2022-03-16 12:08:51 Can you get justice in an online chatroom rather than a courtroom? @ToddFeathers reports on how payday lenders are winning more cases in Utah’s online system. https://t.co/BlqksnUP5x 2022-03-12 08:11:00 CAFIAC FIX 2022-01-23 16:47:31 There’s a consistent trend in our data from Facebook: DailyWire blasts panelists with high volume of content. Makes me think about whether posting limits is something to think about in platform regulation. https://t.co/7fGtlj0Uv0 2022-01-22 14:27:02 At @themarkup we collect a lot of data for our investigations. But we also we care a lot about privacy. In this week’s newsletter I discuss how we try to balance the perennial conflict between privacy and journalism. https://t.co/DakCque63i 2022-01-21 13:01:04 @mozilla @knowtheory Want to help us investigate Facebook pixel tracking across the web? Here’s how to join our study with @mozilla (tip: you will need to use the Firefox web browser to participate): https://t.co/QjrVuXmrR3 2022-01-21 00:04:40 Sounds like news that pigeon-loving @craignewmark needs to know about…. https://t.co/bMUyOEmVNS 2022-01-20 22:30:15 @robleathern @Klonick I think you are assuming that I know who has said what. Apologies for being uninformed. Who has denied this? 2022-01-20 20:25:58 @robleathern @Klonick That sounds definitive. Can you share more details? 2022-01-20 17:03:58 The Daily Wire just pumps out the volume on Facebook. https://t.co/R5IcphAmXQ 2022-01-20 01:18:20 @Klonick No one has been able to prove it - and several have tried. But that does not mean it’s not happening. 2022-01-19 16:42:07 It’s a big week for Big Tech: Meta plans to monetize your eye movements & Google says any attempt to break the surveillance biz model threatens our national security. https://t.co/S1E6PE9p7X 2022-01-19 16:34:13 Love this! Yes, let’s spend a moment today appreciating @ToddFeathers who is uncovering so much disturbing info about edtech. https://t.co/dUwumGNq5O 2022-01-19 13:25:20 And you can reach our reporter Todd Feathers directly through email or Signal. https://t.co/zPH92A9SLI 2022-01-19 13:23:46 We’ve done two investigations into the big business of tracking and profiling students. But we’re not done. Help us find out more. If you are a student or a parent, here’s how you can request the data held about your student. https://t.co/s7aPLrKtSN 2022-01-19 01:37:29 Just your daily reminder that Facebook counts The Daily Wire’s being shown 7 times per user as just one view. Which is why we built a bot to provide an independent view of what is happening on Facebook. https://t.co/L5XGcLXBrV 2022-01-17 08:11:00 CAFIAC FIX 2022-01-12 17:03:10 @daniellecitron @juliadahl YES! Need those drinks soon please - am very bored of being alone with my computer. 2022-01-11 14:57:12 Pleased to see @Wired join the list of tech outlets pushing back on corporate spokespeople who demand anonymity. [@themarkup has always had a policy of no anonymity for corporate spokespeople.] https://t.co/SiLPMQX90g 2022-01-11 13:09:56 Using wealth to predict children’s future success in school? Yep, Ed-tech company Power School is enabling that, @ToddFeathers reports: https://t.co/IeTqQCiXnG 2022-01-11 08:11:00 CAFIAC FIX 2022-01-05 20:16:50 Here’s to Citizen Browser’s one year anniversary https://t.co/r6kuyoIhFU 2022-01-05 17:47:33 @ztdavis New York City public school. You should see these school classrooms - they are barely adequate on all sorts of fronts. 2022-01-05 17:22:38 @Tony_Kranz @themarkup Thank you! 2022-01-05 17:12:35 @mer__edith LOL its a coat/robe .. is that a cobe? 2022-01-05 17:02:15 @mer__edith Yes, it's really absurd. I actually thought about sending her to school with a sleeping bag so she could tuck her whole body into it! 2022-01-05 17:01:09 The analogy I always draw is that Facebook is like an airplanes & Right now we journalists are on the tarmac inspecting the airplane ourselves. But there need to be a lot more inspectors on the job. /end 2022-01-05 17:01:08 So what is the lesson from a year’s worth of Facebook investigations? Self-regulation has failed. Facebook has consistently failed to keep its promises. Independent oversight of this massive platform that governs speech around the world is necessary. /19 2022-01-05 17:01:07 So we built a Twitter bot to keep you updated on what is actually trending on Facebook: @citizenbrowser. This is particularly important now that Facebook has dissolved the team that supports the only independent monitoring tool, Crowdtangle. /18 2022-01-05 17:01:06 In advance of the German elections in September, we launched a Citizen Browser panel in Germany and with our partners at @SZ found that the far-right group AfD was dominating users’ timelines. /16 https://t.co/JEgWUeZCxJ 2022-01-05 17:01:05 When we looked deeper into Facebook’s microtargeting system, we found that it enabled hyperpartisan sites like The Daily Wire to target their outrage-fueled clickbait directly to partisan audiences. /14 https://t.co/xX0qpnyo3n 2022-01-05 17:01:04 We dove into Facebook’s pledge to stop recommending users join health groups, as part of its efforts to combat medical misinformation. And whaddya know? We found Facebook was continuing to push health groups, including ones advocating anti-vaxx lies. /12 https://t.co/GRr9AiTN4J 2022-01-05 17:01:03 Facebook pledged to remove the discriminatory ads that we found. But U.S. senator Mazie Hirono said Facebook did not adequately explain its Congressional testimony stating that it didn’t allow discriminatory ads. /10 https://t.co/X0htWAgTxC https://t.co/Gd9d3wS3Sh 2022-01-05 17:01:02 To give the public a peek into Facebook, we then built a dashboard called Split Screen that allowed people to see what our panelists are seeing in their Facebook feeds. The difference between what Trump & https://t.co/3PZQsGIo1U 2022-01-05 17:01:01 We then examined Facebook’s much-touted efforts to help spread public health information during the pandemic. We found that Black panelists were shown far fewer public health PSAs than other demographic groups. /7 https://t.co/BMwdtM24AY https://t.co/809Kw8HaIv 2022-01-05 17:01:00 We then looked back at Facebook’s fact-checking efforts during the election and found that the platform never labeled Trump’s posts as lies, even when they were clearly false. /6 https://t.co/LpVpSq1KsQ https://t.co/rihWI3SpcZ 2022-01-05 17:00:59 Facebook told Congress that the problem was the result of “technical issues,” that it was fixing. But a few months later, we found that the company was again pushing partisan political groups to its members. /5 https://t.co/iJDoMpdCX3 https://t.co/x0kNY8V6zd 2022-01-05 17:00:58 Next we found that Facebook had failed its pledge to Congress to stop recommending political groups to its users during the election period. FB even been suggesting Trump voters join groups that were pushing members to #StormtheCapitol on Jan 6. /4 https://t.co/HQYs0VHT38 2022-01-05 17:00:57 The next day, of course, the insurrection occurred. And our data showed that once again Facebook was amplifying misinformation, such as claims that antifa had stormed the Capitol. /3 https://t.co/fliUW2l60W https://t.co/qAYUoL32tX 2022-01-05 17:00:56 It started with the Georgia special election. Facebook said it was limiting political content that could create “confusion or abuse.” But we found Georgians were still shown misinformation, including lies about the election being stolen. /2 https://t.co/GZNdwZOlHW 2022-01-05 17:00:55 One year ago today, we launched #CitizenBrowser - an ambitious effort to independently monitor what was happening on Facebook. Since then, we repeatedly found Facebook failing to live up to its promises. Here’s a thread of our findings. /1 https://t.co/tjw5u8mGpc 2022-01-05 16:44:19 Yesterday my daughter wore long johns, heavy clothes and one of my coats that resembles a sleeping bag. Her teachers were wearing parkas and hats. When she gets home from school, it takes several hours before her hands feel warm again. https://t.co/bO4ZsWCMdF 2022-01-04 19:23:05 @geminiimatt @themarkup @dmehro @AnnieGilbertson @ASankin Don’t forget the indomitable @suryamattu who crunched the data and was the backbone of the project! 2022-01-04 13:20:58 How it started/ how it’s going — algorithmic regulation edition. @ToddFeathers identified nearly 40 state proposals to regulated government automated decision systems - and no meaningful progress has been made since. https://t.co/NkA4FvEEUr 2022-01-03 16:12:44 A tale of failed COVID testing: Dec 18: My daughter found out a student in her class had COVID. Dec. 19: She got a test at CityMD. Jan. 2: She finally got her test results - TWO WEEKS LATER! How are people supposed to make smart choices while waiting so long for results? 2022-01-02 14:12:15 @zackwhittaker @themarkup Thank you! 2021-12-30 23:12:39 @paulkruczynski @themarkup Thank you for your support! 2021-12-30 14:22:30 @riordan Thank you! It truly is an unappreciated book, so I appreciate your appreciation :-) 2021-12-27 16:37:17 @caitlinsays_ @themarkup Thank you! 2021-12-27 16:26:10 And, of course, there is still time to donate to @themarkup this holiday season. You’ll get some cool stickers if you do! https://t.co/hQnqwBAtLS 2021-12-27 16:24:04 @themarkup Also, in recognition of how difficult this year was, @nabihasyed and I decided to close @themarkup this week. We all deserve a break. We will be resting and recuperating, and back at work in 2022. I hope you all get a chance to rest as well. 2021-12-27 16:21:41 I’m so proud of what @themarkup has accomplished in its second year of publishing. We don’t count clicks. We count our real-world impact. And so, for the end of the year, we’ve assembled our top impact stories of 2021 at https://t.co/T567GwxYJe. https://t.co/vosAVhpHdc 2021-12-27 08:20:00 CAFIAC FIX 2021-12-16 19:29:57 @lhwaldron Thank you for the warning! Will now go adjust my settings for the millionth time. 2021-12-16 15:07:53 Full disclosure: My @NiemanLab prediction for next year — that newsrooms will user more automation, computation and statistical analysis in reporting — is admittedly a bit self-interested since that is what we do @themarkup. But I believe history will support me on it. https://t.co/tf8e7YJCYj 2021-12-16 15:05:00 Deleted posts are not actually deleted on Reddit, moderators discover. @emmakbetuel reports for @themarkup: https://t.co/YuhkMYfXYl 2021-12-15 16:31:34 @themarkup doesn’t just reveal problems - when we can, we provide solutions. Here’s the indomitable @jonkeegan on how to opt out of having your location data sold by the Life360 app. https://t.co/AGCtJ8fDiR 2021-12-15 16:27:52 @AbhisekFair @LeonYin Glad to hear it! 2021-12-15 13:32:12 As you do your holiday shopping, you may want to know which products on Amazon are actually Amazon’s own brands. We have an app for that. Download our Amazon Brand Detector for Firefox and Chrome. Artisanly crafted by the intrepid @LeonYin: https://t.co/qLHeS78S2o 2021-12-15 13:29:34 @themarkup’s sticker game is strong. Donate to get your hands on our cool stickers! https://t.co/KS0eptS5BQ 2021-12-13 13:55:34 @AlPaul @nytimes Not that I know of. You will just have to come over for Vijay’s amazing Indian-inspired omelettes! 2021-12-13 13:49:14 RT @msanchezMIA: Fantastic thread https://t.co/SRxMKJMJAp 2021-12-13 13:47:01 @themarkup merch alert We are now selling hoodies! Get yours here: https://t.co/BaUYZKcUt1 2021-12-13 13:44:43 For the first time, the U.S. federal court system has acknowledged that there are major flaws in how it reports on the prevalence of wiretapping surveillance of Americans’ communications. @alfredwkng reports: https://t.co/yUQ4VNnQ8o 2021-12-06 15:24:03 Thank you for the reminder. I forgot to mention that Life360 just announced it would buy Tile, the company that makes tracking devices to help find lost items. Life360 told us it doesn’t have plans to sell data from Tile devices. https://t.co/PwjsJGsQOJ 2021-12-06 13:16:46 Help us to continue investigating which apps are selling data into the unregulated location data broker industry. https://t.co/N9gXxfKY4N 2021-12-06 13:16:45 Life360 CEO and founder Chris Hulls told us that selling data allows them to keep the app free. Last year the company reported $16 million of revenue from data sales. https://t.co/pYby9dQpI0 2021-12-06 13:16:44 Life360 sells to some data brokers who service the U.S. government -- although the company said last year it implemented a new policy asking data partners to not sell to the government. However, the CEO said it is a challenge to monitor partners activities for compliance. https://t.co/1Fg7X0lNMz 2021-12-06 13:16:43 The latest in our ongoing investigation of the location data broker industry: Life360, a popular app used by families to keep track of their kids, is selling location data about its users to about a dozen data brokers. @jonkeegan & https://t.co/98tQTgluHa 2021-12-02 13:59:32 @oliviasolon @themarkup @Gizmodo Thank you! 2021-12-02 13:51:16 @wsisaac @themarkup Thank you! And thank you for your seminal work on this topic! 