Who could have predicted that age-gating large sections of the internet in a crusade to shield children's eyeballs from vaguely defined "harmful content" would have disastrous consequences and wouldn't ultimately protect kids? Apparently, the United Kingdom's online regulator, Ofcom, couldn't. 

On Thursday, Ofcom released a report assessing whether the government should make changes to the content categories of the 2023 Online Safety Act, a set of laws which require companies operating in the U.K. to prevent children from "accessing harmful and age-inappropriate content and provide parents and children with clear and accessible ways to report problems online when they do arise." The act's "child safety regime" (Ofcom's words) went fully into effect in 2025, when porn websites in the country began checking IDs. Unfortunately, as Reason's Elizabeth Nolan Brown has pointed out, the age-verification rule has impacted far more than adult websites. Already, the Online Safety Act has age-gated a wide range of content, including war news, the "NoFap" subreddit, and a historic art image, creating a mass chilling effect online. 

Ofcom's report, however, says little about these age-gating concerns for adults, and its own findings highlight the act's underwhelming results. In the report, Ofcom notes that "Most children in the UK say they have encountered at least one piece of harmful content online in a four-week period." It adds that "at a total level there was no significant change in the proportion of children encountering harmful content over the first nine months after the children's safety duties came into force in July 2025." So, it appears the act is requiring adults to fork over their IDs to access a wide range of content, some of which is innocuous, while playing a never-ending and unsuccessful game of whack-a-mole trying to eliminate "harmful" online content from kids' feeds. 

Instead of suggesting to repeal the Online Safety Act because it does not seem to be working or because it imperils online freedom, Ofcom's report proposes to broaden the law's scope. The regulator recommends adding "body stigma content and depression content, currently identified by Ofcom as kinds of non-designated content, to the category of priority content that is harmful to children." Priority content is defined as "content that services must protect/minimise the risk of children in age groups judged to be at risk of harm from encountering." In other words, online platforms could have more reasons to potentially age-gate, block, or avoid publishing out of fear of violating the law. 

The report does not address the U.K. government's plans to ban children under the age of 16 from accessing social media, and Ofcom says it will soon publish an assessment of "what highly effective age assurance looks like" for determining whether someone is 16 or older. But if the social media ban unfolds anything like it did in Australia, where kids are easily circumventing it, it is likely to flop, just as the Online Safety Act has.

The post The U.K.'s Online Safety Act Has Been a Failure. Regulators Want To Broaden It Anyway. appeared first on Reason Magazine.

There has been much consternation this week about the use of fake polls in the media, with some government officials promising swift, and legally dubious, punishments for broadcasters that use them. 

The use of these fake polls came to light on Wednesday, when The New York Times reported that "well-known polling aggregators," including the paper itself, had been citing fake surveys by Wedgewood Polls. The fake polling scheme was revealed when the outlet FivePlusOne contacted Wedgewood Tuesday for comment about an investigation into the pollster. That night, Wedgewood posted a now-deleted statement declaring that it was an "experimental project to demonstrate the vulnerabilities, lack of oversight, and overall barrier to entry in the modern polling industry." The fake pollster claimed it was "far too easy" to be taken seriously in media and public commentary. 

A similar "social experiment" was revealed in August, when the Los Angeles Times reported that a poll by Median Strategies showing Mayor Karen Bass "leading ahead of Councilmember Nithya Raman by a wide margin" was "bogus." An earlier poll by Median Strategies showed Francesca Hong, who lost her race for Wisconsin governor, up by more than 20 percentage points. Median Strategies told the Times that the firm was "created as a short term social experiment to examine how purported polling information could enter and spread through the political information ecosystem without independent verification."

If Wedgewood's polling stunts were in fact social experiments (pollster Nate Silver is very skeptical of this explanation), then the experiment worked. Nobody is completely immune to deceit. And while savvy media consumers have become more attuned to detecting AI writing and video fakes, masses of people still fall for more than fake polls, as they have for a long time.

In 2018, when the word "slop" meant food for pigs and before anyone wrote posts using ChatGPT, the Intelligencer asked the question: "How much of the Internet is fake?" The answer, the outlet concluded, was "a lot."

At the time, Reason's Nick Gillespie noted that the article was a "sobering and obvious revelation that much of what we browse, engage, and interact with is in some fundamental way, total bullshit." Gillespie solemnly observed, "we're living not in the disintermediated, utopian world chronicled in the early days of Louis Rossetto and Jane Metcalfe's Wired, but something closer to the endlessly creative, weird, off-kilter, semi-insane world imagined by Philip K. Dick and, later, Neal Stephenson."

