Digital Ethics

A citizen interested in watching their government's response to misinformation cannot do so without @YouTube suggesting videos promoting dangerous health misinformation.— Joe Bak-Coleman (@jbakcoleman) November 17, 2021

Every year or so, a new Facebook scandal emerges. These blowups follow a fairly standard pattern, at least in the U.S. First, new information is revealed that the company misled users about an element of the platform—data sharing and data privacy, extremist content, ad revenue, responses to abuse—...

Sprakab allegedly responsible for wrongly deporting 'hundreds'

The Home Office is refusing to acknowledge the Somali identity of Bajuni asylum seekers.

22-åriga flyktingen Aisha Sharif ska utvisas till Tanzania fast hon är från Somalia. Det har Migrationsverket bestämt. Beslutet är grundat på ett språktest – ett test som starkt ifrågasätts.

Papperslös från det krigshärjade Somalia. Nu hotas han av utvisning till ett annat land, Kenya. Orsaken är en undermålig analys av språkföretaget Sprakab.

The Home Office is refusing to acknowledge the Somali identity of Bajuni asylum seekers.

Historically, it’s been a matter of trial and error. There’s a better way.

Hacker life. pic.twitter.com/CYAtg7AO2H— V_To_The_K (@V_to_the_K) November 10, 2021

Do the countries of the world want companies like Facebook to do more moderation, or do we wish to think carefully about new models of content moderation altogether, that do not depend on more Facebook? It’s worth considering e-courts as an another adjudicatory mechanism, for example. Now is the time for out-of-the-box ideas. Facebook’s US-centrism is plain for all to see.

Two whistleblowers' drive to speak out about their time at the social network raise the question: How many employees still there feel similarly?

New typing biometrics authentication method to replace SMS 2FA codes. Reduce your costs by an order of magnitude. Free for the first year.

Questionable phone calls, concerning emails, heart-rending stories from a sudden new friend in need of endless financial support: elder abuse can take many forms, says lawyer Jane Walsh. And as technology becomes more sophisticated, susceptibility to tricks and scams will increase -- no matter a person's age or intellect. Walsh spotlights the rise of this predatory crime, why it goes undetected and how you can protect your loved ones' kindness, dignity and self-respect from being manipulated.

Perfect analogy for the age of #algorithms. The dad is #AI. The kids are us. And we are not doing much better than them. #AIEthics pic.twitter.com/sVUkb5Um5m— Carissa Véliz (@CarissaVeliz) November 7, 2021

Many of Silicon Valley's words, products, and even ideologies come straight from science fiction. But what if they've been reading it wrong?

Things can go disastrously wrong on data science and machine learning projects when we undervalue data work, use data in contexts that it wasn’t gathered for, or ignore the crucial role that humans play in the data science pipeline.

They’re almost invisible but contain a hidden code – and now their presence on a leaked document has sparked speculation about their usefulness to FBI investigators.

Help more humans feel heard and supported

AI has only minimal success in removing hate speech, violent images and other problem content, according to internal company reports. It can’t consistently identify first-person shooting videos, racist rants or gruesome car crashes.

We’re shutting down the Face Recognition system on Facebook, so people who’ve opted in will no longer be automatically be recognized in photos and videos.

A searing critique of predictive policing, Future Wake uses past data on police violence to predict where it might occur in the future—and who will be targeted.

📌 Hi! I cover software developers for the enterprise desk at @BITech. If you've got a tip, you can contact me via email at krobison@insider.com, Signal and Telegram at 347.829.5826, or Keybase @kyliebytes.https://t.co/u8ICr5eANs— Kylie Robison (@kyliebytes) October 25, 2021

Breaking up social-media companies is one way to fix them. Shutting their users up is a better one.

Mark Zuckerberg wants to be the hero of the metaverse because he knows Facebook is boring.

Twitter's META team is made up of some of tech's most notorious critics, and two more will soon be joining them: Sarah Roberts and Kristian Lum.

good news pals! we're doing a live comb-thru of the hundreds (and hundreds) of facebook docs that were leaked to the press, and giving you guys open access to those docs when we can: https://t.co/PMiUhbn7zw— shoshana wodinsky (she/her) (@swodinsky) October 26, 2021

I heard that the Finnish Parliament had had a hearing where they had interviewed "an AI". Turned out it was a GPT-3 powered system called Project December by @jasonrohrer. Jason kindly allowed me to give the system a go, so I did. Here's what happened... #stochasticparrots pic.twitter.com/vJqc3Mjst5— Teemu Roos (@teemu_roos) April 10, 2021

Revelation comes as whistleblower Frances Haugen prepares to give evidence in parliament

Needed to define #codesign for a new youth culture project. This definition really exists to enable me to validate the feeling of uncertainty that people...