Author ON COURAGE: HOW TO BE A DISSIDENT IN AN AGE OF FEAR | NYTimes Opinion Writer | Director, HKS Independent Media program| Founder, Proof News, The Markup
New York
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Roger Ailes once threatened me that he had the rest of his life to get back at me for an article I wrote. Looks like he ran out of time.
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🧵: Yesterday we revealed how YouTube enabled advertisers to build ad campaigns around hate terms.
Today we reveal how YouTube blocked advertisers from building ad campaigns around social justice terms such as “Black Lives Matter.”
themarkup.org/google-the-gia…
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LOL Facebook just offered me a $30 credit to boost my post about my investigation into discriminatory ads on their platform. ( ICYMI propublica.org/article/faceb…)
They suggested that I might want to target my ads by “gender and age range”
#automatedmarketingfail
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Today's journalism lesson: "On background" is a request for anonymity. To be honored, it must be agreed to by both parties. It cannot be unilaterally declared.
That's why today we are publishing an email from Amazon which they insist was on background:
documentcloud.org/documents/…
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Remember when a Google search used to lead you somewhere?
Now it increasingly just keeps you on Google. In fact, Google results take up 62.6% of the first screen of search results in a sample of 15,000 searches.
themarkup.org/google-the-gia…
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Wow, thanks @facebook.
I’ve never been thanked before by a company that I’ve covered so aggressively.
Maybe there is hope for civil public discourse in this world, after all…
Thanks @JuliaAngwin. You've done a lot to uncover issues in our ads systems, which we've worked hard to fix. This new API is an important step towards greater transparency + other changes we're making like view ads and the archive going back 7 years for all political & issue ads.
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Last year I wrote about how Facebook let housing advertisers discriminate by race: propublica.org/article/faceb…
Today: turns out Facebook didn’t fix it, despite its promises.
propublica.org/article/faceb…
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Journalism is supposed to afflict the comfortable.
So we built an app for that.
Introducing Blacklight – a privacy tool that lets you scan any website and see how you are being surveilled. Built by the incomparable @suryamattu.
themarkup.org/blacklight/
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Your identity wasn’t stolen. You are still you.
Your financial institution failed to properly the authenticate the person who was impersonating you.
Stop calling it #IdentityTheft.
It’s a failure of companies (mostly financial institutions) to properly authenticate users & transactions. So says @JuliaAngwin of @ProPublica. Couldn’t agree more. Well worth your time to listen to interview w/ @chucktodd.
player.fm/series/1947-the-me…
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Some personal news: today is my last day at ProPublica. I’ve loved my time here, but I’m starting a crazy adventure. I want to see if I can scale up my style of tech-driven investigations by building a newsroom around it. /1
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My latest investigation: Facebook’s secret censorship algorithm that protects white men more than black children.
propublica.org/article/faceb…
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2016: Russian trolls secretly place political ads on Facebook
Today: we start monitoring political ads on FB
propublica.org/article/help-…
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I’m devastated to have been forced out of the organization I conceived to pursue rigorous, evidence-based tech accountability journalism. I will continue to pursue that mission and I hope to find other ways to build the field.
The editorial team of @team_markup has signed a statement of unequivocal support for our Editor in Chief, @JuliaAngwin:
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Automation FAIL:
Facebook auto-emails me urging me to buy an ad to promote my post about their Jew-hating ad category.
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Facebook microtargeting means that liberals see Exxon ads about mitigating climate change and conservatives see ads about mitigating unneccessary regulation.
@jeremybmerrill reports (using data from NYU project that FB is trying to shut down):
themarkup.org/news/2021/04/1…
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Ban TikTok? Most of the national security allegations against TikTok could just as easily be levied against the U.S. tech giants.
So let's pass laws forcing all tech to serve us better.
My latest for @nytopinion:
nytimes.com/2023/03/20/opini…
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So.. Google will prevent ad-blockers other than AdBlockPlus from running in Chrome …motherboard.vice.com/en_us/a…
...One day after Google won an antitrust ruling that said it was OK for Google to pay AdBlockPlus to whitelist Google's ad tracking.
bundeskartellamt.de/SharedDo…
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Let’s talk about consent. Do you feel like you ever properly consented to being surveilled online constantly, having a profile built of your interests and having that profile made available to anyone who could pay for it?