2021-12-02 13:21:46 We’ve also provided data and maps for each of the 38 jurisdictions we analyzed. Download the data here: https://t.co/24p0Uw9SIh /end 2021-12-02 13:21:45 As always we show our work with a detailed methodology and our data & https://t.co/d5YijLjRPT https://t.co/fXACkhb2Ma 2021-12-02 13:21:44 And so PredPol continues to make crime predictions that are incredibly unevenly distributed by race. Take these two neighborhoods in Plainfield, N.J. – where 11 crimes were predicted in the White neighborhood and 1,940 in the Black & 2021-12-02 13:21:42 The PredPol co-founders paper described how to make the algorithm more fair but “at a cost of reduced accuracy of the algorithms.” PredPol didn't make the change & 2021-12-02 13:21:41 But PredPol does know something about the race effects of its algorithm. In 2018 PredPol’s co-founders published a paper showing their algorithm would have targeted Black & https://t.co/DwPzsOtlPN 2021-12-02 13:21:40 PredPol has long held a position that because the software doesn’t include race or other demographic data, that “eliminates the possibility for privacy or civil rights violations seen with other intelligence-led or predictive policing models.” /10 https://t.co/Ee46T5cuem 2021-12-02 13:21:39 When we asked PredPol CEO Brian MacDonald whether he was concerned about the race disparities we found, he didn’t address the question directly, but said the software mirrored reported crime rates. /8 2021-12-02 13:21:38 Our work builds on the seminal 2016 study by @KLdivergence and @wsisaac which showed that PredPol’s open-source algorithm would likely have disproportionately targeted Black & https://t.co/0kCH2uJmzs 2021-12-02 13:21:37 This is the first independent analysis of the popular algorithmic crime prediction software even though the tech has been used by law enforcement for a decade @ProfFerguson told us. /6 https://t.co/hTpliN2IhW 2021-12-02 13:21:35 We limited our analysis to U.S. city and county law enforcement agencies for which we had at least six months’ worth of data. This left us with 38 jurisdictions. We then matched the predictions to Census data to determine the demographics of the targeted areas. /5 2021-12-02 13:21:34 When he was at @gizmodo, @dmehro found 7.8 million PredPol crime prediction reports exposed on the open web from 70 jurisdictions. He & 2021-12-02 13:21:33 In other words, the whiter the neighborhood, the fewer crime predictions. The same trend proved true for income: the wealthier the neighborhood, the fewer predictions. /3 https://t.co/5J3YU9hGeI 2021-12-02 13:21:31 Police across the U.S. use software from a company called PredPol (recently renamed @Geolitica_PS ) that says it predicts future crime without racial bias. But we found it rarely predicted crime in White areas & 2021-12-02 13:21:30 Critics have long suspected that predictive policing software was racially biased. Today, we have the answer: @themarkup & https://t.co/sH71NBQMKy 2021-11-22 14:16:35 Good morning! Curious what is happening on Facebook? Our @citizenbrowser twitter bot reports that FoxNews is trending. And our Split Screen suggests a possible reason: FoxNews is blasting Trump voters with Kyle Rittenhouse news. https://t.co/3PZQsGIo1U https://t.co/IpV1vt6juU 2021-11-20 13:11:50 FB whistleblower @FrancesHaugen has said the No. 1 thing she wants the public to see is what is truly popular on FB. This week we answered that call with a bot @citizenbrowser showing what is *really* trending on Facebook. My newsletter has the deets: https://t.co/0kcVo87008 2021-11-19 16:30:58 @corintxt @themarkup @verge We will miss @corintxt terribly, but can’t wait to see all the cool stuff he will do at the @verge! 2021-11-18 13:06:38 As always, we show our work and release our data. /9 https://t.co/obevJd8n6S https://t.co/KSaE8ZzfCo 2021-11-18 13:06:37 @mynameisfiber also tested our data using another metric, the Spearman correlation coefficient, to show the similarity between the number of unique users seeing each domain. Again we saw a strong correlation. /7 https://t.co/LE63OMDpS3 2021-11-18 13:06:36 Data scientist @mynameisfiber used a metric called Kendall-Tau c-rank correlation to see how comparable our most popular list was to Facebook’s list. We found a strong correlation. /6 https://t.co/leX1YoT9b9 2021-11-18 13:06:35 One important thing we learned doing this research was that our Citizen Browser panel, while small, is actually a fairly representative sample of Facebook. We found that, measured by reach, the most popular domains shown to our panel matched those in Facebook’s own data. /5 2021-11-18 13:06:34 Measuring impressions shows a starkly different picture of what is popular on Facebook. Using that metric, mainstream sites like UNICEF & 2021-11-18 13:06:33 Here’s the difference: Facebook measures “reach” - which is how many unique viewers saw each domain. But we measured an equally, if not more important metric, “impressions” – which is how many times a piece of content is bombarded at users. /2 2021-11-18 13:06:32 Facebook says top content on its platform comes from reputable sources like UNICEF, ABC News & But our #CitizenBrowser data shows that sensational partisan content from Daily Wire & https://t.co/QrcAO8cM9j 2021-11-15 17:23:58 @raju @pcheung630 @sarakgoo @sarahellison And finally, I deeply appreciate @DrMarioRGarcia's call for the media to provide a bit of optimism to their readers. https://t.co/nI5U1mQEWp 2021-11-15 17:22:08 @raju @pcheung630 @sarakgoo As always @sarahellison is likely on point with her prediction that we will spend the midterm elections fighting about something that most elected officials don't control: educational curriculum. https://t.co/oYUNy85oVi 2021-11-15 17:20:44 @raju @pcheung630 I couldn't agree more with @sarakgoo's call for us to write more about childcare crisis and how it affects our economy. https://t.co/IKXJ90nuEm 2021-11-15 17:18:40 @raju I really appreciate @pcheung630's call for us to be paying more attention to the crumbling infrastructure of democracy. https://t.co/fgmEVlQey5 2021-11-15 17:16:56 @raju Also @raju has put together an incredible lineup of people with smart predictions. Short thread of some of my faves to follow. 2021-11-15 17:09:47 I’m not much of a prediction person, but @raju convinced me to make two for 2022: What the press will cover (big tech) and what it should cover (the tech you don’t know about that is making important decisions about your credit, housing etc.) https://t.co/IRg6pv8ZyC https://t.co/StxSOvXESo 2021-11-15 16:09:18 I’m thrilled to announce that @zel_eve has joined @themarkup as a researcher, assisting me on the weekly newsletter and other writings. We’re lucky to have her expertise - honed at @datasociety - on our team. 2021-11-13 13:26:37 The Cold War narrative results from fear-mongering, she says. https://t.co/9L21kgTIKj 2021-11-13 13:24:12 Ahmed describes Eric Schmidt as a “self-styled policy entrepreneur” whose message is “that a small group of technocratic elites has to make decisions about AI for their governments if we are to avert the worst possible results.” https://t.co/G3QVzGcmfs 2021-11-13 13:17:12 The U.S. is warning of Chinese technological advancement while China is cracking down on tech. Is it a tech Cold War? Or just a convenient narrative for US companies to avoid regulation? China tech expert Shazeda Ahmed discusses in today’s newsletter: https://t.co/LoNyMgacvj 2021-11-11 15:47:14 Fun fact: @scalzi was a total mensch when I wandered in to the college newspaper and decided to randomly try my hand at reporting. I feel lucky to know him! https://t.co/EaFGWhRNw0 2021-11-11 13:41:27 RT @themarkup: NEW from @darakerr: There were roughly 50 carjackings of Uber and Lyft drivers reported in Minneapolis during the past month… 2021-11-10 16:31:14 @MrSamWilkin I got less relaxed about naming spokespeople the first time that a company tried to deny or amend something that is attributed to their unnamed spokesperson. 2021-11-10 15:29:04 Great to see other tech pubs joining our policy of not accepting "on background” conversations with corporate spokespeople. https://t.co/DK2TrQK77S https://t.co/dd0NIMPXP6 2021-11-10 14:19:18 More impact from @themarkup’s reporting: The @CFPB warns data brokers that do sloppy name matches - like those we revealed in our investigation into tenant screening algorithms - that they could be in violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. https://t.co/mbGehKIcXF 2021-11-08 17:02:31 I am thrilled to welcome @anildash to @themarkup board of directors! His expertise as a tech founder and entrepreneur will be a great addition to our already stellar board. Also he’s an incredibly kind and decent human. https://t.co/1YnpBw35aY 2021-11-06 23:20:00 CAFIAC FIX 2021-11-06 19:50:00 CAFIAC FIX 2021-11-06 18:59:00 CAFIAC FIX 2021-11-01 19:20:00 CAFIAC FIX 2021-11-01 17:30:00 CAFIAC FIX 2021-10-14 17:12:49 Thank you @ben_tanen for your great work on the graphics for our investigation! https://t.co/wD2PWkUZWT 2021-10-14 16:24:36 It’s two Julias! @JBoorstin and me :-) https://t.co/nGagRqOvnG 2021-10-14 15:17:58 There’s so much news in our dataset that I forgot to mention another important finding: When Amazon gives itself the “buy box” it keeps it. Five years ago, studies showed that the buy box was more dynamic. Now, winners are entrenched. https://t.co/uZGK6w0giB 2021-10-14 15:13:04 RT @LeonYin: FLASH SALE AMAZON DATA We got 137K products from Amazon brands and exclusives. We got 11K popular search pages. We got… 2021-10-14 13:59:12 Very true! https://t.co/j2F1orNreq 2021-10-14 13:58:52 Coming up soon: I’ll be talking about our Amazon investigation on @CNBCTechCheck https://t.co/Xqg0QgOA9O 2021-10-14 13:15:49 @oliviasolon Ha! 2021-10-14 12:55:30 @AbhisekFair @Reuters @themarkup Math + Documents = Proof 2021-10-14 12:40:25 As always, we show our work with a 30-page white paper and a github repo with our data and code. https://t.co/oObIB2laeu https://t.co/twGXa3BjKz 2021-10-14 12:40:24 Amazon's actions hurt independent sellers like Robert Gomez, who worked hard to get his coffee grinder to the top of Amazon search results .. until Amazon introduced its own brand of coffee grinder DR Mills that ranked at the top right away. https://t.co/hmomUm9HZN 2021-10-14 12:40:23 Amazon told us that it does not favor its brands in search results and that Amazon's ownership of brands is disclosed. The company declined to answer dozens of specific questions. https://t.co/1ljO4Bi93D 2021-10-14 12:40:22 In the computer code, Amazon labels its own brands as "sponsored" -- but that invisible tag is not shown to shoppers. That could violate FTC rules on advertising disclosure, officials told us. https://t.co/SxvJSq71tz 2021-10-14 12:40:21 We made a quiz so you can see if you can identify Amazon brands yourself! https://t.co/eFOspED64l 2021-10-14 12:40:20 We commissioned a national survey of 1,000 adults and found that only 17 percent thought the top listing was likely to be from an Amazon brand. The rest weren't sure or thought it was best-selling items or highly rated products. https://t.co/6hVmlkBQb5 https://t.co/eApo5fX2Jm 2021-10-14 12:40:19 Shoppers don't always know that an item in the top spot is an Amazon brand. Many brands have unrelated names like Happy Belly, Fetch, Mr. Beams and they are frequently not identified as Amazon brands. https://t.co/6hVmlkBQb5 https://t.co/NCOPO1guGS 2021-10-14 12:40:18 We conducted thousands of product searches on Amazon and analyzed them with a machine learning technique called a Random Forest Analysis. This showed that being an Amazon brand is far more important than having high star ratings or many reviews. https://t.co/6hVmlkBQb5 https://t.co/K5qbogs8j9 2021-10-14 12:40:17 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: https://t.co/wwQrjOUGzk 2021-10-09 13:01:18 Tye realized from his own experience that whistleblowers need more legal resources, so he set up Whistleblower Aid. He is protecting Frances using a provision in the Dodd-Frank Act that allows whistleblowers who file complaints with the SEC protection against retaliation. 2021-10-09 12:57:38 Earlier this year, a member of an NSA oversight board published a rare public statement indicating that the NSA was not adequately filtering its data to remove American communications. https://t.co/tAmnOhQeK0 2021-10-09 12:55:17 Also, I finally got to publish a photo I took of Tye back in 2014 when he was writing his whistleblower complaint against the NSA by hand. Sadly, his concerns about NSA’s collection of American communications have not fixed. https://t.co/I1L7Fwfl15 2021-10-09 12:50:54 Behind every whistleblower is a legal strategy. In this week’s newsletter I interview the Facebook whistleblower’s lawyer John Tye and discuss his novel legal strategy. https://t.co/K8MfsgiNPA 2021-10-08 20:37:15 RT @themarkup: Job alert! If you’re a reporter interested in covering surveillance, privacy, and algorithmic injustice, apply by October 1… 2021-10-08 11:37:11 RT @shachar_baron: So well deserved! Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov are an inspiration to us all #JournalismIsNotACrime #NobelPrize #NobelP… 2021-10-07 13:14:57 RT @atineoSE: You can help @themarkup analyze what apps sell location data in 2 easy steps: 1. Screenshot the location permission prompt of… 2021-10-05 21:45:47 RT @themarkup: Nice. https://t.co/3sfudtyE2N 2021-10-05 17:22:07 @anildash Sign me up please. 2021-10-05 12:08:05 @MalenaCarollo gets privacy tips from the great @lorrietweet and others on the best ways to store your vaccine info on your phone: https://t.co/RpBXnFRHab 2021-10-04 19:15:48 This is such a strong signal that California is serious about enforcing its strong privacy laws. @ashk4n’s work is what inspired me to start reporting on privacy (and to hire him!) more than a decade ago. And he hasn’t stopped pushing for consumer protections since then. https://t.co/QyXasDVZGx 2021-10-03 23:52:21 I’m so thankful to John Tye & The sad truth is that journalists and newsrooms can’t always provide the protection that whistleblowers need - and it’s amazing to have an organization step in on their behalf. https://t.co/SUHcpifEmG 2021-10-03 23:44:14 RT @wbaidlaw: We’re proud of Frances for coming forward about what she saw at Facebook. If you want to support Frances and make sure she ha… 2021-10-03 23:31:43 @JeffHorwitz @FrancesHaugen_ Thank you for your courage @FrancesHaugen_ 2021-10-02 20:13:40 @burculantonija @themarkup Thank you for the kind words! 