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Wednesday, March 21, 2018
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Holding algorithms (and the people behind them) accountable is still tricky, but doable“We were able to demystify this black box, this algorithm that had very scary connotations, and break it down into what ended up being a very simple linear model.” By Christine Schmidt. |
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Fill in the blanks: What’s still missing from the study of fake news? (A whole lot.)A big new report from the Hewlett Foundation pulls together existing research on social media, political polarization, and disinformation to show where we still need to know more. By Laura Hazard Owen. |
What We’re Reading
Digiday / Lucia Moses
The Atlantic’s new family section is built for the post-news feed era (aka a Facebook group and a newsletter) →
“The section is the first big editorial initiative by The Atlantic, now majority owned by Laurene Powell Jobs, since the publisher announced plans to grow the staff by 100 people (30 percent) overall over the next year to 18 months, with as much as half going to editorial.”
Fast Company / Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan
People are developing their own tools for investigating, nudging, and altering the world's largest social network →
“Across the web, #deletefacebook is trending–but another form of user dissent is as well. The work of researchers, designers, and artists interrogating the social media giant is reaching a new audience intent on understanding and influencing their own digital footprints.”
ProPublica / Adriana Gallardo
How ProPublica collected nearly 5,000 stories of maternal harm →
“Of all of the messages we targeted to black mothers in the database, the one that resonated the most was asking if they wanted to talk with their own mothers or daughters about their personal experiences of childbirth.”
The Conversation / Elissa Redmiles
Think Facebook can manipulate you? Look out for virtual reality →
“Combined, the intensity of virtual reality experiences and the even more personal data they collect present the specter of fake news that's much more powerful than text articles and memes. Rather, immersive, personalized experiences may thoroughly convince people of entirely alternate realities, to which they are perfectly susceptible. Such immersive VR advertisements are on the horizon as early as this year.”
Quartz / Joon Ian Wong
One WhatsApp founder says you should delete Facebook. The other uses it to share pro-Trump stories →
“WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook for $19 billion in 2014. One of the men who founded the chat app, Brian Acton, generated headlines by calling for people to #DeleteFacebook following news of the unauthorized use of 50 million users' personal data by Cambridge Analytica, a consulting firm that claims credit for Donald Trump's election victory. But Acton's WhatsApp co-founder, Jan Koum, seems to have no qualms using his Facebook account.”
Columbia Journalism Review / Mathew Ingram
'It just felt right': David Carroll on suing Cambridge Analytica →
“When I learned of the military work of the parent company [SCL Group] there was this idea that there was no longer a boundary between civilian and military sectors of this business. The data itself is intermingled, so there's election campaign data being used for other unknown, potentially clandestine, covert purposes.”
Recode / Peter Kafka
Google and Facebook can't help publishers because they're built to defeat publishers →
“Not a coincidence: Both Google and Facebook say they want to help publishers sell subscriptions to their stuff. And both Google and Facebook range from uninterested to barely interested in selling subscriptions to their own stuff.”
Journalism.co.uk / Caroline Scott
How 45 journalists started again, and built a profitable news business from scratch →
“Fifty per cent of the company is owned by the reporters, so it’s in their interest as it is their money – they are all shareholders in the paper, and are able decide what they want to write about.”