EU regulators don’t think so either. /1
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Facebook is a newstand. But no one can see which news Facebook is pushing to the top.
So we built an app for that called #CitizenBrowser. Our first finding: the sharp impact of Facebook’s political ad ban reversal in the Georgia Senate elections.
themarkup.org/citizen-browse… /1
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Wanna buy ads targeted to reach Jew-haters? Until we told them about it, Facebook was selling them.
propublica.org/article/faceb…
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In light of Facebook-Cambridge Analytica kerfuffle, it’s worth reviewing Facebook’s long history of lax enforcement against apps and partners who steal data from its users. /1
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In July, we calculated that Google was taking up 41% of the first page of search results to promote its own properties.
Today we are releasing a browser extension that shows you just the classic search results. Built by @tenuous @SamMorrisDesign
themarkup.org/google-the-gia…
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Thread alert. Facebook’s changes to its ad targeting system are a huge win for civil rights.
I want to tell a story about how that a few journalists helped that change came about - it’s a story of curiosity, persistence, teamwork, tips and expertise. /1
Doing More to Protect Against Discrimination in Housing, Employment and Credit Advertising wp.me/p4eLrC-3Qe
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3/ Google would not comment on its blocked racial and social justice terms. But after we reached out, Google EXPANDED the block list to include ADDITIONAL terms including:
icantbreathe
black excellence
civil rights
racial justice
say her name
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We just figured out why traffic to @themarkup has been spiking.
Our story about Google equating black girls with porn has made us rank really high in Google search results for porn!
Is there such a thing as algorithmic irony?
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I am so grateful to be returning to @team_markup as Editor-in-Chief along with my incredible team of journalists. We are thrilled to welcome the incomparable @nabihasyed as President and the magnificent @elarrubia as Managing Editor for Investigations. nytimes.com/2019/08/06/busin… /1
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Dozens of companies including Verizon, Amazon, UPS, Goldman Sachs - and Facebook itself - are using Facebook’s micro targeting to ensure that their job ads are only shown to younger viewers — a joint @Propublica @NYT investigation.
propublica.org/article/faceb…
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Critics have long suspected that predictive policing software was racially biased.
Today, we have the answer: @themarkup & @gizmodo analyzed 5.9 million algorithmic crime predictions. We found they disproportionately target Black & Latino areas. /1
themarkup.org/prediction-bia…
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Last week, Mark Zuckerberg vowed that Facebook was fighting misinformation.
This week, @themarkup was able to buy an ad targeting Facebook users who were interested in “pseudoscience.”
themarkup.org/coronavirus/20…
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I’m delighted to announce that today I’m launching a new nonprofit journalism studio: Proof News.
Proof is into proving things! We question, test, and investigate the most important issues. We will always tell you what we know and what we don’t know. proofnews.org/
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I’m sad to report that I am leaving @themarkup to pursue other projects, which I will announce soon. It was an honor and a privilege to found @themarkup five years ago to create an investigative newsroom that integrated engineers and journalists. /1
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In 2013 @Snowden warned us that the NSA allowed its analysts to do Google-like searches of US communications.
Last week, an NSA oversight board member raised similar concerns about the agency’s surveillance of domestic comms.
My newsletter this week:
getrevue.co/profile/themarku…
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The underfunding of the Census is a really big deal for accountability journalism. I use Census data in nearly every big data project.
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Today the Supreme Court will hear arguments about an outdated anti-hacking law, the CFAA, that threatens data journalists like us @themarkup with criminal penalties.
We filed an amicus brief supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/1…
And we are wearing our #ScrapingIsNotACrime t-shirts today.
ALT Julia Angwin wearing The Markup's Scraping is Not a Crime t-shirt
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In light of the recent US settlement with Facebook, I want to tell y’all a story about how hard it is to make change in our algorithmic world, why you need a village of researchers, and why law enforcement agencies need to get better at tech. /1
nytimes.com/2022/06/21/techn…
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4/ Google now blocks 84% of the phrases on our list of social and racial justice terms – up from one-third of those on our list when we first tested in November.
Google also changed its code to preclude future investigations.
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It goes without saying that people whose literal job title is "spokesperson" should rarely if ever qualify for anonymity because of fear of retaliation.