2021-10-02 13:06:03 @zittrain So true. The proposed fix is so minor - and yet hasn’t made any progress at all. 2021-10-02 12:15:30 Perhaps the most shocking thing about the location data broker industry - which harvests your movements from apps on your phone & My newsletter this week: https://t.co/hBu92qyhB0 https://t.co/rstn338rtt 2021-10-01 00:40:13 RT @themarkup: It was an honor to stand alongside so many exceptional news organizations at tonight’s @LoebAwards. Congratulations to all… 2021-09-30 17:20:59 Escher-inspired surrealism + shady location data market investigation = creepy Dante-esque inferno art. Thank you @ghongsdusit https://t.co/HX7aPg88Pc https://t.co/Gsd1hzQMLF 2021-09-30 16:29:10 It’s terrifying to think of the kinds of folks that are likely are buying up all of our location data from the $12 billion market that @themarkup profiled today. And it’s not even a BLACK market. It’s totally legal. https://t.co/HtcTNajF3c 2021-09-30 13:11:31 @alfredwkng @tenuous And P.P.S. you can browse the companies' marketing claims about how they track your "real world movements" here in our interactive data set. https://t.co/OmFMYD5SZx https://t.co/bR58k8VpzN 2021-09-30 12:59:06 P.S. In case you were wondering, why this industry is so unchecked. The data broker industry spends nearly as much lobbying Congress as Big Tech does. Re-upping @alfredwkng and @tenuous reporting from April: https://t.co/HobvEudQIU 2021-09-30 12:31:23 @funnymonkey @themarkup @jonkeegan @alfredwkng Thank you! Huge props to @jonkeegan @alfredwkng for this monumental effort. 2021-09-30 12:29:18 As always, we show our work: https://t.co/6mfxnogXdg 2021-09-30 12:27:36 So, what can you do about it? Unfortunately, it's hard for consumers to keep tabs on this shady data marketplace. Your best best is to turn off location permissions for apps that don't need it. And if you live in California, you can ask companies to delete your data. https://t.co/k2sxRsepbJ 2021-09-30 12:27:35 Many apps need location data to work -- such as maps or weather apps -- but then some also quietly sell it to data brokers. From there, it's a free for all. "Everybody sells to everybody else" Yiannis Tsiounis, the CEO of the location analytics firm Advan Research told us. https://t.co/eiwXgDdpHr 2021-09-30 12:27:34 The companies told us that consumers know their location data is being shared but wouldn't say which apps share data with them. “The opt-in rates clearly confirm that the users are fully aware of what is happening" said a spokesperson for Cuebiq. https://t.co/Vz7hitLAcD 2021-09-30 12:27:33 You've most likely never heard of these companies but they are in the business of tracking you. “The World’s Largest Dataset of People’s Behavior in the Real-World,” claims one company, Near Co. Browse our dataset: https://t.co/6mfxnogXdg https://t.co/orIMmHnbLs 2021-09-30 12:27:31 Ever wonder where your location data goes after you share it with an app? Welp, there's a $12 billion after-market for your location data. @jonkeegan and @alfredwkng have identified 47 companies that harvest, sell & https://t.co/Mwj0uJ8Ri8 2021-09-29 16:37:30 @pamelacolloff @taffyakner I am die-hard Garamond. But I have had more than one editor refuse to accept my beautiful Garamond drafts until they were transformed into soul-sucking Times New Roman. 2021-09-29 15:45:18 RT @JeffHorwitz: @JuliaAngwin The minimum acceptable number of respondents for a survey is 2,564. Didn’t they teach you that in stats? 2021-09-29 15:39:22 Interesting that Facebook is trying to refute WSJ reporting by relying on a survey of 2,600 teens. When we reported data from 2,500 Citizen Browser panelists, Facebook said our sample size was too small. https://t.co/BMwdtM24AY https://t.co/BbPXocY5Lu https://t.co/IjrhOFdnpK 2021-09-28 18:39:38 @macfound @safiyanoble Huge congratulations! Your work is an inspiration for us @themarkup. 2021-09-28 14:45:44 The infrastructure bill includes some improvements for broadband — but lacks key items: It increases download speeds far more than upload speeds It does not pre-empt state laws that prohibit municipal broadband @emmakbetuel reports: https://t.co/beJJATGkDv 2021-09-25 20:00:18 Fall = pie https://t.co/LAnSLtJ6Po 2021-09-25 12:29:00 In other words, the mathematics of running a wildly profitable social network loved by Wall Street is not particularly conducive to running a police force that keeps activities on the platform in check. 2021-09-25 12:28:59 It’s worth remembering that Facebook is wildly profitable - with 34% profit margins. Adding more staff to police its network would shrink that margin. https://t.co/7w4llWavdQ 2021-09-25 12:28:57 Losing track of all the Facebook scandals this month? I’ve wrapped them all up for you in this week’s newsletter. One common theme in all of them: Facebook under-policing its platform for harm and abuse. https://t.co/QIrbaGkxiD 2021-09-24 14:49:10 @nxthompson @TheAtlantic Great work! We’re still #2 though 2021-09-24 12:07:01 NYC just passed a bill to allow delivery workers the right to pee at restaurants whose food they deliver. ICYMI, California passed a right to pee bill for warehouse workers earlier this month. This is where we are as a nation. https://t.co/fOo7mnYI7y https://t.co/1VBLtIhgMe 2021-09-23 14:38:50 RT @themarkup: Citizen Browser is being used to audit Facebook algorithms in Germany. Let’s talk about it. On Friday, @bbbrille and @munic… 2021-09-23 12:31:38 Starting soon: I’ll be talking about how @themarkup holds big tech accountable @themediarumble conference. Watch here: https://t.co/T38jjA0Z0x 2021-09-22 17:02:16 For German speakers, here is the article on Facebook promotion of AfD from our publishing partner @SZ https://t.co/YqaLP6Ra3h 2021-09-22 16:57:46 Today is Blacklight's one-year anniversary! Readers have run more than 2 million scans through our real-time privacy forensic tool since then. Congratulations again to Blacklight's brilliant creator @suryamattu. https://t.co/W3wngfaO8r https://t.co/nosmjcGCzO 2021-09-22 15:35:18 As always, we show our work and release our data: https://t.co/WSZJ92hawX 2021-09-22 12:07:11 Facebook responds by saying our panel is too small to be accurate. It's true that our panel is small, but it is the only independent look at what is happening on Facebook in the run-up to the German parliamentary election this month. https://t.co/hLz7sYr2Ur 2021-09-22 12:07:10 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 & https://t.co/JEgWUfhdph https://t.co/UCpAGREspy 2021-09-21 14:39:03 RT @LauraEdelson2: Last Saturday, Facebook made a change to their DOM that had the effect of breaking Ad Observer, as well as @themarkup's… 2021-09-21 14:00:03 Facebook comment on our article (which they did not provide in time for publication) https://t.co/v1HfxJlcJl https://t.co/Z3EJRbFzif 2021-09-21 12:09:37 @themarkup @corintxt @RonWyden @LauraEdelson2 Here’s what it sounds like when a screen reader encounters the junk code that Facebook has inserted into its code. https://t.co/k1Ib78PVF5 2021-09-21 12:07:02 @themarkup @corintxt @RonWyden “I think it’s unfortunate that Facebook is continuing to fight with researchers rather than work with them,” @LauraEdelson2 told @themarkup. 2021-09-21 12:06:24 @themarkup @corintxt “It is contemptible that Facebook would misuse accessibility features for users with disabilities just to foil legitimate research and journalism,” Sen. @RonWyden told @themarkup. 2021-09-21 12:04:20 Facebook has changed its code to thwart data collection from researchers like NYU Ad Observatory & And they are doing it by interfering with features used by visually impaired users. @corintxt reports: https://t.co/v1HfxJlcJl 2021-09-18 12:57:31 It’s 2021 and workers have to get a law passed to ensure their right to pee on the job. In this weeks newsletter @veenadubal talks about how robots didn’t take our jobs - they just became our mean boss. https://t.co/fOo7mnH7g0 2021-09-17 15:36:59 Hi https://t.co/dbkFWXeEjA 2021-09-16 13:36:13 If you're like me, you probably receive a lot of ads from Facebook pushing for updating Internet regulations. But what does that actually mean? @ASankin dug into FB's proposals and found they largely entrench FB's own practices: https://t.co/DQXMfRSBs4 https://t.co/FXKGxBsYy6 2021-09-14 12:22:37 @JeffHorwitz And I can't help but add: Instagram's research reveals the beauty of social science. It helps us put data and words around things that we have intuition about. It's why we @themarkup invest in using so many social science techniques in our reporting. 2021-09-14 12:21:12 Most parents of teenage girls - like myself - know this to be true. Our daughters feel worse about themselves after spending time on Instagram. Kudos to @JeffHorwitz & 2021-09-14 12:01:38 I'm so thrilled to welcome @JoelEastwood to @themarkup as our first-ever Visualization Engineer. He will be embedded with @elarrubia's investigative team and develop creative ways to visualize all our data and findings. Welcome Joel! 2021-09-13 16:15:35 Amazon has not publicly commented on the bill. But its strict enforcement of quotas that punish workers for bathroom breaks has prompted Congressional outrage and class-action settlements. https://t.co/z3RlfeQp32 https://t.co/egSy2XZPpE 2021-09-13 16:15:34 Amazon has also donated to the campaigns of nearly half the assembly members who voted on on the bill. https://t.co/yUMSm3uwov 2021-09-13 16:15:33 The California Retailers Association - which Amazon is on the board of - claims that "establishing potentially open-ended employee access to bathroom facilities" ... will "make employers’ ability to enforce production standards even more complex." https://t.co/PExZ38HbIL https://t.co/kyPcUvVKcd 2021-09-13 16:15:32 There's a battle brewing in California about whether Amazon warehouse workers can take pee breaks. California lawmakers seek to ban employers from firing workers for taking bathroom breaks. Amazon backs a trade group opposing the bill. @darakerr reports: https://t.co/jISiRXHhUE 2021-09-11 14:03:03 One legacy of 9/11 has been the rise of drone warfare. And those drones are increasingly being built with AI that allows them to make kill decisions. In this week’s newsletter I interview @lizjosullivan about her fight to stop killer robots: https://t.co/hTibiGF5RF 2021-09-04 13:45:48 I'm logging off for a week! No newsletter this weekend. I'll be back in your inboxes next weekend. 2021-09-03 16:01:08 Love to see more news outlets demanding on the record statements and names from corporate spokespeople! (This has been our policy @themarkup all along - but for a long time, we felt like we were swimming upstream https://t.co/DK2TrQK77S) https://t.co/HWQ2J2y24E 2021-09-03 15:18:08 @jilliancyork @alexstamos Yes! Good point @jilliancyork. I apologize for making it seem like a one-man campaign. It's been impressive to me how much a disparate community of folks has come together on this one. 2021-09-03 13:37:44 Looks like Apple has taken @alexstamos' advice to reconsider its rollout of privacy-invading child safety features. Last month, Alex explained his deep concerns in my newsletter: https://t.co/15Q1HuCOL9 https://t.co/k5FyLnW1Jt 2021-09-02 12:28:06 RT @oliviasolon: Good. Spyfone was a horrible tool used by stalkers and domestic abusers https://t.co/PO45ayhoXV 2021-09-02 12:22:05 RT @themarkup: "We do not sell your data." It's technically true—despite amassing user data and converting it into billions, tech giants d… 2021-08-31 12:26:24 Millions of people were supposed to get a broadband subsidy during the pandemic - but didn’t. @tenuous and @colinlecher crunched the numbers for @themarkup: https://t.co/498Ol43T6c 2021-08-28 12:45:19 @felixsalmon @eh_mah_nwel But the @CFPB could help us fully answer this question by releasing the algorithms output (which they have but dont release to protect Fannie/Freddie from being reverse-engineered), which we could compare to the final lending decisions. https://t.co/GXgkUjbtMC 2021-08-28 12:34:23 @realowaisshah @eh_mah_nwel Thank you. And did you check your spam or junk folder? Sometimes it goes in there? (sadly) @revue 2021-08-28 12:33:41 @felixsalmon @eh_mah_nwel Its unlikely to be the latter because the first wave of decisions is made by the algo and the human then decides whether to override. And too much variance from Fannie/Freddie algos - which rule the industry - can get institutions in trouble. 2021-08-28 12:30:57 @justinhendrix @eh_mah_nwel Its probably true that facts are a necessary but not sufficient condition for change ... .... and so we soldier on hopefully in our fact-producing factory. 2021-08-28 12:21:11 I believe that change can come from the steady accumulation of facts that eventually become too overwhelming to ignore. That's why @eh_mah_nwel has been amassing evidence of the bias in mortgage-approval algorithms for four years now. My newsletter: https://t.co/qT4L97v4Yg 2021-08-25 18:57:23 Yes! @elarrubia is an accountability powerhouse. We are so lucky to have her. https://t.co/wIiIM8s1IC 2021-08-25 15:19:16 @tthibo @eh_mah_nwel @themarkup @AP Thank you so much for enabling this important collaboration to allow us to get this data into the hands of local news outlets. 2021-08-25 15:16:23 RT @queenkv: Fascinating @DavidBrancaccio interview with @themarkup. Latinos are 40% more likely to be denied a mortgage Black Americ… 2021-08-25 15:15:48 RT @elarrubia: And check out ⁦@MalenaCarollo⁩ ‘s first ⁦⁦@themarkup⁩ byline! She joined just as we were finishing up this investigation and… 2021-08-25 12:20:03 Also I want to acknowledge incredible work that has been done on housing segregation and discrimination, including @nhannahjones’ landmark look at how the feds failed to enforce the Fair Housing Act that was meant to end these racial disparities. /end https://t.co/Sg1kDV2lCn 2021-08-25 12:20:02 And you can look up your metro area in our drop-down interactive chart. /11 https://t.co/ApkvJ61ve6 https://t.co/SRxWNg2IpS 2021-08-25 12:20:01 A limitation of our analysis is we do not have credit scores - the last variable that *might* explain the disparities. However, the @cfpb - which has credit scores - found people of color have higher denial rates when holding credit scores constant. /9 https://t.co/5xHyWuz6so 2021-08-25 12:20:00 And who were the lenders with largest racial disparities? Mortgage companies affiliated with the nation’s three largest homebuilders: D.R. Horton, Lennar Corp.and PulteGroup Inc. /7 https://t.co/esqOZEvzug 2021-08-25 12:19:59 Minneapolis was also unique in being the only metro – among those with statistically significant lending disparities – where lenders were more likely to turn away applicants of all four racial and ethnic groups than their White counterparts. /6 https://t.co/5zrXfmyEAT 2021-08-25 12:19:58 Perhaps unsurprisingly, Black prospective homebuyers fared the worst in Chicago. Highly segregated Chicago is where “redlining” was born. In Chicago, lenders were 2.5 times as likely to reject Black applicants than White ones with similar financial circumstances. /5 https://t.co/j4imvkuE8h 2021-08-25 12:19:57 Using those new factors, and holding 17 different factors steady in a complex statistical analysis of more than 2 million conventional mortgage applications, @eh_mah_nwel found that lenders were 40-80% more likely to reject an applicant of color than a White applicant. /4 https://t.co/UbYEuuSIRm 2021-08-25 12:19:56 @eh_mah_nwel tackled this subject before when he worked at @reveal. His landmark 2018 investigation with @Aaron_Glantz showed that redlining in mortgage lending persisted in 61 metro areas even when controlling for income, loan amount and neighborhood./2 https://t.co/krGtiYwIRs 2021-08-25 12:19:55 Back when we had an office @themarkup, our wifi password was “math+tears” Today’s investigation explains why. @eh_mah_nwel and @lkirchner use math and human stories to reveal entrenched racism in mortgage lending. https://t.co/ApkvJ61ve6 /1 2021-08-25 11:42:39 @funnymonkey We are all-in on receipts! 