The Boston Globe
For Michelle Wu’s first three years as mayor, the anonymous account @AntiWuCoalition on Twitter (and then X) launched attack after attack on her, even calling on Wu to resign when she announced her third child was on the way.
Today, the author of those posts — a 36-year-old Boston software engineer — runs what he calls Mass Daily News, a right-wing, largely AI-generated website. He’s attracted tens of thousands of social media followers and has fueled viral media cycles targeting City Hall and Beacon Hill.
Until now, few have known the identity of the man behind the website. Some have tried, unsuccessfully, to suss him out. The Globe combed through public records and matched the company that runs the site to Simon Pacheco, a former Florida resident who confirmed in interviews that he runs the site.
“There was clearly a substantial audience in Massachusetts that wanted a more populist, right-of-center outlet,” Pacheco said. “I knew that there was a bigger opportunity than essentially just being a social media commentator.”
He has tried to stay under the radar, registering Mass Daily Media LLC in Wyoming without his name. But since the site launched in July 2025, his controversial posts have gotten plenty of attention.
An April 2026 post ran with this headline: “Cash-strapped Boston partners with nonprofit to offer ‘LGBTQ+ migrants’ up to $500 for yoga, massages and hair salons — as hundreds of teachers face layoffs.” It went viral on social media, and was picked up by the Boston Herald, New York Post, and Fox News.
In just a matter of days, the nonprofit offering the services said it would return a $7,500 grant to the city of Boston, as its leader faced death threats. Wu’s office at the time said the funding was not being used as intended.
Pacheco said he runs the site alone, with no employees. He has a slight southern twang and a polite, laid-back vibe in person, in contrast to the acidic tenor of Mass Daily News. He identifies as Latino, and says he’s a first-generation American with Colombian parents. He has voted for both Republicans and Democrats for president, he said, and comes across less as an ideologue than someone who simply wants to stir the pot.
Mass Daily News is a hobby, he said, that he works on mainly nights and weekends. It makes money from ads and donations, though Pacheco declined to say how much. He uses AI to find coverage topics and composes posts under the byline “MDN Staff.”
At a cafe, he showed a Globe reporter how he sends most posts from his phone. First, he asked a chatbot to turn a Boston Police Department community alert into a story. Pacheco then chose a headline from 15 options. The chatbot made a few errors — it made things up or pulled information from wrong sources — including calling a suspect masked and the victim “bloodied” when the police had not stated those details.
Pacheco told the chatbot to correct the mistakes. In roughly 20 minutes, with no independent reporting or phone calls, he published the AI-generated post on his site and on X, Instagram, and Facebook.
The site certainly isn’t a traditional news outlet. But it has broken some news, including the arrest of a City Hall employee that the Globe subsequently reported on. It’s also amplified stories that have circulated in conservative media, like one on a city program that offers scholarships to immigrants who want to become civic leaders. Pacheco has posted viral clips, such as when Governor Maura Healey and Wu were booed at the Red Sox home opener — and got over 1 million views on X.
Mass Daily News is a publication engineered to produce the rage-bait content that online algorithms love. And with the use of AI, the site shows how one savvy operator can impact the political conversation.
“He’s coming at things with a really biased point of view, using incomplete facts, and people are taking that and running with it,” said Chip Goines, a Boston-based writer and progressive activist. “It just ruins the discourse and derails the conversation and progress in the city.”
To some critics, Mass Daily News delivers “pink slime,” a term that nods to the fillers in processed ground beef. It describes websites that can look like local news operations, but often have no journalists and post content with little to no original reporting.
“This is sort of like a classic pink slime website with overt political goals,” said Matthew Baum, a Harvard Kennedy School professor of global communications. “It uses the form of news to make it easier to get attention and get indexed, especially to people who might not be sophisticated news consumers.”
Pacheco rejects the characterization that he peddles misinformation. He argued the site has “an editorial voice” and is “a social-first, Massachusetts tabloid.”
The business got its start when he launched his anti-Wu Twitter account four years ago, around the same time protesters gathered with a bullhorn outside Wu’s Roslindale home over vaccine mandates for city employees. Pacheco said he personally did get a COVID vaccine and booster shot. But he was frustrated with how pandemic restrictions continued here after going away in Florida and other states.
“I thought it was performative. Like theater,” Pacheco said of the restrictions.
Ashley Jacobs, 57, a Boston resident who advocates for “true diversity of thought” in schools, said she began following Pacheco when he ran the anti-Wu account. She found it — and Mass Daily News — “refreshing” and believed its posts criticizing the mayor and other Democratic politicians filled a void in a left-leaning city and state.
“For the average person who cares about the city and the state and wants things to improve, it’s helpful to have someone who cares,” Jacobs said.
As Pacheco continued posting, he gained tens of thousands of followers on X. Most of the posts have now been deleted. The attacks sometimes were personal, including a 2024 post against Wu that said: “Pregnancy makes you hormonal and we can’t have this while in office running a major city. It’s time for her to resign.”
Pacheco said those older posts don’t represent Mass Daily News, and he regrets some of them.
“I would never write that in Mass Daily News,” he said. He added that while he dislikes her policies, he has “no beef” with Wu personally.
Veronica Yoo, a spokesperson for Wu, said in a statement that Pacheco “can either defend his false claims with facts or stop hiding behind anonymity to spread misinformation.”
“If you truly believe in what you are saying, you should have the courage to put your name behind it,” Yoo said. “We’ll stay focused on delivering results for residents, rather than outrage, clickbait, or fearmongering.”
Some posts have questioned the integrity of the recent primary election, including a piece titled: “Boston’s elections under fire again after voters handed ballot missing the mayor’s biggest rival — days after Wu handpicks new election chief.” But a Boston Election Department official told the Herald the city “identified isolated incidents of human error by a poll worker, and the affected voters were immediately provided the proper ballots and voted successfully.”
Pacheco has drawn attention from regulators, too. His X account was seeking donations, and in May 2025, the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance reached out by email. General Counsel Sarah A. Hartry wrote, “It seems that the group should organize as a political action committee.”
The group (Pacheco did not use his name) declined to speak with the regulators, but responded that it was interested in learning more. Pacheco later said, “AntiWuCoalition is a media account,” pulled the donation link, and pinned a clarification that it was not a formal organization or political committee.
Three days after his final email to Hartry, Pacheco formed Mass Daily Media LLC as a corporation in Wyoming.
“If I’m being quite honest, I wanted to get off the political account for a long time,” Pacheco said. “I didn’t start Mass Daily News because of that email. … It was just more of a catalyst, but it wasn’t the reason.”
Pacheco said while the site can be aggressive, the posts are based on facts. He said he sometimes reaches out to agencies and individuals for comment, and has issued corrections when there are errors.
There is clearly an audience. Traffic to the site has increased significantly since its launch, and political candidates such as John Deaton and Brian Shortsleeve have written op-eds for it. Shortsleeve has also paid for advertising on the site, according to OCPF data.
Pacheco said there is a lot of “human in the loop” with his use of AI, referring to his edits. He said his goal is not to replace journalists; he hopes to hire freelancers as he grows.
But ultimately, Pacheco’s model is a far cry from classic news gathering standards.
The site is an example of the “corrosive impact that AI can have on the journalism space,” said Jonathan Cohn, policy director of the advocacy group Progressive Mass, who was a subject of a recent Mass Daily News story. “It takes away from the actual work of trying to inform the public.”