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Hello Facebook PR guy. Yes, we do have a small sample in GA. We would love a larger sample. But FB does all it can to prevent independent auditing of its platform.
54 people is not perfect. But it's better than letting FB police itself (track record on that: 👎🏻👎🏻).
Interesting that in this whole Twitter thread you don't mention the sample size - 54 people out of a record (for a runoff) 3 million ballots cast. I'm no PhD but I've heard that the plural of anecdote is not data.
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The Cato Institute’s timeline of US govt surveillance of political activists is incredible cato.org/american-big-brothe…
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Facebook’s algorithm prevents a job ad promising equal pay for women - apparently because Facebook decided that equal pay is a political issue and thus the ad must be submitted for political vetting.
@JuliaAngwin thought you would be interested in this article detailing more of FB's algorithmic injustice: bit.ly/2FML3Q3. FB rejected a job ad that promises equal pay — once via algorithm, once via manual review.
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Facebook is a mass personalization tool: everyone’s feed is different.
Today we launch “Split Screen” — a tool that lets you see other people’s feeds, based on our national panel of Facebook users. Brought to you by @suryamattu and @sammorrisdesign:
themarkup.org/citizen-browse…
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Today, as part of our algorithms series, we are launching a tool that lets you see what Facebook knows about you. propub.li/2d6dkUg
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Facebook’s black box algorithm charged the Biden campaign higher ad rates on average than it charged the Trump campaign.
A new investigation by @jeremybmerrill:
themarkup.org/election-2020/…
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5/ As always, we show our work by providing detailed methodologies and access to our data.
github.com/the-markup/invest…
themarkup.org/google-the-gia…
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🚨Amazon says 🚨it doesn’t put its house brands first in search results.
But we ran the numbers and …
🚨Math says 🚨being an Amazon brand is the most important factor to be a #1 Amazon search result.
@adrjeffries and @leonyin's investigation: themarkup.org/amazons-advant…
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Facebook is displaying posts supporting Germany's far-right political group, AfD, in our German Citizen Browser panelists' news feeds more than three times as often as posts supporting other political groups.
@angiewaller & @colinlecher report:
themarkup.org/citizen-browse…
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Huge investigation from @proof__news today: We reveal the trove of YouTube videos that are being used to train AI models (including Anthropic's Claude).
Yes, it includes all your favorite YouTubers - from @hankgreen to @MrBeast to @khanacademy.
proofnews.org/apple-nvidia-a…
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👇🏼 🧵Princeton researchers studied Twitter’s new blue checkmarks & find they may be illegally deceptive and could violate Twitter’s FTC consent decree.
Our research calls into question whether Twitter Blue is legal. Continued use of the blue check and the term verification, when they are so misleading and harmful to consumers, could constitute a deceptive business practice under the FTC Act and state consumer protection laws.
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Bezos clarifies, under questioning, that that global retail market includes every single type of retail including restaurants…
Turns out Amazon’s market share of online retail is closer to 40%, he admits.
Defining your market is THE key argument in antitrust.
Market share claims by tech CEOs:
Facebook: We have tons of competition.
Amazon: we have less than 1% of the $25 trillion global retail market.
Apple: We don’t have a dominant position in any market.
Google: No comment.
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I am so moved and grateful for all the support flooding in.
If ever there was a silver lining in having your dream stolen from you, it is all the love that is coming in. Thank you.
Support for @JuliaAngwin extends beyond our newsroom as well medium.com/@astepanovich/pub…
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This particular case was extra weird, though, because the Amazon spokesperson was ok with being identified but wanted to be paraphrased, not quoted directly.
We don't allow others to dictate how we use the information they provide us.
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ChatGPT is great at its job. But its job is to be a bullshit generator -- an automated creator of plausible lies.
"It is very good at being persuasive, but it’s not trained to produce true statements" @random_walker says in my latest newsletter. /1
themarkup.org/hello-world/20…
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If we didn't agree it was on background, then it was not.
Because it destroys trust with readers, we only grant anonymity when a source faces retaliation and we can't get the information any other way.
getrevue.co/profile/themarku…
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Facebook lets advertisers block blacks, hispanics from seeing ads - which could violate anti-discrimination laws.
propublica.org/article/faceb…
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And what was Amazon all fussed about? That would be today's investigation by @darakerr and @tenuous about rising COVID cases in Amazon warehouses:
themarkup.org/working-for-an…
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Facebook says “technical issues” prevented it from realizing that groups like “Donald Trump is Our President” were political.