Eight years later, the "semi-insane" world is no less insane, and humans, as they always have, are falling prey to increasingly intricate schemes and hoaxes. In September, Semafor's Max Tani revealed that a large number of YouTube videos—several of which garnered hundreds of thousands of views—were made by "ghost creators." In these videos, presented as news reports, real actors were paid to read AI-written scripts "laced with misleading claims and outright falsehoods." According to Tani, these "accounts appear to be run not by political operatives trying to win, or foreign intelligence efforts seeking to destabilize the US, but by engagement junkies detached from the stakes of politics." While any semi-media-literate person in 2026 could tell you that not all YouTube videos should be taken as fact, the scale of the operation was staggering. 

The deception crisis plagues the media as well. Recently, the platform Qwoted, which connects journalists with sources, had to remove a supposed art therapy expert from its website after her "details were found to be false," reported the Press Gazette. According to the Gazette, the fake therapist's insights had been cited in several outlets, including Psychology, Forbes, Glamour, and Vice. I have also raised concerns about news outlets and commentators citing polls published by EduBirdie, a Cyprus-based company that sells human-written academic papers to students for $8 a page (ethics aside, what a bold business model in the AI age).

So what is to be done? As Gillespie wrote in 2018, there are existing legal levers to root out fraud, but any top-down approach to squashing online lies "will be poorly applied, repressive, and ultimately arbitrary." Government-led crackdowns on COVID-19 "misinformation" have proven him right. Outsourcing the arbitration of truth would only diminish our access to information, and no one entity, particularly the government, should be trusted to determine what is true or false. Unfortunately, the Trump administration has not learned much from the pandemic era and has instead repeatedly tried to crack down on media coverage it doesn't like.

Ideally, media organizations would act as B.S. detectors, but clearly, they often fail to do so. So, consumers are left to wade through lies, AI hoaxes, and so-called "social experiments." This may be tedious work, but it is necessary for consumers to evolve as technologies change. This sleuthing for scams may even be enjoyable. Why pay to have your brain scrambled by Nathan Fielder's Elizabeth Holmes documentary when you can drive yourself insane by tracking down and scrutinizing widely cited statistics and polls?

The post Worst <i>Nathan for You</i>–Style Scheme Ever? A Polling Company Claimed Its Fake Polls Were a Social Experiment. appeared first on Reason Magazine.

• George Brett Olson is one of a set of comedians who've called out AI accounts for ripping off their work.
• Olson said he was upset with Meta for allowing the situation to persist on its platforms.
• Instagram's top exec said the platform is invested in promoting original content and would look into the issue.

This as-told-to essay is based on an interview with George Brett Olson, one of several comedians who have lately called out AI accounts for ripping off their jokes. It's been edited for length and clarity. Instagram head Adam Mosseri said he would look into what could be done about the issue and that the platform was invested in driving traffic to original content.

I started doing stand-up in 2021 after getting burned out from being a winemaker. I'd been doing live shows, and this joke I made about, ironically, AI stealing jobs went viral. The whole joke was about AI stealing jobs and people still blaming immigrants, which is very silly when the most powerful people were saying, "We're literally coming to take all your jobs."

Then a friend sent me the video of this lady doing the joke. He's like, "AI is for real, for real, stealing your jokes." It was basically me, in my clothes, but it's a 42-inch butt. It's just the pornification of women online. It was very strange.

I'd been doing that joke for a year. I thought of it after working out with my buddy, and we were talking, walking. It takes a lot of work to get a joke stage-ready. It's a lot of repetition, tweaking, driving from place to place to perform. Comedy's not easy. So it's pretty sad to see it happen, especially when the AI comedians who are stealing jokes have more followers than the people they're stealing from.

I asked the account behind the joke if she was real. She said yes. Then I asked, "Did someone help you do this?" And she just left me on read. She also left a comment saying, "Sorry, won't happen again," and removed a bunch of videos.

I've had a bunch of followers try to report it. Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, replied and basically said, "Not all AI's bad. We don't know how we're going to stop it, but people shouldn't be able to steal. Seems like we should do something about that."

