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YAC has been running since 2007. Before social media made activism a brand exercise. Before "raising awareness" became a substitute for action. Before the news cycle was measured in seconds.
We were built on a simple premise: information is leverage. The right story, in the right hands, at the right time, can change what happens next.
Seventeen years later, that's still why we exist.
What we do
We investigate. We document. We publish.
YAC covers human rights abuses, institutional corruption, surveillance operations, and the systems that protect the powerful from accountability. Our reporters work across borders and across time zones, often on stories that no one else is pursuing — because they're difficult, dangerous, or politically inconvenient.
We don't cover politics as sport. We don't aggregate. We don't chase traffic. We work on stories that matter, for as long as they take.
Who we are
YAC is a small, independent newsroom. We're journalists, researchers, technologists, and legal specialists who believe that accountability journalism is one of the few tools capable of changing entrenched power.
We don't accept advertising. We don't take government grants. We don't have a corporate parent. Our work is funded entirely by readers who believe the work is worth paying for.
That independence is not a selling point. It's a structural requirement. You cannot hold power accountable if power is signing your cheques.
Where we came from
YAC grew out of a period when the internet was still a genuinely disruptive force — when distributed networks of people with few resources could expose things that institutions spent millions trying to conceal.
That era is not over. The tools have changed. The stakes have risen. But the fundamentals haven't moved: access to information, the ability to verify it, and the willingness to publish it are still the most destabilising combination in existence.
We have always operated as if that's true. We always will.
What we believe
Transparency is not optional. The people and institutions we cover should be held to full public scrutiny. We apply the same standard to ourselves — our funding, our methods, our corrections, and our decisions are all documented.
Sources come first. We will not compromise the safety of a source for any story, regardless of its importance. Our security practices are not a legal formality. They are the foundation everything else is built on.
Actions, not nouns. We are not interested in being a platform, a brand, or a movement. We are interested in outcomes. Stories that change policy. Evidence that ends impunity. Information that puts power where it belongs — with the people who are affected by it.
Support the work
YAC is reader-funded. No ads, no sponsors, no outside interests.
If the work matters to you, help keep it going.