2021-08-25 11:03:04 Blockbuster investigation from @eh_mah_nwel and @lkirchner has just dropped showing that racial bias persists in mortgage-approval algorithms, even accounting for factors that lenders said would explain disparities. https://t.co/QFbqlz04Hb 2021-08-24 21:50:06 "A study by digital investigative newsroom the Markup" -- well, we are pretty studious, I guess! https://t.co/PG3QcyTPK6 2021-08-21 12:17:17 Anti-doxing laws are on the rise. But if the fallout from laws against fake news are any guide, anti-doxing laws could be used against journalists and dissidents. More in this week’s newsletter: https://t.co/QSs0ZgEhCB 2021-08-20 16:28:19 Loving @ASankin’s hacker vibe! https://t.co/lYePXawL7m 2021-08-20 03:13:36 RT @themarkup: Scraping data legally helps us hold Big Tech accountable. Support our work with a limited-edition T-shirt in limited sizes.… 2021-08-19 17:35:06 @ErrataRob Also: although it’s tempting to blame individual journalists for using anonymous sources, it is the fault of the institution. Newsrooms that reward scoops based on access to power create a system that can be gamed and corrupted. 2021-08-19 17:26:49 @ErrataRob Honestly I would say we don't really have to skip "important" stories. We skip press-release fluff and bullshit background briefings and a lot of stupid misdirection. And we save a lot of time! 2021-08-19 16:57:47 RT @linakhanFTC: FTC Alleges Facebook Resorted to Illegal Buy-or-Bury Scheme to Crush Competition After String of Failed Attempts to Innova… 2021-08-19 16:56:53 Simple reason: lack of accountability. That’s why @themarkup does not grant anonymity to corporate spokespeople. Would love for other newsrooms to join us in holding this position! https://t.co/DK2TrQK77S https://t.co/myumv4YDo1 2021-08-19 15:29:06 This is the only real Facebook news this week. https://t.co/h8DTAjqRWW 2021-08-19 15:10:10 This is a nice crowd to be among! Thanks @revue for making it easier for folks to subscribe to our newsletters. https://t.co/kmgWibDBNA 2021-08-19 14:41:51 Will Uber and Lyft be able to pass a Prop 22 copycat law in Massachusetts? @darakerr reports on the next front in tech co’s battle to deny gig workers employee benefits: https://t.co/q5aW1OgiNj 2021-08-19 14:36:45 Flash sale of our “Scraping is Not a Crime” t-shirts! With bonus content of @alfredwkng skateboarding For background on our position on scraping in the public interest: https://t.co/V6odky3pYf https://t.co/uhdcRNNVYl 2021-08-17 13:46:20 RT @themarkup: If you’ve been doxed, you know how harmful of an experience it can be. But should it be a crime? @emmakbetuel outlines the… 2021-08-14 12:28:56 Apple’s plan to scan photos on users’ iPhones has caused a privacy uproar. In this week’s newsletter, I talk to @alexstamos about Apple’s missteps and what it can do to fix it. https://t.co/15Q1HuCOL9 2021-08-13 11:26:59 RT @spielkamp: It does not only happen in the US: @Facebook bullied us into stopping our #datadonation project. Thread cc @nyuniversity #Ad… 2021-08-12 16:24:20 @robinberjon @themarkup Aww, thanks! Truly appreciate it. And always happy to hear constructive feedback. 2021-08-12 16:20:04 If you haven’t read @tom_cardoso’s amazing work on bias in criminal risk scores in Canada or @kmcgrory’s amazing work on a predictive risk scores run amuck in Florida, please do! https://t.co/jdZ36D9tNB https://t.co/1zBwk7eFFy And also vote for our #SXSW panel :-) https://t.co/I5y3s1RNu2 2021-08-12 16:08:59 @robinberjon @themarkup Thanks for the feedback, @robinberjon. We try very hard to distinguish the types of tracking in the article - and to note one is far worse than the other. And it’s worth noting that some VPNs were claiming not to do this type of tracking. But we can always do better! https://t.co/FbCZyXohGX 2021-08-12 14:24:49 RT @zackwhittaker: Important findings by @alfredwkng at @themarkup. VPNs promise privacy, but many of their websites and apps are packed wi… 2021-08-11 14:48:59 Wow this tool is enlightening. Top tech policy shops all take money from Big Tech. https://t.co/4nGNCwwtzd h/t @craignewmark https://t.co/q2ni17eeY3 2021-08-10 18:59:37 And please vote for all our amazing panels. Thread https://t.co/c2gx4GQitj 2021-08-10 18:56:18 It's #SXSW voting season! Sorry to clutter your feed but I'm super excited about this one. Would love a vote! https://t.co/0mxf1w85kd 2021-08-10 12:12:28 News outlets like NYTimes use Facebook’s microtargeting to push stories about music to music lovers. The Daily Wire uses FB to target stories by ideology, according to data from our Citizen Browser project. @corintxt reports: https://t.co/xX0qpnyo3n https://t.co/LRFXbnQkHt 2021-08-09 16:34:21 Yet more evidence that “access” journalism can (and is meant to) blind you to the truth. https://t.co/9H6O6BRvRF 2021-08-07 12:16:46 "Facebook has a rational economic interest in controlling information about their ad marketplace” — @LauraEdelson2 says about why she thinks FB shut down her research project this week. More in this week’s newsletter: https://t.co/JJsqUbf0Ph 2021-08-06 16:43:36 As usual, @EthanZ asks the right question: "Given the influence that social networks have on contemporary politics and social behavior, should companies be allowed veto power over research conducted on their platforms?" https://t.co/t5uiSuGuHM 2021-08-06 12:34:57 “The exoskeleten remains” — @Klonick on how websites that suppress hateful content - rather than delete it - can enable content to be found in Google searches & @jonkeegan reports on a backdoor to hateful content he found on @Pinterest: https://t.co/F4cqvtBu7u 2021-08-05 14:14:52 RT @mathewi: The Markup has a similar piece of software called the Citizen Browser that allows users to share their Facebook feeds for jour… 2021-08-04 20:43:51 Well said! https://t.co/iZbUAvegTn 2021-08-04 14:07:23 Facebook’s actions are disappointing, but we remain committed to continuing this vital accountability work through our own independent journalism Statement from @nabihasyed & https://t.co/T3BG38ikhE 2021-08-04 14:02:36 RT @themarkup: Many have asked us about our plans for #CitizenBrowser. The answer is simple: Our work will continue. 2021-08-01 20:43:57 This is great! Thank you for putting together such a compelling visualization of @darakerr’s findings about the prevalence of gig driver carjackings. https://t.co/qGHfIAa7uC 2021-07-31 12:28:09 Big Tech is global, and @themarkup is just a small U.S. nonprofit trying to hold Big Tech accountable. In this week’s newsletter I talk to @SZ data journalists about our first global collaboration to monitor Facebook during German national elections: https://t.co/j6nBs2Yab3 2021-07-28 18:43:41 I am thrilled to announce that we have hired the ultra-talented @ghongsdusit as Visual Designer for @themarkup! Gabe brings not only superb design chops, but also a commitment to respecting the humans whose stories we tell. I can’t wait for him to get started. Welcome Gabe! 2021-07-28 18:02:08 People often ask how we @themarkup engage with our audiences without tracking them. In Revue’s newsletter, @themarkup audience director @bookoisseur and I talk about our strategies. (Spoiler: we *talk* to people rather than track them). https://t.co/xUUbsiSrqy 2021-07-28 17:44:28 Sometimes the most radical thing you can do as a journalist is just write down the actual facts even though they are not new, novel or hidden. That’s what @ToddFeathers does in today’s explainer on cryptocurrency: https://t.co/WxLLQaBUMX 2021-07-28 16:08:21 RT @themarkup: Starting now! @JuliaAngwin and @Bookoisseur talk to @Revue about why we don't track newsletter open rates and how we engage… 2021-07-28 13:33:54 @f_obermaier @themarkup @SZ We’re honored to work with such a stellar team! 2021-07-27 16:49:39 Wow - Pasco Sheriff’s Office is doubling down on its algorithmic pre-crime tool even after: Tampa Bay Times investigation of it wins a Pulitzer Being sued for violating constitutional rights Dept of Ed probes its use of student data https://t.co/Wra9rQ7Si9 2021-07-27 14:08:02 @SZ It’s our first international collaboration and I hope it will be the first of many! Tech platforms are global and tech accountability tools should be global too.* * to the best of our ability given we are a tiny nonprofit! 2021-07-27 14:06:21 Facebook has a huge influence on elections all around the world. That’s why we are bringing our Citizen Browser tool to Germany to help the journalists at @SZ monitor FB during this year’s election season. https://t.co/89psn0fAB2 2021-07-26 15:00:05 @sheryl069 So sorry to hear you are sick. I hope the donations help. Wishing a speedy recovery for you and your family. 2021-07-22 19:52:44 @BetsBarnes @themarkup We know! 2021-07-22 19:52:27 We couldn’t be more excited for the incredibly talented @MalenaCarollo to join @themarkup as an investigative reporter. She’s a powerhouse reporter and we can’t wait to see what is unleashed when she teams up with our data journalists! Welcome Malena! https://t.co/R6cfFiW4NI 2021-07-22 18:28:13 RT @darakerr: If you're an Uber or Lyft driver who's been carjacked or know someone who was, please contact me. @themarkup hopes to keep co… 2021-07-22 16:01:20 As always, we show our work. Explore data about the more than 100 carjackings of ride-hail drivers that we found: https://t.co/yHEizoy8uF 2021-07-22 13:00:05 Apologies for typos. This story just makes me so mad that I’m rage typing! 2021-07-22 12:58:08 Imagine having a business model that gives you have no liability for anyone who works for you - and so you don’t have to lift a finger to help people who are injured or killed on the job. https://t.co/w3pkQkWIrP 2021-07-22 12:51:57 Imagine your husband getting shot multiple times on the job - leaving him paralyzed and barely able to speak — and his employer never calls you back and you have to beg for money to try to get a new car so you can go back out there and risk the same fate. https://t.co/oRpPN9d1in https://t.co/rCblwF7ZWj 2021-07-22 12:38:28 Imagine going to work, getting assaulted by robbers who scratch your cornea — and your employer pays none of your medical bills and fires you. That’s the world of Uber & https://t.co/sdJLs3KX2A 2021-07-21 22:34:56 @ShiraOvide Sadly, it turns out that I was too optimistic about the future of surveillance, despite being wildly pessimistic. 2021-07-21 20:00:47 @chapell68 @themarkup C’mon. Let us nerds have some fun! 2021-07-21 19:32:39 The latest @themarkup T-shirt celebrates our Citizen Browser Database! (not for sale unfortunately) https://t.co/wifPXsEG9j 2021-07-19 18:54:01 Join me! I'm speaking at my alma mater @Columbia_Biz on privacy tomorrow - and they just opened it up to the public (was previously only open for alumni). Register here: https://t.co/G97vHqI66Y https://t.co/hJ8fzGfl8e 2021-07-19 18:20:12 Hallelujah! Better late than never. https://t.co/fl170ZCzIr 2021-07-17 12:58:26 @JedBracy Thanks! 2021-07-17 12:13:54 My favorite @hartzog quote: “This is just like slapping a horse on the rear and saying ‘Go get ‘em’.” You can take the boy out of the south but you can’t take the south out of the boy :-) https://t.co/Lzneh0TJWY 2021-07-17 12:11:11 President Biden’s Executive Order on competition directs the FTC to take on Big Tech. But does FTC have the tools and authority it needs to pull it off? Not quite, says @hartzog in this week’s newsletter: https://t.co/o6YeeKAudr 2021-07-16 11:35:52 @e3i5 @dphiffer Happy to help if we can. @jonkeegan and @adrjeffries did the digging, so maybe they can offer some insight. But it was two years ago, so our info is also likely out of date. 2021-07-15 18:56:56 @al___jo We are happy to be of service! 2021-07-15 15:57:20 Those “Buy Now, Pay Later” offers that are all over the Internet seem too good to be true. @tenuous unpacks the risks, including: exorbitant interest rates hefty transaction fees hidden overdraft fees https://t.co/P8bqF1TG1t https://t.co/v041jcQhwo 2021-07-15 14:03:40 Charts like this make me optimistic that we could also eventually disrupt the personal data exploitation market, and all its accompanying ills. To see a vision of that future, visit @themarkup and enjoy the rare experience of not being tracked on the Internet. 