[This was Mosseri's exact comment: "I don't think it's practical for us to try and ban AI content from the platform. It's gonna be harder and harder to identify, and it's not all bad content (though yes, there is plenty of slop). But we are very invested in trying to drive more traffic to original content creators, and if an AI creator is ripping off content wholesale, it would be good for us to work out what we can do about that. I'm not sure what it would be, but I'll make sure to talk to the team and look into it."]

I blame Meta, not the AI

I don't blame someone for stealing. That's just someone trying to make a buck with the tools they have available. We want to hold people responsible that do not have the mechanisms of power because we can't hold an institution accountable.

I feel demoralized more by Meta's response. The language that's coming from all of them is that we're powerless, and this is inevitable, and there's nothing we can do. 
And it's just not true. And you just have to sit, be powerless, which is demoralizing.

As a comedian, you just want to sell tickets to your shows, engage with live people. That's why most of us post on social media — so people see that you're funny so they come to your live shows. I do live shows every week.

If we flood the internet with agents, and we don't know the difference anymore between what's real and what's not, this could be the death of the internet. Hopefully more people come to live shows. Because the one thing about AI comedians is: You can't see them live.

Show features live chat sessions with breeders, a podcast and updates on dogs’ progress from birth to weigh-ins

A 24-hour Finnish TV show dedicated entirely to the live progress of a dog and her six newborn puppies is drawing millions of viewers.

As well as a 24-hour webcam, Pentulive (Puppy Live) includes live evening chat sessions with the dogs’ breeder, a podcast and an instant notification service that updates followers on the puppies’ progress – from their birth to weigh-ins and first nail trims – for eight weeks.

• James Dumoulin has turned street interviews with moguls into a business on track for $37 million in revenue this year.
• School of Hard Knocks uses staged drama to hook viewers and sells consulting services and memberships.
• Dumoulin and his partners aim to expand and become the "Barstool Sports of business content."

As James Dumoulin approaches a private equity investor in Lagos, Nigeria, there's an ominous moment when a bodyguard holding a rifle puts his hand up and demands the content creator stop.

"I have a channel with 24 million followers," the School of Hard Knocks cofounder responds, and then asks if he can interview the investor, Adesuwa Rhodes, for one minute about how she got rich.

Rhodes steps forward, dressed in a vibrantly patterned suit, and begins answering Dumoulin's questions, explaining how she broke into the business, the importance of persistence, and her faith in God.

The video's formula — mixing a high-drama street interview with advice from the wealthy and successful — has been distilled down to a science by 24-year-old Dumoulin, and helped him create a company that's on track to do $37 million in revenue this year, profitably, according to copies of financial documents he provided to Business Insider. The initial set-up is also, as Dumoulin readily explains, partly scripted.

"They're screaming at me, and it looks like a war is about to break out, and then I get her to calm them down," he said of how he blocked out the Rhodes scene. "And she gave some incredible sound bites and advice."

Street interviews, which have their predecessors on radio and TV, have been reborn as one of social media's hottest formats. Standout stars of the genre include Kareem Rahma of "Subway Takes," who gets opinions on hot topics from strangers, and TikToker Caleb Simpson, who asks people what they pay in rent and tours their apartments. As the format has grown increasingly lucrative, it's also become more orchestrated. Rahma and Simpson have both leaned into celebrity appearances, for example.

In Dumoulin's case, the upfront drama of the street encounter is contrived, a way to draw the viewer in and hook them so they'll listen to the interview, which is where he says the valuable information actually resides. He asks his subjects how they made their money, what their leadership principles are, and for advice for future entrepreneurs. The conceit is that they're lessons not taught in school.

"People love tension," Dumoulin said. "They want to see that conflict, they want to see what's going to happen, and then the payoff is a great interview on the back half. That's why I think our videos do really, really well."

Dumoulin's success in the creator economy — where the term "authenticity" is employed like a sacred totem — raises a host of questions about what it means to be "real," and how much it truly matters if you're entertaining and informing your audience. Any questions of authenticity haven't seemed to hamper the growth of School of Hard Knocks, though, which has nearly 11 million Instagram followers and over 7 million on TikTok, plus several million more on YouTube and other platforms.

Dumoulin said he'd consider a video a failure if it got under a million views.

The 'Barstool Sports of business content'

The videos serve as the center of an operation — run by Dumoulin, his brother Jack, 26, and their childhood friend Josh Smith, 28 — that contains a slew of businesses. The partners say they expect their media revenue to double over the next six months.

"One of the long-term visions of the School of Hard Knocks is to create the Barstool Sports of business content," James Dumoulin said.

