Alexios Mantzarlis

Drove regulatory and platform action against AI abuse

My work exposing the ecosystem of "AI nudifiers" was quoted in three separate letters by Sen. Dick Durbin, Rep. Debbie Dingell, and the US National Association of Attorneys General urging tech CEOs to do more against this vector of abuse. My work was also mentioned in an enforcement action by the Australian eSafety Commissioner. Meta sued Crush AI and introduced new classifiers to detect ads for "nudifiers" after I repeatedly exposed that thousands of ads from this company were running on Facebook and Instagram.

Co-created Cornell Tech's first Trust & Safety course

I designed and launched Trust and Safety: Platforms, Policies, Products, a graduate level course in the Computer Science and Information Science program, which was taught to more than 125 students in 2025. I also chair the Trust & Safety Teaching Consortium.

Launched Indicator, a publication on digital deception

Indicator publishes original reporting, in-depth investigations, and practical tutorials. Our work focuses on the deceptive underbelly of a digital landscape filled with scams, search engine and social media manipulation, disinformation, trolling, mobile app abuse, spyware, AI slop and more.

Launched Google Gemini's Content Adversarial Red Team and Cornell Tech's AI Safety Red Team

At Google I built up a team of 15 analysts focusing on the content safety of Gemini. I brought that expertise to Cornell Tech where my students and I offer a pro bono adversarial testing service to nonprofits and public sector organizations.

Wrote the policy restricting Russian state-controlled media from Google News

As a manager on the product policy team for Google Search, I led content policy for factual accuracy and high promise answers, including our response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Put fact-checking on the map for platforms and regulators

As the founding director of the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), I helped draft the fact-checkers' code of principles and played a seminal role shepherding Facebook's Third-Party Fact-Checking Program. In 2018, I was invited to join the EU's High Level expert group on disinformation and fake news. (In 2022, the former Minister of Culture and Equality of Norway Trine Skei Grande nominated the IFCN for the Nobel Peace prize.)

Presented fact-checks on Italian TV to ~1 million viewers

Over the course of 2013–2014, I hosted a fact-checking segment on a prime time political talk show on Italy's national broadcaster RAI 2. I did this as the managing editor of Pagella Politica, Italy's largest fact-checking website.