2021-07-15 14:03:39 This chart is such a good reminder of human adaptability. We can change even well-established norms. I still remember sitting in the “non-smoking” section of the airplane - and still having to shower and wash all my clothes to remove the smoke smell. https://t.co/DsE0d3vxbT 2021-07-14 21:42:37  Provocative and important thread about the risks of cryptocurrency https://t.co/NSjDs3WJdB 2021-07-14 20:05:00 RT @jonathanmayer: We can’t expect that major online services will enable independent data-driven oversight. That’s why research and journa… 2021-07-14 16:06:16 RT @ASankin: Piggybacking off of this very good story to say that @themarkup has actively been tracking the feeds of 1,200 Facebook users t… 2021-07-14 15:27:53 Facebook promised to put labels on posts about climate change, directing users to accurate info. But in our Citizen Browser panel, FB only put “climate change labels” on a tiny # of posts - and NONE were attached to posts that were skeptical of climate change. https://t.co/wwLmMAlLF9 2021-07-13 18:00:13 Super cool job alert for folks who want to use data skills for forensic human rights reporting. https://t.co/BdQwIjmGyz 2021-07-13 17:53:59 RT @orientaljanedoe: Last wk I told @alfredwkng @themarkup that @HouseJudiciary's Big Tech bills would do what Big Tech fears the most: bre… 2021-07-13 14:37:14 Congratulations! Can’t wait to read it. LOL the tagline “The book Facebook doesn’t want you to read.” https://t.co/ag0AcsKVzf https://t.co/L7eFJppCLp 2021-07-10 13:54:12 @adamheimlich I’m fact I *have* actually thought about targeted advertising for more than “a second.” My first investigation of what I like to call the data exploitation market was in 2010. https://t.co/OVmo8DSz2v 2021-07-10 12:23:06 Perfectly put. https://t.co/AFEKD7RHCv 2021-07-10 12:20:29 @Snowden @PCLOB_GOV If you want to know more, @nakashimae and @charlie_savage have done excellent coverage of this issue. https://t.co/KUGiZXRf82 https://t.co/EWTQRNpvZP And Travis LeBlanc’s statement is worth reading in full. https://t.co/pJ4yQRnvBV 2021-07-10 12:14:25 @Snowden 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. https://t.co/1XqCFGxLR0 2021-07-10 12:09:01 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: https://t.co/tAmnOhQeK0 2021-07-09 15:27:19 Last year, Facebook quietly dropped the ability for advertisers to target ads by race. But our #CitizenBrowser project found FB still allows ads using race proxies such as "African American culture" or "Latino culture." @jonkeegan reports: https://t.co/9TLb4lPbqg https://t.co/EChXMSMZc1 2021-07-07 21:33:17 Love that our Google investigation was cited by @OhioAG in making the case for Google to become a public utility. This is exactly what journalism should do - provide the raw materials to inform robust public debate. https://t.co/UTzcVMXHED https://t.co/FPi6jIwTZA 2021-07-03 12:24:29 Freedom of expression is under assault in India. In this week’s newsletter, I interview @chinmayiarun about how Big Tech is fighting back against repressive Indian gov’t orders, and the danger of relying on industry to defend essential rights. https://t.co/KglX8WD9sD 2021-06-30 16:51:42 RT @themarkup: Congratulations to our very own @suryamattu! 2021-06-28 13:43:34 Great job alert Come join us as we build @themarkup! https://t.co/HhADO8VNDY 2021-06-25 15:56:28 Really excited for @MozillaRally launch today. Like our #CitizenBrowser effort, Rally is an important effort to find ways to hold platforms accountable to the public. https://t.co/vkC7uWw6xl 2021-06-24 14:33:58 RT @SenMarkey: Facebook appears to have failed to honor its promises to users – again. We cannot trust these companies to self-regulate. ht… 2021-06-24 14:16:43 @evelyndouek It sounds like the question here is really how you define success. We are simply holding Facebook accountable to its own promises. I’m not sure what standard you are holding them to. 2021-06-24 14:12:08 “Expecting perfection overnight”? It’s been 9 months since Facebook made this promise. And they didn’t promise to “slow” group recommendations One-third of our panelists got at least one recommendation in the last four months. https://t.co/wDtVaKX19C 2021-06-24 12:48:08 This is what we @themarkup call persistent monitoring. We are watchdogs and we have built systems that let us monitor Facebook continuously. This is how we use automation and computation on behalf of the public. https://t.co/7qTTsxSVDz 2021-06-24 12:45:50 Oct 2020: Facebook promises to stop recommending political groups to users. Jan 2021: @themarkup finds FB is still recommending them. Feb 2021: FB says it will fix “technical mistake.” Today: @alfredwkng @corintxt find FB is still recommending them. https://t.co/x0kNY8V6zd 2021-06-21 17:18:08 Prime Day is peak injury day for Amazon workers. For those who haven’t read @willCIR's incredible reporting on what really goes on in Amazon warehouses, this is a good place to start. https://t.co/6j1GpJKUxG https://t.co/qAAvkBjEos 2021-06-21 16:11:48 @pjrvs @themarkup It was a delight. Thanks for having me on! 2021-06-21 14:31:55 I love @pjrvs' description of @themarkup as a utopian Web experience. That is EXACTLY what we are going for! https://t.co/5nfflmFTrS https://t.co/TYOMD2a6Yc 2021-06-21 13:32:39 @daniellecitron That black & 2021-06-20 16:30:08 Voted early! Until they make election days holidays, I love the opportunity to vote early. https://t.co/hHdMuI80ES 2021-06-19 23:21:31 @tombrossman @themarkup @CCriadoPerez Oh, thanks for the reminder. I loved Invisible Women — if you can say you *love* a book that fills you with overpowering rage on every page. 2021-06-19 13:17:20 Great @doctorow thread on our Uber/Lyft investigation and its implications (with usual Doctorow flourishes including references to Putin scorched earth tactics). https://t.co/73KbvxEPqp 2021-06-19 12:41:04 Also, DUH, we don't make any money on these recommendations. No affiliate links, or anything else. We truly just want to share. 2021-06-19 12:41:03 @corintxt recommends @timmaughan's Infinite Detail for its speculative look at a world after an Internet crash: "It’s a gripping read, and a compelling case for supporting the decentralization of internet architecture." 2021-06-19 12:41:02 @jonkeegan recommends Avi Loeb's Extraterrestrial for its inquiry into the scientific method: "By making whole areas of inquiry off limits simply because they evoke a dismissive eye roll, we may be failing to ask some of the most important questions in science.” 2021-06-19 12:41:01 @colinlecher recommends @STurkle's The Empathy Diaries for its wisdom on: "How screens can divide us, how online life can breed loneliness, and how an engineering mindset can fail to solve some of society’s biggest problems." 2021-06-19 12:41:00 Good morning! It's summer and that means it's time for @themarkup staff's summer reading list. I love our pics so much that I'm going to do a quick thread on our recommendations. https://t.co/6Bltu01QcN 2021-06-18 17:12:05 @benyt @WillOremus I don't disagree that there are all sorts of moral complications with whistleblowers etc. I am simply pointing out that Janet Malcom is writing very specifically about "the consenting subject of a piece of nonfiction writing." https://t.co/lstktSt1qX 2021-06-18 17:04:16 @benyt @WillOremus Sure those relationships are messy and complicated, but not in the way that Janet Malcom was referring to. Woodward and Bernstein didn’t write an expose about Mark Felt’s personality quirks. 2021-06-18 14:45:31 Which is just to say that I will try not to cough and sneeze and blow my nose during my panel on algorithms starting in a few minutes — but if I do, I apologize! https://t.co/UaqCJqGhd7 2021-06-18 14:44:05 This whole emerging into the world of germs after spending more than a year in a germ bubble with my family is no joke. Did a few normal things - took son to dentist, met a friend for a drink - and now am in bed with a bad cold. 2021-06-18 13:54:49 @WillOremus Janet Malcolm was talking a very specific form of access journalism written for magazines that trafficked in personality. It is not true of most journalism, especially the most important kind— which holds power (often institutional) to account. 2021-06-17 15:42:07 Somehow @clancynewyork always manages to say it best! https://t.co/n1PyxR6lEq 2021-06-17 12:35:28 As always, we show our work. https://t.co/t6DO0M9Ilt https://t.co/GA0RvBo4Iu 2021-06-17 12:07:33 As the Prop 22 battle spreads to other states, the ridehail companies are paying Black and Latinx community groups who then promoted the “independent work” agenda. @darakerr & https://t.co/W1GCE4Q48d 2021-06-16 14:23:44 Want to nerd out about auditing algorithms with the always formidable @dgrobinson @iverna1 @ByronTau and me? Join us at 11 am EST on Friday at @yaleisp @GtownTechLaw - free tickets here: https://t.co/UaqCJqGhd7 2021-06-15 16:57:19 Concern about the unbridled power of tech companies is increasingly a bipartisan issue. https://t.co/xttE54TTu7 2021-06-15 13:39:56 Ransomware as a Service - or RaaS - is part of the reason for the rise in high-profile ransomware attacks. @ToddFeathers explains the infrastructure that enables criminals to take your data hostage: https://t.co/FfKOfyRrJA 2021-06-12 12:21:33 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: https://t.co/zmRA8hCysl 2021-06-11 17:35:01 So many great #Pulitzers today but I'm especially pleased by the awards that highlighted the harm of a Florida predictive policing algorithm and a forensic analysis of Chinese detainment camps. Huge congratulations to @meghara @kmcgrory and crew! https://t.co/Xjlb53UoR6 2021-06-11 12:49:03 @clancynewyork @amyoleary @pamelacolloff @itsjina @MaraHvistendahl @weinbergersa @SheilaCoronel 2021-06-11 12:47:45 Haha! It’s all true. I was hired at @WSJ during the dot-com boom and they had so many ads that they were hiring like crazy. https://t.co/qacaBjk92A 2021-06-10 21:17:37 @AnnaBrugmann @omi @CJL4News The content really fits the all-caps vibe! 2021-06-09 14:22:55 Thrilled that Apple is going to protect users against the commonly used email tracking pixel that we have worked so hard to avoid at @themarkup. And thanks for the shoutout @CaseyNewton in your analysis of Apple's move. https://t.co/B5KcwjGxU4 https://t.co/ywNY59kOW1 2021-06-08 12:24:00 This jaw-dropping investigation is a perfect example of how many things that are outrageous are hiding in plain sight. The tax loopholes these billionaires are exploiting are legal. https://t.co/FFMbRGH9nc 2021-06-08 12:07:52 The Supreme Court is expected to rule soon on whether public schools can discipline students their social media posts. The Biden administration is supporting schools right to police students social media. @colinlecher reports for @themarkup: https://t.co/rwb34vPmiL 2021-06-03 18:19:34 RT @scattermoon: Do you want to read this article and do this quiz on dark patterns in UIs? Yes, I do Tell me more https://t.co/8UY3yw… 2021-06-03 14:26:50 RT @paulohm: Retweeting this in honor of today's Van Buren opinion. The @themarkup t-shirt caption used to be a plea for relief 2021-06-03 14:18:48 Have you ever tried to cancel an online service and not been able to find the right button? Dark patterns that mislead consumers are under increasing scrutiny from regulators. Take our quiz to see if you can spot the dark patterns: https://t.co/YktV5VlSOR 2021-06-02 17:10:19 Tune into a new ⁦@AspenDigital podcast in which⁩ @vivian⁩ & https://t.co/V5B3DWP7Gm 2021-06-01 19:05:23 @rachelegoodman1 #goals! 2021-06-01 14:32:18 I am also quite pleased that we took the opportunity to define "monopsony" in this article. https://t.co/bAfQbXCzof 2021-06-01 13:00:29 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: https://t.co/qlMFtIWEfs 2021-05-30 16:07:48 I love to see instances where statistical analysis is used to chase down the truth. This is what we do @themarkup with our Show Your Work methodologies. IMHO, math is often a better way to approximate the truth than the usual appeals to authority. https://t.co/28nEf5MPMB 2021-05-30 16:07:47 This is a win for statistical analysis. @dreamwastaken recorded a controversial Minecraft speedrun. A 29-page statistical analysis showed that his luck was impossibly good. https://t.co/n3KFwU9MLc Dream just admitted that he mistakenly cheated. https://t.co/0KqsYYttw1 https://t.co/iVDquSlfrX 2021-05-29 12:36:19 Technology has the potential to be a tool for empowerment— but in our reporting @themarkup we find technology often augments rather than challenges racial inequities. My newsletter this week on our civil rights reporting: https://t.co/CB0y3lcd6M 2021-05-26 12:12:58 You can look up the admissions data we obtained for each school in our drop-down menu, or on Github https://t.co/Oe2eA62Sm5 https://t.co/a8isdqPZn1 2021-05-26 12:02:07 NYC schools are among the most segregated in the U.S. We investigated admission algorithms for the best high schools and found Blacks and Latinos are admitted at half the rate of White and Asian students. @colinlecher & https://t.co/fpSJEOhWbQ 2021-05-25 12:02:41 I just deleted my data from the @drbisin service that promised leftover vaccine doses (which I signed up for but didn't get). Thank you @MiaRSato for highlighting the concerns about their non-HIPAA compliant database: https://t.co/uFtRPcOsk4 Here's how to delete your data: https://t.co/MqSfqJaGWT 2021-05-25 11:51:11 Today at 1 pm EST I'll be joining the @Zcash community call to discuss how @themarkup holds big tech accountable. You can watch here: https://t.co/a8YTeglEOP 2021-05-24 17:55:12 RT @themarkup: #MarkupImpact: After The Markup’s report of discriminatory advertising on Facebook, Senator @MazieHirono demanded answers fr… 2021-05-23 19:00:16 This is horrifying and will transform the threat models for journalism - and global air travel - if it goes unchallenged. https://t.co/txnBUy2EvU 2021-05-23 18:58:35 @clancynewyork I seriously started thinking about how journalists might have to build a rail-travel through friendly locales plan. 2021-05-23 18:52:01 @clancynewyork I would just like to say that I am indeed freaking out. This is horrifying. 2021-05-22 18:59:21 @ckatzenbach @rgorwa @RDBinns Love the line: “unjust software at scale.” Thank you for your work. 2021-05-22 17:19:00 @AbhisekFair So glad to hear it! Thank you for reading. 