The brand has done long-term sponsorships with companies including Shopify, ZipRecruiter, and Alibaba, but advertising isn't the most lucrative part of the business. The core moneymaker is School of Content, which provides social media consulting to small businesses.

The other two contributors are Hard Knocks Agency, a short-form video production and social media management agency for business owners, and School of Mentors, a membership community for aspiring entrepreneurs. Members pay $19 or $49 a month for live calls, workshops, and training with founders and operators.

Jack Dumoulin said the subscribers to its Mentors community are people who want to connect with successful entrepreneurs and learn from them, while the agency's clients are established businesspeople who want to build their personal or company brands.

"Founder-led brands are becoming a really, really big thing, where we're seeing more and more founders become the face of brands, their product, their service, or their company," Jack Dumoulin said.

Monica Khan, CEO of Creator Revolution, which helps creators build businesses and advises companies on influencer strategy, said she sees strong demand from execs and founders for help building personal brands, and business-to-business (B2B) creators are stepping up.

School of Hard Knocks took a smart approach by building a media brand first by interviewing entrepreneurs, then turning that credibility into a service, Khan said.

"We're going to see a lot more of that," she added.

The School of Hard Knocks cofounders have also invested in real estate, including a portion of an apartment complex in San Antonio and commercial properties.

The founders went through several pivots

The Dumoulin brothers grew up in a military family in Northern Virginia and became friends with Smith while serving in the same Boy Scouts troop. All went on to become Eagle Scouts.

James Dumoulin attributes some of their success to the mentoring they got from the military dads who ran the troop. He recalled the especially long conferences they'd have with scout leaders evaluating them for advancement to the next rank, and the scoutmaster who used to say, "There's never enough time to do it right, but there's always enough time to do it again."

"That resonated with us," he said.

The three reconnected in Austin in 2020. Josh Smith had gotten into digital marketing, and Jack Dumoulin, who had won a trophy in a worldwide Microsoft Excel competition, had become a junior analyst at Buc-ee's. James Dumoulin was in college, making TikTok videos. They combined their skills to make online content.

School of Hard Knocks was by no means an overnight success. They experimented with several approaches, including giving their own business advice. People didn't care about a 20-year-old kid's perspective on business, James Dumoulin said.

"Ultimately, we were like, 'What if we tried doing interviews?'" he said. "'What if we were the ones that were able to go seek advice from the most successful people?'"

They started approaching people cold on the street, asking them for interviews, and more often than not, getting blown off.

"It was just constant rejection after rejection," James Dumoulin said. "You'd probably have to go to 100 people before you get anybody to even look at you in the eye."

Their big break came in 2022 when they intercepted Mark Cuban outside the South by Southwest festival and asked for an interview. The gregarious entrepreneur obliged.

"That one interview was so powerful for us, because I leveraged it in so many other interviews," James Dumoulin said.

Eventually, PR agents were calling them to have their clients be featured on the channel.

The videos are carefully planned

School of Hard Knocks videos have a spontaneous feel that belies the meticulous planning behind them.

They start with a cold open, often creating tension by involving a security guard or other bystanders. For an interview with Ring founder Jamie Siminoff, James Dumoulin roped in a few employees from a store on Rodeo Drive where he met Siminoff and asked them to stand in a group, chatting. Dumoulin asked the group who the richest of them was. As briefed, they pointed to Siminoff, who said he was an inventor who made "something on your front door."

James Dumoulin reshoots the opening several times until he's satisfied with the result. The rest of the interview is shot in one take. He approaches his subjects with hearty enthusiasm and said he does minimal research on them, to preserve a certain amount of natural surprise in his reactions. All told, he takes five to seven hours to edit videos that are between a minute and a half and two minutes long.

"He's got unbelievable guests," said Josh Suggs, founder of StreetTalk, an ad agency built around impromptu street interviews. "He has real A-list celebrities. So I think people naturally want to hear what an A-list celebrity is going to say. At the same time, he asks a question people want to hear: How much money do you make? It's very scroll-stopping questions."

Some subjects — like Shaq and Tom Cruise — are household names. Most are not. James Dumoulin said the best-performing videos are unknown moguls because they create a curiosity gap.

He doesn't press his guests on controversial topics. Convicted felon "Wolf of Wall Street" Jordan Belfort and streamer Adin Ross, who has hosted far-right creator Nick Fuentes and self-described misogynist influencer Andrew Tate on his stream, get the same treatment as everyone else.

