Alexios Mantzarlis is the co-founder of Indicator, an investigative publication on digital deception. He was previously the founding director of the Security, Trust, and Safety Initiative at Cornell Tech and a principal in Google’s Trust & Safety team.
He has spent more than a decade working at the intersection of digital media, platform integrity, and information quality. He started his career in Italian think tanks and at the United Nations, before moving to journalism as managing editor of Pagella Politica and later founding the International Fact-Checking Network at the Poynter Institute.
Indicator publishes original reporting, in-depth investigations, and practical tutorials 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. In its first year, Indicator won the WAN-IFRA Digital Media Award for Best in Countering Disinformation, and its reporting on AI nudifiers received the inaugural CJF Hinton Award for Excellence in AI Safety Reporting.
Inaugural director of SETS, a hub for cybersecurity, privacy, and trust & safety at Cornell Tech that mitigates and prevents digital harm through graduate education, communities of practice, and research.
Across nearly five years at Google: led intelligence work on misinformation and generative AI across most Google products; founded the Content Adversarial Red Team for Gemini, building it into a 15-person team; previously led product policy for Search information quality and misinformation; previously served as acting PM for the Fact Check team and ~$15M in Google News Initiative grants to fight misinformation.
Researched and convened toward a blueprint for a global deliberative process for content moderation on tech platforms.
Built the IFCN — a global forum for fact-checkers — from launch into the field’s central convening and standard-setting body.
Italy’s top political fact-checking website. Wrote, edited, and presented fact-checks; managed editorial operations and a small team.
Set and managed press and communications strategy for Italy’s oldest think tank specializing in international relations. Organized conferences on international affairs.
Day-to-day support to the Chief of Staff and the Prime Minister, including drafting of memos, talking points, and background notes. Oversaw and trained four administrative staff.
Engaged with Member States, NGOs, foundations, and firms to promote UNDP priorities in intergovernmental processes including the Rio+20 conference.
Collected and analyzed data for research projects on economic competitiveness at the Italian and European level.
MA, Affaires Européennes
MSc, Economics & Management
BA, Philosophy, Politics & Economics