2021-05-22 13:20:37 The pandemic forced tech companies to rely more heavily on automated content moderation. The evidence suggests that the machines aren’t doing so great & My newsletter this week: https://t.co/DrHVSgiZjC 2021-05-21 16:29:36 @maggielmcg Ooh, an advent calendar of failed FB promises! With a chocolate for each day! I'm in. 2021-05-20 15:05:51 The anti-vax groups we found Facebook recommending to our #CitizenBrowser panelists were not subtle. Group names included: "Covid-19 is a HOAX" “Pennsylvania for Medical Freedom” “VACCINES: LEARN THE RISK" https://t.co/odR1jUQqQZ 2021-05-20 12:04:24 Another day. Another promise Facebook isn’t keeping. https://t.co/VXaOLKtcce 2021-05-20 11:37:27 So thrilled to have you with us! We’re going to do some great work together. https://t.co/nusUJttFpU 2021-05-15 20:34:13 @CjColclough Thank you! 2021-05-15 13:32:00 Big data + increasing computational power = eroding privacy of people whose data are being analyzed. In this week’s newsletter I interview the co-inventor of our best hope for protecting individual privacy in large datasets, Cynthia Dwork. https://t.co/1pY7zricqG 2021-05-13 23:37:46 #MarkupImpact https://t.co/GKcEcjIsuf 2021-05-13 14:12:04 @lajoiemedia @themarkup @jeremybmerrill Damn, Facebook would owe us a lot of money under that regime! https://t.co/sJ0DBC8z2J 2021-05-13 14:07:56 @djweitzner @themarkup @jeremybmerrill Well, muckraking *is* sanitation work, no? 2021-05-13 12:37:32 RT @natematias: @JuliaAngwin @themarkup @suryamattu And if you want to pursue the sanitation analogy further, I wrote about it here https:… 2021-05-13 12:28:09 LOL just had a thought: maybe @themarkup can get cool “DSSV” - Department of Sanitation Silicon Valley - T-shirts! H/t to @suryamattu who first introduced me to this idea by saying he viewed himself as a sanitation worker. 2021-05-13 12:24:53 @benyt @themarkup @jeremybmerrill I prefer janitors because they only do necessary work. Cops are too often found to be harassing and killing people. 2021-05-13 12:19:01 @adamlisberg @themarkup @jeremybmerrill Kind of feels like a race to the bottom between journalism revenue model and janitors revenue model. 2021-05-13 12:09:43 Sometimes I think we @themarkup are the janitors for Silicon Valley. The clean-up cycle looks like this: Google says it bans ads that impersonate government websites. @jeremybmerrill found plenty of ads doing just that. Google removed the ads we found. https://t.co/5MjgBsQAUB 2021-05-13 10:55:24 Boeing pays when it’s airplanes fail. Software makers do not pay when their software fails. https://t.co/JymDNoppxv 2021-05-12 14:03:34 @ClaireMKBowen That is, actually, how the article describes differential privacy. https://t.co/wsMLPNoZL8 2021-05-11 20:38:49 No one covers differential privacy like we do @themarkup! @ToddFeathers reports on the Census Bureaus' struggle to use fancy math to protect citizen data from being re-identified. https://t.co/wa6ZQwj1X8 2021-05-08 13:06:49 Perfectly put. https://t.co/Ajoh2ovysV 2021-05-08 12:45:55 Of course, the problem is not Facebook's "attitude" - it is whether it is possible for the global behemoth to live up to its promises -- which we have continually caught them violating. https://t.co/YlYv7QjGE5 2021-05-08 12:42:48 Overall, Facebook's comments on our reporting swung wildly between Defensive and Contrite... which reminded me of the rebellious novice Maria in Sound of Music. So my newsletter this week is inspired by the song "How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?" https://t.co/sJ0DBC8z2J 2021-05-08 12:40:01 I rounded up Facebook's statements to the @themarkup. A few of my favorites: "This articles reflects a misunderstanding" "Citizen Browser is not an accurate reflection" "We know we still have progress to make" "“We are looking into the examples" https://t.co/sJ0DBC8z2J https://t.co/KGBGjPXVmo 2021-05-06 15:31:48 3/ These ambitious engineering projects are accountability journalism in a nontraditional format. And we want to do more like them. Promoting @suryamattu is the first step toward adding more engineering capacity within the newsroom. 2021-05-06 15:31:47 1/ I’m thrilled to announce that extraordinary investigative data journalist @suryamattu has been promoted to a new role at @themarkup: Senior Data Engineer. This new position reflects our newsroom’s evolution toward building tools that serve our journalism and our readers. 2021-05-06 13:27:03 Join me tomorrow for a chat with @Revkin about #CitizenBrowser Split Screen. https://t.co/3PZQsGIo1U https://t.co/x5r9dEMPoo 2021-05-06 12:34:48 It's going to be very hard to say goodbye to @SamMorrisDesign. He built our Website visual identity, did all graphics for all of our stories, built interactives, did UI design on our tools and built privacy-protecting features for our website. He will always be team @themarkup! https://t.co/pxNzakUZpj 2021-05-06 12:30:05 How does big pharma find sick people on Facebook? Its pretty easy. FB doesn't offer ad targeting that explicitly identifies health conditions, but it offers targeting toward health “interests” such as “Diabetes mellitus awareness.” @colinlecher reports: https://t.co/verlCuEp9C 2021-05-05 22:01:38 @TechEthicist @AllTechIsHuman Thank you 2021-05-05 16:27:53 @cutting @bigdata @NBCNews @byjacobward I dunno. If I remember correctly, you are quite tall! And I know for a fact that I am only 5’2” on a good day :-) 2021-05-05 11:47:52 @bigdata @NBCNews @byjacobward @cutting lol @bigdata - you & 2021-05-05 11:45:00 4/ We’re hiring a Visual Designer to create high-quality visuals for our twice-weekly enterprise and explanatory stories. This job is embedded in our enterprise team and involves working closely day to day with our reporters. https://t.co/pKexLheQeS 2021-05-05 11:44:59 2/ We’re hiring investigative reporters who have a nose for stories with moral outrage and the grit to stick with them. Tech expertise is not required. Shoe-leather reporting skills are required! https://t.co/cG6hCmbWqt 2021-05-05 11:44:58 1/ @themarkup is hiring! We are thrilled to be expanding our newsroom after our first year of publishing If you are passionate about accountability journalism that centers the humans affected by technological change, these jobs may be for you. https://t.co/cURwBHfBmP 2021-05-04 12:20:49 After not responding for days, Facebook now says it will take down the discriminatory financial services ads that @corintxt & https://t.co/X0htWAgTxC Also .. FB sent its statement to the wrong @themarkup reporter lol https://t.co/FBYE5LTJ8K 2021-05-01 14:37:52 @anton612 Thank you! 2021-05-01 14:35:10 @informor Wow just lost my whole morning to this piece. So compelling. The kicker is too real: https://t.co/2s10IN565z 2021-05-01 12:26:10 @cfarivar @shaspi @shankjank @oliviasolon @jfruh @themarkup We don’t grant anonymity to corporate spokespeople. The reason is simple: anonymity breaks trusts with readers and so should be used sparingly only when the source faces retaliation. My full discussion of our policy is here: https://t.co/DK2TrQK77S 2021-05-01 12:08:14 Algorithms have taken over the functions of a boss for everything from hiring and firing decisions to day-to-day management of workers’ routines. In today’s newsletter I interview @brookeerinduffy about the “algorithmic precarity” that workers face. https://t.co/My2dHhBvJz 2021-04-30 01:02:51 RT @RMac18: At worst, Facebook’s execs are lying to lawmakers. At best, they have no idea what happens on their own platform. Neither is a… 2021-04-29 15:03:06 @nwatzman So. Much. Eating. 2021-04-29 13:08:55 Today is the first day in 14 months that both of my children are attending school in person. I’m so grateful that they get to see their friends, and that I get a quiet house with no “what’s for lunch?” conversations! 2021-04-29 12:59:35 @amac @nicolewong @PrivacyPros Congratulations! All the awards please for @nicolewong! 2021-04-29 12:48:53 RT @ASankin: How it started How it's going https://t.co/POA1fCtseI https://t.co/bybyoQ5RiT 2021-04-29 12:27:13 When it comes to policing discriminatory ads, the problem is actually pretty simple. Facebook puts the burden on advertisers to police themselves. But as we found, that apparently isn't enough to stop discriminatory ads from slipping through. https://t.co/SRKCO5VgAG 2021-04-29 12:27:12 Facebook ads for credit and loan opportunities that are only shown to certain age groups could violate federal & Facebook did not respond to multiple requests for comment. 2021-04-29 12:11:48 This week, Facebook VP Monica Bickert told Congress that financial service ads can't use microtargeting. But we found that four different credit & @corintxt & https://t.co/GgmFUbXxJZ 2021-04-28 01:51:09 @MissRyley @BostonGlobe Congratulation!!! 2021-04-27 13:14:32 I’m so heartbroken at the loss of ⁦@dakami⁩. He was a beautiful soul and a reminder that kindness is what matters in the end. Thank you ⁦@nicoleperlroth⁩ for giving him the tribute he deserves. https://t.co/IXNCzMm1YY 2021-04-27 13:10:21 @nicoleperlroth @nytimes @dakami Thank you for a beautiful tribute to a beautiful soul. 2021-04-27 13:01:46 RT @themarkup: NEW: Google’s and Apple’s COVID-19 exposure notification tool is the backbone of many contact tracing apps, and the Android… 2021-04-24 12:13:08 While the EU gets attention for high-profile cases against Big Tech, the UK has been quietly putting together a new agency to regulate tech platforms. In this week’s newsletter, I interview the UK regulator in charge, Andrea Coscelli, about his plans. https://t.co/ukJ9oGVZfp 2021-04-23 16:02:45 @dmehro @reveal Congratulations Reveal is lucky to have you! 2021-04-23 01:09:07 Two years ago today. I am so grateful every day to everyone who has supported @themarkup team on its journey. https://t.co/nO2eBxT4lP 2021-04-22 14:23:06 And ICYMI, India’s crisis is being exacerbated by US refusal to export crucial parts needed for vaccine production. This is from the CEO of the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer in India: https://t.co/OPOMKLtJQD 2021-04-22 14:09:55 India right now: no hospital beds, no oxygen, no medicine, no COVID tests, no doctors available. Deaths much much higher than official counts. I am praying for my extended family - nearly every one of whom has COVID right now. https://t.co/mTgz2ljM2I 2021-04-22 14:04:01 yes, this is exactly what I am experiencing as the spouse of a desi. It’s horrifying. https://t.co/xAl9KHj0WP 2021-04-22 12:17:46 “Are they shadow-banning? I’m sure of it. How do we prove it? We don’t know” - @cameronhickey TikTok creators recount their struggles with the algorithm that runs their lives in our Working for an Algorithm series. @darakerr reports for @themarkup: https://t.co/kcmEDfxRqh 2021-04-20 15:24:47 RT @ashk4n: Yikes: @Facebook's internal press response memo was leaked (ht @intidc) Facebook PR "expect[s] more scraping incidents" and w… 2021-04-20 15:24:32 The financial crisis for journalism is so urgent. I feel like I was basically just yelling 'save us' the whole panel! https://t.co/t5C0SAT9tF 2021-04-19 22:17:55 RT @LeonYin: Got interviewed by @BenjaminPDixon last week about @TheMarkup's recent series on YouTube, which you can now watch on YouTube.… 2021-04-19 15:01:32 Tech antitrust nerd alert -- tomorrow's @openmarkets event has an all-star lineup, and I'll be interviewing the head of the UK competition authority @CMAgovUK, Andrea Coscelli. https://t.co/pSMUAOiFp4 2021-04-17 12:27:26 When California passed the nation’s strongest privacy law in November, backers hoped it would usher in a US equivalent to Europe’s GDPR. Instead it prompted a wave of tech industry backed weaker privacy bills across the U.S. My newsletter this week: https://t.co/8sQXCBO3CH 2021-04-15 12:22:24 As always, we show our work. Check out all the proposed state privacy legislation on @documentcloud: https://t.co/Nzf6l8PEC3 2021-04-15 12:16:37 This fight was kicked off by California's passage of a strong privacy law - which allows people to do a one time global opt-out from data collection - in November. If other states don't pass weaker laws, California's law would likely become the default. https://t.co/6dNz1IwFU0 2021-04-15 12:16:36 Then there was North Dakota, that proposed the most restrictive privacy law in the U.S. Tech trade groups publicly fought the bill and privately, tech companies registered their first lobbyists ever in the state. The bill died. https://t.co/ZsMJiz71P5 2021-04-15 12:16:35 Same thing happened in Oklahoma, where a bipartisan bill that would have required customers to opt-in to selling their data (industry wants an opt-out). State lawmakers say an army of lobbyists delayed the hearing and ultimately killed the bill. https://t.co/pPTHZDrdhz 2021-04-15 12:16:34 Consider Connecticut, which introduced a strong privacy protection bill in 2020, and saw it die when industry hired every single lobbyist in town. Now, the state is pushing a weaker bill supported by Big Tech. https://t.co/qN0DJQbwVg 2021-04-15 12:16:33 There's a wave of privacy legislation being proposed across the U.S. But many of the bills are weak offerings being pushed by Big Tech. State lawmakers tell @ToddFeathers that they are outgunned by Big Tech lobbyists: https://t.co/OjKgJoxbfz https://t.co/itHuVX2Ojv 2021-04-13 12:22:21 RT @vivian: Big expansion of the @OversightBoard remit here to include take-down requests. Until now, they only had jurisdiction over reins… 2021-04-13 12:18:34 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): https://t.co/zq1FmeQhrP https://t.co/CWi11NuEy2 2021-04-12 16:57:02 Today in Facebook group recommendations, according to our Citizen Browser panel. Trump voters are being recommended the "Mark Zuckerberg fans club group" Biden voters are being recommended "House United in Prayers for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris" https://t.co/3PZQsGIo1U https://t.co/sXGyL0YZD1 2021-04-10 19:08:50 I hang onto all my old physical maps and lonely planet guides for this exact reason! Glad I’m not the only one. https://t.co/oU0rOu3lWK 2021-04-10 18:57:29 @daniellecitron Girl, I’m the lucky one! 2021-04-10 12:20:40 In this week's newsletter, I go behind the scenes with @LeonYin about his investigation into YouTube's secret - and flawed - advertising blocklist. Nerds will appreciate the JSON keys screenshots :-) https://t.co/KSo5YMGN2T 2021-04-09 13:13:58 This is NOT the kind of impact we are hoping to get from our investigations. https://t.co/LX0aCfnUg4 2021-04-09 12:03:37 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. 