A platform reality check

The cofounders said that when their content started to take off, around 2022, they got a reality check about dependence on platforms.

They said their content was making about $30,000 a month, mostly from Facebook, when they were unexpectedly demonetized by the platform for what James Dumoulin said was an "unoriginal content violation." (They've since been reinstated.) Their monthly revenue dropped to $5,000. They said it was a wake-up call that they had to find other, more predictable sources of income. They started their first offshoot, the Hard Knocks Agency, in 2023.

"Sometimes you're not in control, because you don't own the platform," James Dumoulin said. "It made us realize, 'We've got to create a media company.'"

The School of Hard Knocks founders are also aware of the risk they run of being dependent on a single person. That's why they're adding new brands like Hard Knocks Business and Hard Knocks Women, with Hard Knocks Sports to come. The goal is to get to eight channels by the end of the year.

"If it is all really relying on one person, if something happens to that person, the whole company's kind of screwed," James Dumoulin said. "And so I think that's why it is very, very important to have that distribution beyond just one channel."

• Influencer marketing can be messy and unpredictable.
• We asked top creator marketers about the main challenges they face when running campaigns.
• Marketers said choosing talent, approving content, and forecasting reach create the most headaches.

Influencer marketing has ballooned into a $12 billion industry in the US. And yet, running campaigns can still feel unpredictable.

Business Insider asked more than a dozen executives at top brands like Poppi, E.l.f. Beauty, and the National Football League what challenges they face when working with creators. Three common pain points emerged.

First, it's tough to find relevant talent amid a growing pool of content creators. It can also be tricky to agree on content copy when balancing a brand's messaging goals with the creator's own voice. Lastly, campaign performance can be erratic as social-media algorithms become more personalized and harder to crack.

Buying influencer ads, unlike TV spots or display ads, requires a human touch. It's tough to automate (despite some attempts to do so). Forty-five percent of brands said they relied on manual processes like spreadsheets, emails, and DMs to run creator campaigns, according to a June survey of 209 executives conducted by Northwestern University and LTK.

"We're dealing with people, and making content is their time and their business, and it's hard," said Lindsay Burstein, senior director of integrated social and communications at Keurig Dr Pepper. "We're always looking for ways to do it faster and in a way that feels more real-time so that we're keeping up with the pace and the culture of the internet. But also knowing that these are people. They have lives. They have other commitments."

Read on for more details on the common pain points that emerged from our conversations with marketing executives at 14 brands. These execs were recently featured in Business Insider's 2026 list of innovative influencer marketers.

1. It's hard to find the right creators for your brand when there are so many

• "The landscape of the influencer, creator, and affiliate model is changing every single day, and new people are coming in and identifying as an influencer," said Patrick O'Keefe, chief integrated marketing officer at E.l.f. Beauty. "I would love a model or a plan or a program that would capture all the new people coming into this space in real time."
• "We've just seen this space get so much more saturated than it ever has before," said Kiara Kempski, vice president of global consumer marketing at The Knot Worldwide. "The game of scale is totally changing."

2. Breaking through the noise

• "The feed is so loud right now," said Anna Doré, Rothy's vice president of brand and communications. "In this AI-driven algorithm world where we're all being served the same content on the feed, we, more than ever, are going to be looking to great tastemakers."
• "There is a ton of content that's just content for content's sake that's out there," said Ian Trombetta, the National Football League's senior vice president of global social, creator, and content marketing. "The creative bar is going up in order for us to drive that organic reach and engagement."
• Ninety to 95% of the content that we see in our own feeds is not from accounts we follow, Keurig Dr Pepper's Lindsay Burstein said. "Followership matters a little, but not nearly as much as I think it once did because the algorithms just don't favor it the way that we used to."

3. Agreeing on content that works for both a brand and a creator's audience

• Some brands "are a little bit too prescriptive and don't allow the creators to do what it is that they really are good at, which is understanding their audience and how to create great content and formats that work for their audience," the NFL's Trombetta said.
• "Overbriefed" projects are "not the business that we want to be in," said Sophia Sesto, Poppi's vice president of culture. "We want to take these opportunities and work with the talent to make something special" and "lean into their personalities and let them carry the brand forward with us."
• "For a long time, the industry treated creators as ad placements," said Samim Sadrzadeh, director of creator content and partnerships at Disney. "We think that significantly undersells the value they actually bring."