Facebook is blaming technical issues for its broken promise to Senator Markey and Congress that it would stop recommending political groups to its users before the November election. @alfredwkng and @leonyin report. themarkup.org/citizen-browse…
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Come work with me!
New job posting at @ProPublica for a job investigating the tech platforms...
propublica.org/atpropublica/…
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Hmmm, Atlantic article on rise of ubiquitous surveillance is complaining that I block ad tracking technology.
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If ever there was a time when journalists needed to work harder to analyze the impacts of technology on society, this is it. So @thejefflarson and I are going to give it a try. /2
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So, in short, data theft has very few consequences for the the companies.
Oil companies spill oil - they pay for the cleanup.
Data companies spill data - we pay for our own cleanup as best we can by tweaking our privacy settings or vowing to quit Facebook. Weak sauce at best.
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Turns out Facebook was vacuuming up student data that was being entered on online financial aid applications.
The latest @themarkup investigation by @suryamattu @colinlecher, enabled by the tools developed by @MozillaRally.
.@colinlecher and I found that studentaid.gov sent financial aid applicants’ personal data to FB. For those not in the US, this is the site where students need to go to apply for help affording college. themarkup.org/pixel-hunt/202…
2/
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I was surprised they thought a journalist would be willing to censor her own work. That cannot and should not ever be the norm. /END
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I’m so thrilled to be launching @themarkup with my favorite topic: price discrimination. Big data and predictive algorithms can enable the ability to tailor prices to individuals on a massive scale, just the way that online ads are now micro-targeted. themarkup.org/allstates-algo…
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Hey Steve Bannon, thanks for the T-shirt idea. @ProPublica is selling "we're not shutting up" shirts here. cottonbureau.com/products/we…
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The only reason we know about this is a Facebook internal investigation. Is this the oversight we need for election advertising?
SCOOP on RUSSIA: Facebook reveals to Congress it found it sold political ads to Russian troll farm in 2016 election wapo.st/2gN5NLf?tid=ss_tw&ut…
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Here’s the latest in our series on algorithmic accountability - a look at disparities in auto insurance prices:
propublica.org/article/minor…
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ICYMI Facebook’s announcement that it is shutting down relationships with data brokers is a big deal.
newsroom.fb.com/news/h/shutt… /1
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This past summer Google quietly dropped its historic ban on merging Web browsing info with your name.
propublica.org/article/googl…
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You: I don't care about privacy. I have nothing to hide.
Me: You *do* have something to hide, but you have enough privilege to know that you are not likely to be subject to prosecutorial discretion.
Privacy deconstructed in this week's newsletter:
getrevue.co/profile/themarku…
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Why should you care about privacy if you have nothing to hide?
Because privacy is about power, not creepiness or secrets, says @neilmrichards in this week's newsletter:
themarkup.org/newsletter/hel…
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In September we began a crowdsourcing project to collect political ads on Facebook propublica.org/article/help-…
Today we are releasing a searchable database of all the ads we’ve collected so far projects.propublica.org/face…
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I went on vacation and came back to find that Facebook had quietly ended racial ad profiling.
It’s a big change. Over the years, Facebook’s racial ad targeting has been repeatedly found to enable illegal discrimination.
getrevue.co/profile/themarku…
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Uber and Lyft are having a hard time luring drivers back to work post-pandemic. But instead of raising pay, they are tweaking their algorithms to make it harder for drivers to turn down prospective rides.
@darakerr reports for @themarkup:
themarkup.org/news/2021/06/0…
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Facebook says top content on its platform comes from reputable sources like UNICEF, ABC News & the CDC.
But our #CitizenBrowser data shows that sensational partisan content from Daily Wire & The Western Journal are top performers. @corintxt reports:
themarkup.org/citizen-browse…
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Last week’s statement by @PCLOB_GOV board member Travis LeBlanc was just that the latest warning that NSA was overstepping its bounds.