2021-04-09 12:03:36 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 https://t.co/BgYlcmVY8T 2021-04-09 12:03:35 : 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.” https://t.co/dTXyDr5jDY https://t.co/qSFqGMCevm 2021-04-08 15:48:20 @poolsfordogs Yes we note that they could adjust regex in the methodology. Hope someone there reads it! https://t.co/vwSFj4tHo1 2021-04-08 15:28:14 Huge congrats to our Blacklight team @suryamattu @ASankin @SamMorrisDesign for being finalists for the Deadline Club awards. If you haven't tried Blacklight yet, you must check out the privacy practices of your favorite websites: https://t.co/W3wngeTdgT https://t.co/mkXGoZP5X6 2021-04-08 15:12:45 Oy vey, how many grammatical mistakes did I make in that tweet?! LOL. But the point seems to be resonating so I won’t delete. Thanks for understanding that I am typing too fast. 2021-04-08 15:08:57 This is a great thread on reporting. Worth noting: PR people have often try to scare reporters off a story by telling that their questions are dumb. Don’t fall for it. https://t.co/8c9U0u2WAD 2021-04-08 15:04:37 Lol. Apparently Google Ads hasn't caught up on that cutting edge best practice. https://t.co/AMLRt8Nj6k 2021-04-08 15:03:40 Watch the incomparable @LeonYin walk you through how easy it was to fool YouTube's blocklist. It just takes 25 seconds :-) https://t.co/ygJt4HpDjA 2021-04-08 12:38:32 @asankin on how & 2021-04-08 12:06:08 /6 As always, we show all our work and provide the data we collected. Warning: this methodology contains many offensive terms and expletives. https://t.co/6Q098PzGBE https://t.co/QxLlSVH7wb 2021-04-08 12:06:07 3/ Nearly every term blocked by YouTube’s list was easily evaded by removing spaces between words or pluralizing singular nouns. Experts such as @MeganSquire0 and @nandoodles told us that this wasn’t the best way to build a block list. https://t.co/glaQ0SA6vq 2021-04-08 12:06:06 : We found a secret blocklist on Google Ads that hides YouTube hate videos. But @leonyin and @asankin found it was full of holes. Blocked: heil hitler Not blocked: heilhitler Blocked: white nationalist Not blocked: white nationalists https://t.co/e0CngRfHLu https://t.co/tnEjKsS6xU 2021-04-07 23:28:05 @kfranasz @themarkup @varlogsimon Absolutely! Feel free to quote my tweet. I don’t really know how other publishers will be affected, but I did write about a privacy FAQ about FLoC for our readers: https://t.co/Uh7NBgIRNe 2021-04-07 15:03:38 We @themarkup opted out of Google’s newfangled cookie-less tracking system (FLoC) so our readers will not be targeted with ads based on visiting our site. Others who care about reader privacy might want to do the same. @varlogsimon shares how: https://t.co/EVAOo5dJN5 https://t.co/n5UE5Vi9LU 2021-04-07 13:22:25 Join me today at 3:30 for a discussion of risk assessment scores used in criminal justice settings. https://t.co/Ptq7TdCssj 2021-04-06 18:38:32 Excited to join @Klonick and @benjaminwittes on the show at 5 pm EST tonight! https://t.co/HivhZNB0t8 2021-04-01 12:18:52 How big is the data broker industry? @alfredwkng & 480 companies registered as data brokers in Vermont & The top data brokers spent $29 million on federal lobbying in 2020. https://t.co/HobvEudQIU 2021-03-31 18:08:07 @jenvalentino Amazing nail game (and yay!) 2021-03-31 17:38:07 RT @themarkup: We’re looking for a few more good people to help us keep an eye on Big Tech. @TheMarkup is currently hiring for: Full-time… 2021-03-31 11:11:19 @Stefano_Montali It’s not too late! Please apply. 2021-03-30 14:45:16 RT @themarkup: #MarkupImpact: Texas A& 2021-03-30 14:43:29 Journalism Job Alert I’m hiring a part-time researcher to help me with my weekly newsletter, Hello World. This is a great job for an early stage journalist who is passionate about the impact of tech on society. Applications due 4/30. https://t.co/cyFiE372kj 2021-03-26 16:16:50 @craignewmark @themarkup Let us see the data! 2021-03-26 09:45:09 First dose! So grateful https://t.co/s2lE4HS5vz 2021-03-25 17:35:22 RT @jonkeegan: Reading through Zuckerberg's statement before the hearing (https://t.co/SYeOW7kQnz). It's almost like he hasn't read our sto… 2021-03-25 17:34:25 @jamesvasile And … here are the pee bottles! https://t.co/gWLweo15W6 2021-03-25 17:05:47 @jamesvasile As I understand it, its factually true but inaccurate at the same time. Workers can of course pee anytime. But if they do, they often won’t make their quota, or meet their “rate,” and the algorithm will punish them. 2021-03-25 16:09:17 I am constantly seeing ads online from Amazon showing workers talking about how they definitely have time to go to the bathroom at work. Amazon doth protest too much, methinks. https://t.co/YaYJEg1k6D 2021-03-25 14:36:23 As the big tech CEOs stand before Congress again today, I joined @pkafka on his @Recode podcast to discuss how @themarkup is working to keep Big Tech honest: https://t.co/R6iDQxTwdW 2021-03-25 13:57:28 @themarkup @ASankin @lmastria The lengths that @ASankin went to try to opt-out are epic. https://t.co/2oFbwhmugo https://t.co/i5234LnI5q 2021-03-25 13:33:08 @themarkup @ASankin This is what I got when I tried to opt-out: 24 successful requests. 104 requests not completed: “This may be the result of a temporary technical issue.” Do better @lmastria https://t.co/7DoYh8kU6R 2021-03-25 13:21:00 Spoiler: it was too good to be true. “I was never able to opt out of ads for four companies in Chrome: Adstra, LKQD Technologies, Marchex, and Pulpo.” https://t.co/GB4TaVLhaA 2021-03-25 12:11:30 The ad tech industry offers a tool that says it will opt you out of microtargeted online advertising. But a half dozen of us it tried it @themarkup and none of us were able to successfully opt out of every company on the list. @ASankin reports: https://t.co/2oFbwhmugo 2021-03-24 20:56:18 LOL took me a minute to get the joke! https://t.co/kDSKn8lGXV 2021-03-24 19:03:44 Starting now! https://t.co/Ro601i1C1e 2021-03-24 16:01:08 @rcalo So true. I need to level up my tweet game. You are a master tweeter - can you do a workshop? 2021-03-24 15:40:29 As always, we show our work. You can find all the data from our analysis of 50 vaccine websites on GitHub: https://t.co/zE32DcX43o (Had wrong link in last tweet, so deleted and RTing with correct link) 2021-03-24 15:39:25 @s_englehardt Sorry, wrong link! Try this. https://t.co/zE32DcX43o 2021-03-24 12:54:03 We surveyed the official vaccine websites of all 50 states, plus Puerto Rico and DC. Guess which one was slowest (and LOADED with trackers)? Nevada. https://t.co/v4YA5WPiZt https://t.co/GJ1JAZanbh 2021-03-22 23:19:12 RT @jonkeegan: Today in @themarkup's Split Screen group recommendations: Boomers love their dogs. Millennials love each other. … 2021-03-22 17:22:29 Great story from @WSJ about hospitals hiding their pricing data from appearing in Google search (and most likely trying to thwart being scraped and aggregated for comparison purposes). Another argument for how scraping can be a public service. https://t.co/A32yYojsLB 2021-03-21 23:04:48 @justinschuh Ah, got it. No one in my industry can afford to retire so I always forget about that as an option! Lol 2021-03-21 22:53:36 @justinschuh Oh! My mistake. You have the same name as director of Chrome Engineering! https://t.co/JG3QLRcz75 2021-03-21 22:02:23 If you are wondering what Google Chrome says plans to do to protect user privacy - I wrote a handy FAQ in my newsletter this week. TL:DR - they will drop 3rd party cookies but will replace them with other tracking that you will have to opt out of. https://t.co/Uh7NBgIRNe 2021-03-21 21:49:47 It’s kind of incredible to watch a Google Chrome engineer faux berating NYT for collecting IP addresses when Chrome is the only major Web browser that doesn’t block 3rd party cookies by default. Chrome has good points but protecting user privacy has never been a priority. https://t.co/Ik2qntKXHs 2021-03-20 20:29:00 Today on Split Screen, our Facebook feed viewer: BIDEN voters: Native American Interior Secretary sworn in and COVID vaccinations at the zoo. TRUMP voters: Candace Owen blasts Cardi B and a Trans beauty pageant winner. https://t.co/3PZQsGIo1U https://t.co/YbF61u4LDk 2021-03-20 13:18:18 Here’s what you need to know about the privacy changes promised by Apple and Google., in this week’s newsletter: https://t.co/GhiH1bOteN 2021-03-19 15:37:35 @bookoisseur @themarkup @nabihasyed We are so lucky to have you @bookoisseur! 2021-03-18 15:29:09 RT @SamMorrisDesign: Yesterday NYT Cooking announced that they are walking away from their 78,000 strong Facebook Group. Their statement su… 2021-03-13 13:00:55 Ten years ago @elipariser coined the phrase “the filter bubble” to describe the personalized information ecosystem online. Today he talks to me about how much of what he feared has materialized, and how he hopes to fix it. https://t.co/qMO8nhC0Ph 2021-03-12 13:39:07 Senators cited our reporting 11 times in their letter seeking answers about how closely tenant screening algorithms are scrutinized. #MarkupImpact https://t.co/H6xWyIliez 2021-03-11 17:21:13 @jasonrhody @WSJ @themarkup @jonkeegan In today's Citizen Browser newsletter, @jonkeegan describes his journey from Red Feed/Blue Feed to Split Screen. Check it out if you haven't seen yet! https://t.co/vxfmob7u4u 2021-03-11 15:48:16 I love how @jonkeegan describes seeing outside your filter bubble as “idealogical tourism.” That’s the goal we have for Split Screen! https://t.co/vxfmob7u4u https://t.co/4lU8Uajn1h 2021-03-11 15:18:06 RT @caitlin_reports: We knew that you see a totally different reality on Facebook depending on your political stance. But it’s really somet… 2021-03-11 14:18:36 Yeah, Split Screen indicates that Facebook thinks Boomers are *really* into the Far Side cartoons! https://t.co/mknkin4Mvj 2021-03-11 14:17:04 @MichSpieler It’s not that we don’t care about other groups, but our panel didn’t have enough quantities of participants from smaller groups to build a cohort for the tool. You can read more about how we built the tool here: https://t.co/UegSAL74GF 2021-03-11 13:17:18 @jasonrhody @WSJ @themarkup WSJ’s Red Feed Blue Feed was our inspiration! @jonkeegan built the feed at WSJ and is now with us at @themarkup. We wanted to move forward from his simulation model to one that was based on actual real people’s feeds. 2021-03-11 13:13:51 Split Screen reveals how different political news looks on Facebook to Trump vs. Biden voters. But it also reveals some surprising tidbits, like Biden voters are shown Star Trek groups more often. @FastCompany breaks it down in their story on our tool: https://t.co/zXkBsiOnl5 2021-03-11 13:07:16 +1 https://t.co/gTvkV3K2s4 2021-03-11 13:03:24 As always, we show our work. Here’s how we built our Split Screen Facebook feed viewer: https://t.co/UegSAL74GF 2021-03-11 13:01:35 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: https://t.co/3PZQsGIo1U 2021-03-10 19:01:14 @__lucab That *is* consolation actually! 2021-03-10 18:59:42 LOL couldn’t help myself when asked about the challenges of data quality! https://t.co/RLPKfl0yPX 2021-03-10 17:01:34 Starting in one hour: my keynote at #Facct21 on Algorithms, Accountability and Journalism. So honored to be speaking to this group of inspiring researchers. https://t.co/gsMpcPR6g8 2021-03-10 14:34:27 Love to see it! Thanks for sharing. https://t.co/p2Q9IarylQ 2021-03-09 18:37:18 @EmilyRPeck I’m so sorry to hear this. Your work has been pioneering! 2021-03-09 14:05:12 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: https://t.co/weP4NBvnOt 2021-03-08 01:40:42 This was an incredible public service. Thank you @alexismadrigal and team! https://t.co/tu2TYaC2hV 2021-03-06 13:06:19 Algorithms are not good at predicting what ads I want to see. So why do we keep using them to “predict” who will drop out of school, commit a future crime or be unable to pay their rent. My newsletter this week: https://t.co/f4arZL78Bh 2021-03-05 00:15:23 Welp. I finally had to join Clubhouse. I'm discussing “New Approaches to Platform Data Research” with @ehansen02, Amber French, Cameron Hickey, Jonathan Mayer, Rebecca Weiss, and @EthanZ. Today, Mar 4 at 7:30 PM EST on @joinclubhouse. Join us! https://t.co/YArwL8mmp4 2021-03-04 16:16:37 @funnymonkey Thank you. I needed a laugh today. 2021-03-04 16:14:12 @BroadbandFrance Thank you! 2021-03-04 15:51:08 @corintxt @darakerr Facebook says our data from more than 2,500 users is "not an accurate reflection of the full breadth of people who see ads." OK. But it’s better than nothing. Our data is the ONLY independent FB data available and FB is not actually disputing our finding. #CitizenBrowser 2021-03-04 15:07:18 Thank you so much for your support @luminategroup! https://t.co/c31Xozuxrc 2021-03-04 13:29:13 Our #CitizenBrowser panel allows us to see which groups are being shown different ads on Facebook. And we found that public health announcements are being displayed less often to our black panelists. @corintxt and @darakerr report: https://t.co/BMwdtM24AY 2021-03-03 17:33:01 Looks like there are varying hypotheses on the true value of tracking users across the Web. https://t.co/dJkBzthTr4 2021-03-03 17:21:20 That’s a good idea! https://t.co/TbZmNDXPW8 2021-03-03 17:01:40 Interesting that Google may not even be giving up much revenue by cutting back on tracking users across the Web. https://t.co/w1BN0ixN1T 2021-03-02 14:41:07 Stories like are so depressing. And the fact that this type of steering is now embedded into black box algorithms is even more depressing. https://t.co/ho0Mtxu1L6 2021-03-02 13:57:54 Black students made up less than 5% of UMass Amherst’s undergraduates, but they accounted for more than 14% of students deemed “high risk” for the fall 2020 semester. “This opens the door to even more educational steering” - @ruha9 told @ToddFeathers https://t.co/rG3X5OuJ2s 2021-03-02 13:53:23 And ... here is the link! https://t.co/rG3X5OuJ2s 2021-03-02 13:52:48 @lauramoy @ToddFeathers Oh shoot! I forgot the link. Tweeting before coffee = always a mistake. 