• "We start from a pretty simple place, which is creators know their audiences better than we ever will," said Stacy Martinet, Adobe's chief content and creative officer. "The most effective approach has been to treat creators as creative partners, first and foremost."

• Fox-owned Red Seat Ventures is going after Substack's turf with a new newsletter option.
• CEO Chris Balfe said the company has had an early success with Tony Hinchcliffe's paid offering.
• The home of Tucker Carlson and Nancy Grace is also on the hunt for more big creators.

Fox's Red Seat Ventures is coming for Substack.

Led by Chris Balfe, Red Seat made its name running sales and production services for podcasters including Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, and Nancy Grace.

Now, as the lines between creators, podcasters, and writers continue to blur, it's adding newsletter functionality to its stack. The newsletter feature will live under Supercast, a company Red Seat bought this year that offers a menu of subscription options like livestreaming for creators. They can now build free and paid newsletters and track their performance on a dashboard. The newsletter feature is included in Supercast's base pricing of $0.59 per subscriber per month, with custom pricing available for big networks and media companies.

"We want to be a one-stop shop for creators," Balfe told Business Insider. "Whereas Substack has done a really good job going after written-first creators, and then adding podcasting capability on top of that, we're going at it from the other direction and saying, for most of the creators that we work with, their audio and video is their main business. So, let's add other features like email and livestreaming."

Balfe pointed to comedian Tony Hinchcliffe of "Kill Tony" as an early example of Red Seat's success in using a multifaceted approach. Since launching a subscription, Kill Tony+, Hinchcliffe has signed up thousands of people who get his uncensored, ad-free show and bonus content.

Hinchcliffe plans to create another, super-expensive tier where people would pay to get roasted by him, Balfe said.

"It would be like $10,000 or something like that to roast you," Balfe said. "We will sell out of these so bad."

He also pointed to an early pilot of Supercast's livestreaming with "This American Life," which drew more than 1,700 paying audience members.

Red Seat is aiming for 10 big deals

Balfe wants to make Red Seat a creator-economy juggernaut, with some 200 shows. The company has around 30 shows now and is looking to do a lot more deals quickly, especially in sports, lifestyle, entertainment, and tech. Red Seat's top creator deals generally pay a minimum guarantee against projected sales.

"We really want to accelerate our rate of dealmaking," Balfe said. "I think if we did 10 big deals in the next 12 months, that would be big."

Balfe disagrees with industry insiders like iHeartMedia CEO Bob Pittman, who say podcast distribution deals are getting too expensive. He said there was strong advertiser demand and that hosts have the ability to branch out into other areas. Balfe said he's doing deals where the show itself accounts for as little as 60% of the revenue, with the rest coming from other projects.

Balfe also sees the potential for creators to make longer deals. YouTubers are often used to getting short-term ad deals, while Red Seat is pushing for 12-month partnerships for its clients, he said.

"We're trying to do annual deals," he said. "YouTubers are attracted to that sort of consistency that the podcast business model has allowed."

Podcasts are TV now

Podcasting has become more of a video-first medium as it has evolved from its audio roots.

Forty-four percent of US podcast consumers watched a video podcast in the past week, up from 40% in 2025, according to a report from trade group Sounds Profitable released this month. YouTube is the top podcast platform, used by 63% in the past 12 months, ahead of Spotify (33%), Netflix (21%), and Apple Podcasts (15%).

Balfe thinks video will continue to grow its share of the pie. People are watching more podcasts on YouTube, especially on TV screens. Spotify is making the case that video consumption outperforms audio on its platform.

Major streamers are also hungry for podcasts, and linear TV players like Versant's MS NOW are looking for lower-cost programming to fill their schedules. Red Seat's shows aren't running on Fox's linear networks today, but Balfe said it's only a matter of time before that happens.

"I look at the next phase of video opportunities, and we have every streamer that wants our content now: Hulu, Peacock, and Amazon Prime, and Paramount Plus," Balfe said. "We also have the linear guys that are starting to come to us and say, 'Actually, what you're producing looks kind of like a talk show. Maybe we should just put it in late night or daytime.'"

The bill banning minors under the age of 15 from using social media online from January 1, 2027, was approved by a majority in Parliament’s plenary session late on Thursday. Only ruling New Democracy (ND) voted in favor of the bill in principle. Αong opposition parties, PASOK voted “present”, while SYRIZA, Greek Solution, KKE, Niki […]

The post Greece adopts law to ban social media access to minors under 15 appeared first on Keep Talking Greece.

