Inside Mark Zuckerberg's private meetings with conservative pundits
Facebook’s quiet battle to kill the first transparency law for online political ads
Zuckerberg said the company welcomes regulation, but that's not the message on Capitol Hill.
How Facebook shot themselves in the foot in their Elizabeth Warren spat | Ellen Goodman and Karen Kornbluh
When Elizabeth Warren criticised Facebook over their decision to let Trump run false ads, Facebook compared itself to a broadcaster. That was a big mistake
Facebook, WhatsApp Will Have to Share Messages With U.K.
Social media platforms based in the U.S. including Facebook and WhatsApp will be forced to share users’ encrypted messages with British police under a new treaty between the two countries, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Student tracking, secret scores: How college admissions offices rank prospects before they apply
Records reviewed by The Washington Post show that at least 44 public and private universities in the United States work with outside consulting companies to collect and analyze data on prospective students, either by tracking their Web activity or formulating predictive scores to measure each student’s likelihood of enrolling. The vast majority of universities reviewed by The Post do not tell students the schools are collecting their information.
Josh Seim on Twitter
I was beginning to think Foucault’s writings on the “disciplinary society” were becoming irrelevant. But then my niece started the 5th grade. Her teachers add and subtract behavioral points in an app shared with her mom. Note that she lost a point for using the restroom today. pic.twitter.com/3nXJ9Mdbyo— Josh Seim (@JoshSeim) September 27, 2019
Google says the built-in microphone it never told Nest users about was 'never supposed to be a secret'
On Tuesday, a Google representative told Business Insider the company had made an "error."
Google Duplex and the canny rise: a UX pattern
Given recent events, it looks like it’s time in the grand evolutionary arc of technology to establish this as a pattern.
Machine behaviour is old wine in new bottles
Discover the world’s best science and medicine | Nature.com
How an Attempt at Correcting Bias in Tech Goes Wrong
Google allegedly scanned volunteers with dark skin tones in order to perfect the Pixel phone’s face-unlock technology.
Facebook Figured Out My Family Secrets, And It Won't Tell Me How
Rebecca Porter and I were strangers, as far as I knew. Facebook, however, thought we might be connected. Her name popped up this summer on my list of “People You May Know,” the social network’s roster of potential new online friends for me.
Facebook recommended that this psychiatrist's patients friend each other
Facebook's ability to figure out the "people we might know" is sometimes eerie. Many a Facebook user has been creeped out when a one-time Tinder date or an ex-boss from 10 years ago suddenly pops up as a friend recommendation. How does the big blue giant know?
California has banned political deepfakes during election season
The bill has raised questions about speech protections
Twitter admits it used two-factor phone numbers and emails for serving targeted ads
Twitter has said it used phone numbers and email addresses, provided by users to set up two-factor authentication on their accounts, to serve targeted ads. In a disclosure Tuesday, the social media giant said it did not know how many users were impacted. The issue stemmed from the company’s tailored audiences program, which allows companies […]
Whistleblower Explains How Cambridge Analytica Helped Fuel U.S. 'Insurgency'
In 2014, Christopher Wylie resigned from his position as Cambridge Analytica's research director. He later exposed the company's role in the Trump presidential campaign and the Brexit referendum.
Chatbots Can Make as Many Sales as Humans
But there’s an ethical catch to it, a new study finds.
The Internet Must Be More Than Facebook
If Big Tech becomes synonymous with the internet, we could lose free choice, democracy, and even the ability to imagine a different world
From information to I, Robot: the reality of AI ethics
Shannon Vallor is worried about killer robots. But not for the reasons you might think.
Facebook to Pay $40M Under Proposed Settlement in Video Metrics Suit
Advertisers would collect the bulk of the money after alleging Facebook inflated the average time users viewed video on the platform.
Should governments be given keys to access our messages?
Facebook has been asked to roll back plans to bring end-to-end encryption to its platforms.
Cryptodamages: Monetary value estimates of the air pollution and human health impacts of cryptocurrency mining
Cryptocurrency mining uses significant amounts of energy as part of the proof-of-work time-stamping scheme to add new blocks to the chain. Expanding u…
Cathy O'Neil: The era of blind faith in big data must end
Algorithms decide who gets a loan, who gets a job interview, who gets insurance and much more -- but they don't automatically make things fair. Mathematician and data scientist Cathy O'Neil coined a term for algorithms that are secret, important and harmful: "weapons of math destruction." Learn more about the hidden agendas behind the formulas.
Detroit Police chief calls Tlaib's comments 'racist' after she suggests facial recognition tech analysts should be African American
Rep. Rashida Tlaib suggested that the Detroit police department should only employ African Americans to identify black suspects from the city's facial recognition technology, according to video captured by The Detroit News -- a comment that the city's police chief called "racist" and "insulting."
The Dark Side of Techno-Utopianism
Big technological shifts have always empowered reformers. They have also empowered bigots, hucksters, and propagandists.
Google Maps incognito mode mostly hides you from you
A new incognito mode on Google Maps may make it easier to obscure your search history. But that doesn't mean the app won't be tracking your whereabouts.
Facebook’s new 'private' messaging app wants to track your location 24/7, monitor your battery, and even detect if you’re working out
For a nominally private network, Facebook's new app Threads asks for a surprising amount of user data.
Pinboard on Twitter
It appears that Apple has rejected an app that warns Hong Kongers about police activity. The Hong Kong police force shot a high schooler in the chest yesterday and put seventy people, from 11 to 75, in the hospital. That app saves lives in Hong Kong. Let me tweet about it a bit https://t.co/APsQK6XRsP— Pinboard (@Pinboard) October 2, 2019
Google contractors reportedly targeted homeless people for Pixel 4 facial recognition
They need facial scans of people with darker skin
Facebook says Trump can lie in his Facebook ads
This is the online version of the Popular Information newsletter. You can get independent accountability journalism in your inbox every week. Sign up here: Last week, Facebook quietly changed the language of its advertising policies to make it easier for politicians to lie in ads.
How to design digital ethical principles for your charity
We've gathered together some of the best digital ethics codes to guide charities' in building their own ethical frameworks.