selling that data. But this type of data collection—of our literal poop—highlights how almost anything we do on our phones can ultimately end up for sale. The fact that it is advertising this for sale at all indicates that there is an AI goldrush for any and all types of data, even our literal waste. 

Research has shown, over and over again, that de-identified “anonymous” data doesn’t necessarily remain anonymous when combined with other datasets. Toward the end of last year, the appliance giant Kohler endured a security shitshow when a researcher showed that its stool-analyzing smart toilet camera was not actually properly encrypting the images that it sent to Kohler. The concern there was that your poop data would be somehow accessed by bad actors. In the case of PoopCheck, anyone can simply buy access.  

After I told Marco I was writing an article about PoopCheck and its database, he stopped responding to me and did not answer any of my questions.