• The Elizabeth Holmes documentary "You Can See Everything" earned $15.6 million in its debut weekend.
• That makes it the second-highest-grossing traditional docufilm opening weekend of all time.
• Business Insider compiled the 25 biggest documentary opening weekends using Box Office Mojo data.

Something unusual is happening right now: a documentary is drawing crowds to theaters at a level rarely seen for the genre.

The Elizabeth Holmes documentary "You Can See Everything," directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, grossed $15.6 million in the US and Canada during its opening weekend in October.

That makes it the second-biggest theatrical docufilm debut ever, behind director Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," which saw a nearly $24 million opening in 2004. "You Can See Everything" was filmed in the month before Holmes reported to prison in May 2023 after she was convicted of defrauding investors in connection with her now-defunct blood-testing company, Theranos.

Theatrical documentary premieres have become rarer since the streaming era began, as the genre has found a major audience on streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu. Besides the new Holmes docufilm, only two others on the list were from this decade: "Melania" debuted to $7.1 million in January 2026, and "After Death," a documentary about near-death experiences, opened to $5 million in 2023.

Still, theatrical docufilms were once a cultural force, especially in the 2000s and 2010s, when a wave of nature-, political-, and celebrity-focused ones premiered in theaters to much fanfare.

Here are the 25 highest-grossing traditional documentary film openings at the box office, using data from Box Office Mojo. Several hit concert docufilms, like "Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour" and "Justin Bieber: Never Say Never," earned more but were omitted from this list to focus on traditional nonfiction documentaries.

25. Whitney (2018)

Opening weekend domestic gross: $1,265,572

Directed by Kevin Macdonald, "Whitney" chronicles the life and career of singer Whitney Houston.

The documentary uses archival footage and interviews with people close to Houston to explore her rise to fame, personal struggles, and her death in 2012.

24. Imagine: John Lennon (1988)

Opening weekend domestic gross: $1,412,213

The documentary, directed by Andrew Solt, looks back on John Lennon’s life and career through archival footage, home movies, interviews, and recordings.

It covers Lennon's time with the Beatles, his solo work, and his relationship with Yoko Ono.

23. That's Dancing! (1985)

Opening weekend domestic gross: $1,506,802

Directed by Jack Haley Jr., "That's Dancing!" chronicles how dance evolved in Hollywood films through clips from musicals.

It features performances by Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Judy Garland, and more.

22. Rize (2005)

Opening weekend domestic gross: $1,574,787

David LaChapelle directed the documentary that focuses on the different dance styles across Los Angeles, including krumping and clowning.

It follows dancers who use dance as an outlet in South Central LA.

21. Babies (2010)

Opening weekend domestic gross: $2,160,460

Directed by Thomas Balmès, the documentary follows four infants from birth through their first year in Namibia, Mongolia, Japan, and the US.

20. Penguins (2019)

Opening weekend domestic gross: $2,282,593

Directed by Alastair Fothergill and Jeff Wilson, the Disneynature documentary, narrated by Ed Helms, follows a penguin as he searches for a partner and starts a family in Antarctica.

19. The Real Cancun (2003)

Opening weekend domestic gross: $2,300,000

"The Real Cancun" follows 16 American college students on spring break in Mexico.

The documentary captures the students as they party, hook up, argue, and more during a 10-day stay in Cancún's Hotel Zone.

18. Death of a Nation (2018)

Opening weekend domestic gross: $2,356,522

Conservative commentator Dinesh D'Souza co-directed "Death of a Nation" with Bruce Schooley.

The documentary uses reenactments and interviews to argue that Donald Trump is comparable to Abraham Lincoln and that the Democratic Party has historical ties to racism and fascism.

17. Meet the Mormons (2014)

Opening weekend domestic gross: $2,509,808

Produced by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the documentary follows six church members around the world, including the US, Costa Rica, and Nepal, to depict their daily lives and beliefs.

16. Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (2008)

Opening weekend domestic gross: $2,970,848

Directed by Nathan Frankowski, "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" challenges the teaching of evolution and includes interviews with scientists, writers, and religious figures.

15. Fahrenheit 11/9 (2018)

Opening weekend domestic gross: $3,008,563

Director Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 11/9," a follow-up to his 2004 documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11," examines the political climate surrounding Donald Trump's election and presidency.

The documentary ranges from the Flint water crisis to the Parkland school shooting and criticism of Democratic leaders.