2021-03-02 13:15:03 Most risk scores in the criminal justice system do not use race as an input variable. But major universities are using risk scores that use race as a “high impact predictor” to determine which students should be steered into easier majors. @ToddFeathers reports: https://t.co/DCtXdKTI8m 2021-03-01 18:59:04 Ooh, we’re up to five design awards now! So well deserved @SamMorrisDesign! https://t.co/tu17sP9fZg 2021-03-01 14:50:26 @echarlu @themarkup @nabihasyed Aww, thank you! Your role was crucial at a very crucial time. We are very grateful! 2021-02-27 14:23:38 @mlmillerphd @rasmus_kleis @themarkup Thank you! 2021-02-27 13:10:12 In our first year, @themarkup published more articles about auditing algorithms than any other topic. I break down the various ways that we tackled algorithms in this week’s newsletter: https://t.co/qHIGuXbcgD https://t.co/unWZITuE34 2021-02-26 16:41:48 Starting soon! Tune in to watch me and @nabihasyed do interpretative dances! Ok, not really. We will probably just talk about nerdy stuff like we always do. But @iamxavier will make sure we keep it interesting! https://t.co/PO8dGmBW2Q 2021-02-26 16:39:48 I love the idea of a “senior mode” for phones (and actually all tech). There are so many people in my life (not all seniors!) who need this. https://t.co/H5pt17rMtK 2021-02-26 01:32:24 What a wonderful anniversary surprise! We just won three @SND design awards - two for Blacklight and one for @themarkup overall! Huge congratulations to design maestro @SamMorrisDesign & 2021-02-25 17:29:42 It’s hard to sum up our topsy-turvy pandemic-saturated first year in words. So @nabihasyed brilliantly decided to sum it up in numbers. The digits are in our first-ever annual report: https://t.co/Qb0kjwR413 https://t.co/Yy5AUvgHUU 2021-02-25 16:52:05 @craignewmark @vivian @themarkup @nabihasyed Thank you Craig! We are forever grateful for your generous support. 2021-02-25 16:34:33 @CraigSilverman @themarkup Thank you! And belated congrats on the Polk! So thrilled to see you and @RMac18’s fine work given the recognition it deserves! 2021-02-25 13:42:41 I truly can’t think of a better way to celebrate our one-year anniversary than with impact. https://t.co/YWvIvKeOjg 2021-02-25 11:27:35 One year ago we had cake and flowers at our office to celebrate launching. We had just signed a five-year lease. (Sob). https://t.co/VJ1Ta1b6NV 2021-02-25 11:12:44 One year ago today we began publishing @themarkup! https://t.co/iXjqRRur6T 2021-02-24 01:31:30 RT @martintisne: It’s crazy: we have standards for how to audit the food we eat, the water we drink, pretty much everything but not the alg… 2021-02-22 14:25:49 Thursday will be our one-year anniversary of publishing! So get ready for a week of anniversary tweets https://t.co/gjwpx2rbBs 2021-02-19 18:04:17 @ixtility Fair point. 2021-02-19 17:06:31 Using AI to analyze hiring videos is becoming so popular that Illinois recently enacted a law - the Artificial Intelligence Video Interview Act to give applicants some rights when it is used in their hiring. /9 https://t.co/vbNKo0jAc5 2021-02-19 17:06:30 Worth noting that one of the biggest companies selling hiring software in the U.S., HireVue, recently stopped offering facial analysis because it said it wasn’t as predictive of job performance as language analysis. /8 https://t.co/Xcgo6Maabx https://t.co/STRt0E0blK 2021-02-19 17:06:29 Retorio said its AI was trained on 12,000 people and has an accuracy rate of 90 percent. It markets it as revealing “hidden behaviors and personality traits.” https://t.co/F8JBoDNl0L The company told the journalists its software measures the impression a candidate makes. /7 https://t.co/ddBvFYopdM 2021-02-19 17:06:28 Dim lighting also doomed a test subject to a lower score for “agreeableness.” /6 https://t.co/4pv0fUmbG7 2021-02-19 17:06:27 And a bookshelf is a major win for “conscientiousness.” /5 https://t.co/l3QXfMHMKc 2021-02-19 17:06:26 Apparently a painting on the wall also gets you higher scores. /4 https://t.co/3cmBrbXHRR 2021-02-19 17:06:24 The actress got much higher ratings for openness and conscientiousness – and lower for neuroticism when she donned a headscarf. /3 https://t.co/IHkEwx2lLw 2021-02-19 17:06:23 The software, from a German startup Retorio, was easily confused by different backgrounds, lighting or even the subject wearing glasses. Look at the two scores for an actress presenting identical lines with and without glasses. /2 https://t.co/TZXOiS46yG 2021-02-19 17:06:22 Wondering if facial analysis AI can support its claims? Check out this new report from @BR_Presse, a German public broadcaster. The journalists tested hiring software that analyzes faces on real people. They found it barely works. /1 https://t.co/LX4AYIUv2X 2021-02-18 16:18:16 Authentication is information security 101. But gig workers weren’t offered even that amount of information security. We’ll be chronicling this and other challenges of having a “bot boss” in our ongoing series. 2021-02-18 16:12:12 Postmates didn’t have a strong authentication system — so its workers have been vulnerable to fraudsters, @darakerr reports. https://t.co/KbOXoBjSUa 2021-02-18 16:10:53 Today we launch a series called “Working for an Algorithm.” When your boss is an algorithm then you need strong authentication measures to ensure that you are truly communicating with your boss. Because bots, by definition, are easy to mimic. https://t.co/gBWlpFXmTQ 2021-02-16 18:10:02 Thank you @EthanZ for a wonderful conversation about @themarkup, the future of auditing algorithms and my perhaps naive hope of a non-dystopian future. https://t.co/aLovGo9uXT https://t.co/F9tnsnTFtM 2021-02-16 16:14:31 RT @SamMorrisDesign: Facebook posts rarely get flagged for being false. Even when they're blatantly untrue. Even when you're the president.… 2021-02-14 17:53:15 If you’re gonna do access journalism, this is the gold standard for how to do it. https://t.co/1QNHm7zah5 2021-02-13 13:11:47 @shoshanazuboff The end result of surveillance capitalism is not just creepy ads - it is the destruction of democracy, @shoshanazuboff argues. “Democratic governance is replaced by computational governance." https://t.co/tfNrxF3C8S 2021-02-13 13:04:26 "Surveillance capitalism rests on the discovery that behavioral data could be lifted from our lives and claimed as a company’s private property for manufacturing and sales” — @shoshanazuboff in this week’s newsletter https://t.co/elAoicMXrF 2021-02-12 22:23:39 @magiccia @themarkup We will miss you Mago! It was a pleasure working with you. 2021-02-12 22:02:57 Blacklight has been used to scan 1 million sites for privacy violations! If you haven’t used it yet, give it a try: https://t.co/W3wngeTdgT Kudos to @suryamattu the genius who built it! https://t.co/RYL0rojRRw 2021-02-12 20:20:51 @PRFlaw @daniellecitron @nabihasyed @themarkup Thank you @PRFlaw! I’ve learned so much from you. 2021-02-12 20:14:58 @rcalo @daniellecitron @nabihasyed @themarkup Right back at you! I’ve learned so much from you both. 2021-02-12 19:10:51 @daniellecitron @nabihasyed @themarkup @daniellecitron 2021-02-12 15:14:58 We don’t track clicks. We track impact. This is what impact looks like https://t.co/VQ6HKbwSzd 2021-02-12 15:05:41 Facebook says “technical issues” prevented it from realizing that groups like “Donald Trump is Our President” were political. https://t.co/ApYzrL12OG 2021-02-12 15:00:52 How Facebook’s “Supreme Court” came to be: Zuckerberg was spending too much of his precious time making decisions about which posts to take down. One of many delicious tidbits from @Klonick’s inside-the-room tale of how the @OversightBoard came to be. https://t.co/9C8UGkVOhV https://t.co/TxsOFJsIjA 2021-02-11 15:14:03 RT @jeremybmerrill: @esd @homebrew_kev @JuliaAngwin @Chronotope You can also set your account's gender here: https://t.co/Cr70dTl25I Thoug… 2021-02-11 13:29:18 Google doesn’t let advertisers target job, housing and credit ads by gender. But until @jeremybmerrill alerted them, Google was letting advertisers exclude people of “unknown gender” from seeing their ads. https://t.co/trkvzVGKeh 2021-02-11 01:13:38 Yes! And I’ll say it again and again. https://t.co/xJodjdr3Mo 2021-02-10 14:13:16 Thanks so much @MeeraSelva1 for a great global discussion. The questions were amazing! https://t.co/WcbDc0dodb 2021-02-10 12:40:50 Starting in 20 minutes! I’m caffeinated and ready https://t.co/XW3ZAzsT4c 2021-02-05 18:51:08 RT @themarkup: Nearly a year into publication, The Markup continues to pursue accountability and transparency while protecting our audience… 2021-02-05 11:30:30 @tombrossman @revue @Fastmail Thank you for letting me know! We’ve heard a few reports like this and are looking into it. @varlogsimon 2021-02-04 19:10:57 Important report: many countries are passing laws against misinformation, but often those laws are used against journalists and dissidents https://t.co/R0c7oCivTe 2021-02-02 18:55:03 So true. Tech coverage has become a civil rights beat. https://t.co/zNqeaKubdp 2021-02-02 14:39:18 RT @tenuous: NEW: Shortly after the Capitol riots, @Etsy promised to crack down on listings that promoted hate or violence. Weeks later, we… 2021-02-01 03:18:43 @nicolewong @themarkup Thank you Nicole! So glad to have you in our corner. 2021-01-31 23:29:06 We pursue stories that we think would not get written if we didn't write them. We collect data that we think would not get collected if we did not collect it. We think that is journalism's highest calling. /end 2021-01-31 23:29:05 Embargoed news is a form of what I call “pre-release” journalism — stories that aim to be first but would have come out in a press release eventually. IMHO, that is not journalism’s highest calling. We should fight to get stories that wouldn’t otherwise be published. /5 2021-01-31 23:29:04 There’s been a lot of chatter on my feed about Facebook Oversight Board’s decision to release its ruling to some journalists and academics on embargo. I thought it would be worth talking about how newsrooms can and should think about embargoes. /1 2021-01-30 14:08:37 @paulvhayes Oops! You are correct. Thanks for catching that mistake. I meant to write this is clearly a bid to stave off *regulation.” 2021-01-30 13:32:54 I think my favorite insight from my discussion with @klonick was that the Facebook Oversight Board is essentially the opposite of Google’s Right to Be Forgotten “court.” The Oversight Board’s primary mission is not to remove content. It is to restore content. 2021-01-30 13:15:58 Also - someday we will have to figure out how to fix the fact that @revue gives everyone I interview a bright pink clown nose in the header image for the newsletter! Sorry Kate! 2021-01-30 13:14:10 “It is a totally crazy thing to have an essentially private world court governing public rights for an independent private corporate platform” - @Klonick In this week’s newsletter, @Klonick and I go deep on the Facebook Oversight Board. https://t.co/bB69z4aF58 2021-01-28 20:01:18 We investigate how your data is being used. Did you know, for instance, that Quest and LabCorp sell COVID-19 test results? /4 https://t.co/3d6Y2yDvko 2021-01-28 20:01:17 Happy #DataPrivacyDay. Here’s how we protect your privacy @themarkup: We don’t track you when you visit our site. We build tools to let you see who is collecting your data. We investigate how your data is being used. We offer tips on protect yourself. /1 2021-01-28 19:24:42 Thanks so much to @paulwrblanchard for having me on his @mediamasters_fm podcast to talk about #CitizenBrowser and other @themarkup projects! https://t.co/I7ooThpsyT 2021-01-28 13:18:41 Happy Data Privacy Day! Here’s how police can often use flawed, racially biased facial recognition technology even when it is banned. https://t.co/lSrgRRA1yU 2021-01-26 13:21:46 In October, Mark Zuckerberg testified in the Senate that FB would stop recommending political groups. Using #CitizenBrowser, we found that FB was still allowing group recommendations in Dec & Today @SenMarkey demands answers from FB: https://t.co/33hkc7XlkF 2021-01-24 23:18:51 @wbm312 @themarkup Thank you Whitney! That means a lot, coming from you! 2021-01-23 14:49:39 @suryamattu @themarkup Clarification: It was an old Wi-Fi project that debuted at @whitneymuseum! 2021-01-23 13:05:13 Journalists need persistent monitoring tools to serve as watchdogs for ever-changing algorithmic systems. In my newsletter this week I interview @suryamattu about persistent monitoring tools he has built: https://t.co/7qTTsxSVDz 2021-01-22 17:04:11 RT @themarkup: STARTING NOW: Meta with @TheMarkup returns with @IamXavier in discussion with our reporters @suryamattu, @alfredwkng, and @L… 2021-01-22 12:13:47 Today at noon! Tune in at https://t.co/IrhGqxI35c https://t.co/FJxeo21kTO 2021-01-21 18:21:56 Companies who said they would ban “militia” or “Offensive” content: Google Facebook Amazon Companies where we found militia content published: Google Facebook Amazon @jeremybmerrill reports: https://t.co/y3jdcNhAUx 2021-01-19 19:17:39 @RogerWCheng @darakerr @CNET @themarkup Haha, sorry! You just train them up so good :-) 2021-01-19 19:12:35 I’m thrilled to announce that @darakerr is joining us as a reporter covering labor. She has been doing a great job covering the gig economy at @cnet and we are delighted to welcome her to @themarkup team. 2021-01-19 16:00:32 @kuziemsky @LeonYin @alfredwkng It's true. And yet, we believe it is important to continue to call them to account. 2021-01-19 14:21:31 @remotewitness @LeonYin @alfredwkng Interestingly, we did not see evidence that these groups were based on user activity (we can't see all the signs but we can see whether its based on their friends activity, and it largely was not). https://t.co/ehdZmgGL7G 2021-01-19 13:15:19 And by the way, these weren’t just mildly political groups. We found groups directly involved in planning the DC attacks. https://t.co/28sVPaeai2 2021-01-19 13:12:37 @LeonYin @alfredwkng In case you were wondering, Facebook is looking into what happened. I will never understand how we can audit their systems better than they can. https://t.co/QbhHwVaqUb 2021-01-19 13:09:31 @LeonYin @alfredwkng This is the kind of watchdog reporting that is only possible because we invested in building a national panel of Facebook users who share data with us. It’s expensive, but worth it. Here’s how we did it: https://t.co/HQVkAH9s6d 2001-01-01 01:01:01