In 2014, whistleblower John Napier Tye alleged that NSA was exploiting a legal loophole to conduct domestic spying.
washingtonpost.com/opinions/…
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Facebook doesn’t show its users the info it buys about their income, purchases etc. from data brokers.
propublica.org/article/faceb…
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France just fined Facebook for continuing to track users across the Web without their consent
cnil.fr/en/facebook-sanction… h/t @vtoubiana
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Today I published my first article for @themarkup(!): the privacy pros and cons of Apple and Google’s plans for COVID-19 contact-tracing apps.
TL;DR - it’s good at protecting anonymity but vulnerable to spoofing, trolls and other abuses. /1
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Claim #2: TikTok could use its algorithm to promote Chinese propoganda or suppress dissent.
Verdict: True but the worst such abuses we've seen have come from Facebook abetting Russian propoganda, a Myanmar genocide and a U.S. insurrection.
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Now more than ever trying to live by these rules:
📍Show Up
📍Pay Attention
📍Tell the Truth
📍Don’t be Attached to the Consequences
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This story is shocking. An entrepreneur is sentenced to 15 months in prison for taking an innovative approach to extending the life of computers - which cuts into Microsoft’s sales of new computers. h/t @Susan_Hennessey
washingtonpost.com/news/true…
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In August my email account was attacked. So I wrote a reconstruction of what happened and why:
propublica.org/article/cheap…
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When @thejefflarson and I left ProPublica, we had no money and just a dream. Thank you a million times, @joi @zittrain @timhwang for believing in us and giving us our seed money to get started!
Introducing The Markup, a new venture incubated by the AI Initiative: Investigative journalism that seeks to uncover how institutions use and abuse tech in ways that harm people and damage society, founded by @JuliaAngwin, @SuePGardner, @thejefflarson. mitsha.re/s8h030lWyZa
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NYT oped calls for FB political ads to be made public.
mobile.nytimes.com/2017/09/0…
That's exactly what we're doing.
propublica.org/article/help-…
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The NYU Ad Observatory is the only window researchers have to see microtargeting information about political ads on Facebook.
Very disappointing to see that Facebook is trying to shut that down.
This is a disturbing development.
Last Friday, Facebook sent a cease-and-desist letter to two NYU researchers (@LauraEdelson2 and Damon McCoy), demanding that they shut down their research into political ads and disinformation on FB’s platform.
wsj.com/articles/facebook-se…
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Market share claims by tech CEOs:
Facebook: We have tons of competition.
Amazon: we have less than 1% of the $25 trillion global retail market.
Apple: We don’t have a dominant position in any market.
Google: No comment.
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🚨Another black box algorithm is being pried open 🚨
Judges have ruled that the makers of a “probablistic genotyping” DNA analysis program used in more than 850 criminal cases must hand over their source code.
@lkirchner reports:
themarkup.org/news/2021/03/0…
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We've updated our how-to-leak to @ProPublica page with more info on how to safely use Signal. propublica.org/article/how-t…
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It’s finally happening folks! @themarkup begins publishing next week!
We’re thrilled to announce our board of directors today @dlboardman @MHarrisPerry @paulohm
@DeleOlojede @nicolewong @sdkarle and Jason Yurasek. Welcome!
Set a reminder. Mark your calendars. Turn post notifications on. The Markup launches on Feb. 25 with nonprofit, nonpartisan, data-driven investigations. Yeah, we’re excited, too. themarkup.org/press-release-…
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There’s an algorithm that predicts future criminality - and its biased against blacks. My latest investigation:
propublica.org/article/machi…
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Excited to partner with @mozilla to examine how Facebook tracks users across the Internet.
As @knowtheory says: Independent research is urgent because “the world cannot wait on platforms to do the right thing."
blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/…
ALT Quote from Ted Han stating that “the world cannot wait on platforms to do the right thing."
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Anonymity is a privilege that journalists should only grant to sources who face retaliation for providing information in the public interest.
Which is why @themarkup doesn’t allow corporate spokespeople to talk “on background.”
My newsletter:
getrevue.co/profile/themarku…
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This week, Facebook VP Monica Bickert told Congress that financial service ads can't use microtargeting.
But we found that four different credit & loan ads targeted by age to our #CitizenBrowser panelists on Facebook.
@corintxt & @alfredwkng report:
themarkup.org/citizen-browse…
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