14. Religulous (2008)

Opening weekend domestic gross: $3,409,643

Comedian Bill Maher travels the world questioning believers, clergy members, and religious institutions in "Religulous," directed by Larry Charles.

The documentary takes a comedic and confrontational look at Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and other religions.

13. Terror in the Aisles (1984)

Opening weekend domestic gross: $4,009,866

Directed by Andrew J. Kuehn, "Terror in the Aisles" dives into the history of horror cinema.

Actors Donald Pleasence and Nancy Allen introduce clips from films including "Psycho," "The Exorcist," "Halloween," and "The Shining," while discussing why audiences enjoy being scared.

12. Monkey Kingdom (2015)

Opening weekend domestic gross: $4,577,861

"Monkey Kingdom" follows Maya, a toque macaque, as she raises her son within the Sri Lankan jungle.

Mark Linfield and Alastair Fothergill directed the Disneynature documentary, narrated by Tina Fey.

11. Tupac: Resurrection (2003)

Opening weekend domestic gross: $4,632,847

Director Lauren Lazin's documentary examines the life of Tupac Shakur through archive footage, home videos, interviews, and Shakur's own voice recordings.

The documentary lets Shakur's recordings guide the audience through his childhood, music career, activism, legal troubles, and his death in 1996.

10. Bears (2014)

Opening weekend domestic gross: $4,776,267

"Bears" follows a brown bear mother as she emerges from hibernation in Alaska with her two cubs.

Directed by Alastair Fothergill and Keith Scholey and narrated by John C. Reilly, the Disneynature documentary tracks the family's search for food and protection as they face wolves, rival bears, and the wilderness.

9. Born in China (2017)

Opening weekend domestic gross: $4,790,367

Director Lu Chuan takes viewers across China's mountains and forests in "Born in China," a Disneynature documentary narrated by John Krasinski.

It follows a giant panda mother and cub, a golden snub-nosed monkey family, and a snow leopard raising her young in the highlands.

8. After Death (2023)

Opening weekend domestic gross: $5,051,950

"After Death" interviews people who say they had near-death experiences and returned to life.

The documentary, co-directed by Stephen Gray and Chris Radtke, also includes interviews with doctors, scientists, and others about consciousness, death, and the possibility of an afterlife.

7. African Cats (2011)

Opening weekend domestic gross: $6,003,200

Set in Kenya, the Disneynature documentary, directed by Alastair Fothergill and Keith Scholey, focuses on a family of lions and a cheetah raising her cubs.

It was nominated for documentary awards by the Environmental Media Awards and the Phoenix Film Critics Society.

6. Oceans (2010)

Opening weekend domestic gross: $6,058,958

"Oceans," directed by Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud, is a portrait of marine life around the world.

The documentary is largely filmed underwater, showcasing whales, sharks, schools of fish, and more.

5. Melania (2026)

Opening weekend domestic gross: $7,161,605

Directed by Brett Ratner, "Melania" follows first lady Melania Trump during the 20 days before Donald Trump’s second presidential inauguration in January 2025.

The film offers behind-the-scenes footage of her preparations to return to the White House, including meetings, travel, and intimate moments among family members.

4. Earth (2009)

Opening weekend domestic gross: $8,825,760

Disneynature directors Alastair Fothergill and Mark Linfield directed "Earth," which follows polar bears, elephants, and humpback whales across the different seasons.

The documentary was the first release from Disneynature in the US and was among the highest-grossing nature documentaries at the time.

3. Chimpanzee (2012)

Opening weekend domestic gross: $10,673,748

"Chimpanzee" centers on a young chimp living in the forests of Ivory Coast who is orphaned after a rival troop attacks his group.

The Disneynature documentary was directed by Alastair Fothergill and Mark Linfield, with Tim Allen as the narrator.

2. You Can See Everything (2026)

Opening weekend domestic gross: $15,601,418

Directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, the documentary offers a revealing portrait of Elizabeth Holmes, who was convicted of fraud and conspiracy connected to her fallen company, Theranos.

Holmes allowed the directors into her life during the 34 days before she reported to federal prison to serve an 11-year sentence. It's receiving wide critical acclaim and sparking online debate about its portrayal of Holmes.

1. Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)

Opening weekend domestic gross: $23,920,637

Director Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" takes a close look at President George W. Bush, the September 11 attacks, the war in Iraq, and the connections between American political and business leaders.

The documentary won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and became the highest-grossing traditional documentary in US box-office history.