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A teen and his family raised almost $2 million in venture funding and designed a better web filter for schools.
During early COVID lockdowns, a teen raised $1.8 million in venture funding and built a web filter with a team of data scientists and psychologists that he now hopes will help students safely surf the web
In , you could pay several hundred dollars per month for car insurance, even with a good driving record.
We analyzed over 52,000 pages of documents trying to find out why:
Car insurers in Michigan are not allowed to use race when setting premiums, but Black drivers are still being penalized
Michigan passed a law to control its steep premium prices, but it still allows insurers to circumvent many of the protections it appeared to institute and charge Black communities some of the highest prices in the country.
With Outlier Media:
An investigation by The Markup and Outlier Media found lawmakers created loopholes big enough to drive through
Google and Meta brag about their models’ high scores on popular benchmarks. But experts say the tests don’t tell you anything practical about these products.
Benchmarks used to rank AI models are several years old, often sourced from amateur websites, and, experts worry, lending automated systems a dubious sense of authority
It’s that time of the year again: summer reading list! Check out what our combined team is reading this summer, and let us know if you have anything to add:
Chip away at your TBR pile with these recs
A collective of Indigenous migrants, Concej0 de Pueblos Originarios Nueva York, is filling the gaps in language access that New York City hasn’t. Learn more ⬇️
The Concejo de Pueblos Originarios combats vaccine misinformation, translates for fellow migrants in court, and works with linguists to create new Indigenous words.
You might have heard stories about students going to Taco Bell for WiFi to do their homework.
California’s opportunity to spend $1.8 billion to close that digital divide begins next week, but some believe the process is designed to fail.
A nearly $2 billion initiative to remedy the digital divide is designed to fail, advocates say
This Armenian influencer is using social media to preach QAnon-style conspiracy theories and anti-vax misinfo.
How that’s impacting his community:
Barthev Gulumian uses his daily videos to discuss the Bible, as well as QAnon-style conspiracy theories and why COVID vaccines are “poison”
Sometimes the best thing to do might be to just ignore the misinformation and not engage in internet flame wars.
Our latest newsletter on playing politics in the context of social media’s landscape of no context:
A conversation with Sasha Issenberg about his book on how to win elections in the new normal of omnipresent fake news
It took him 49 days to travel from China to the U.S.-Mexico border, via the step-by-step instructions learned from influencers on China’s version of TikTok. The reality is harsher than he thought.
Videos on China’s TikTok, Douyin, give Chinese migrants step-by-step instructions on how to get to the United States—and then leave them stranded upon arrival
Algorithmic bias could “cost people’s lives”: The AI designed to prevent veteran su***de prioritizes White men and ignores survivors of sexual violence.
An AI program designed to prevent su***de among U.S. military veterans prioritizes White men and ignores survivors of sexual violence
This Vietnamese-speaking influencer peddled misinfo to hundreds of thousands of YouTube subscribers.
Sonia Ohlala borrows heavily from right-wing media outlets and even broadcast from Washington DC on the day of the Capitol riots. But who is she?
At Cornell University’s library, circulation records aren’t saved or shared, and students can do research on library computers and keep their browsing habits private.
Why is that important?
Digital collections put library patrons’ privacy at risk
NEW: Major mortgage lenders are sharing sensitive user data with Facebook.
If you’ve been on the market for a home, the platform could know about your credit, your address, and more.
With USA TODAY ⬇️
More than 200 national and regional lenders share sensitive user data with Facebook. Experts say it might be illegal
“There must just have been gross malfeasance in terms of setting this chatbot up.”
Columbia professor on NYC's AI chatbot ⬇️
Jonathan Soma on the power and pitfalls of AI and chatbots
Congress can’t even seem to pass legislation that has both broad public and industry support.
This failure is leading to the closure of a popular government program that helped millions get online.
More than half of the House supports a bill to extend funds. But it can’t get out of committee
We just updated our guide to prepare your phone for a protest. These simple steps could go a long way in protecting your privacy and safety.
Check it out:
Simple steps to take before hitting the streets
“One of the most successful strategies for quelling dissent is to make people feel like they have no privacy.”
Watchful technologies lets colleges track students’ whereabouts. Critics see them as a slippery slope with real consequences for protest.
A Markup examination of a typical college shows how students are subject to a vast and growing array of watchful tech, including homework trackers, test-taking software, and even license plate readers
Internet or groceries?
The end of the Affordable Connectivity Program has left millions weighing their options.
What that looks like in California, via CalMatters.org:
Roughly half of Affordable Connectivity Program recipients are military families, one in four live in rural communities, and one in five are households with people who are 65 or older
AI is one of the most-hyped technologies of our time.
But in a California community center for Vietnamese immigrants, no one knew about it.
That means no one knew how to look for it. How investigative reporter Lam Thuy Vo is changing this, in our latest with CalMatters.org:
Using slides, hand gestures, and the Vietnamese vocabulary of a five-year-old, we talked about fake faces
✔️ Scrapped lesson plans
✔️ Hefty appeal processes
✔️ Digital dysfunction
How web filters affect educators’ work:
Educators describe scrapped lesson plans, laborious appeal processes, and digital dysfunction in response to The Markup’s latest investigation
A telehealth company specializing in mental health will limit the patient data it uses for advertising, following an FTC order.
The company, Cerebral, must also pay a $7 million fine for info it already disclosed. With STAT:
Telehealth company Cerebral will pay a $7 million fine and limit the consumer health data it uses for advertising purposes under a new FTC order
Deepfakes have made their way into this election cycle, blurring the line between fact and fiction.
How to spot them:
A guide to spotting audio and video deepfakes from a professor who’s studied them for two decades
Self-guided apartment tours are becoming more and more common.
But there’s a catch—you’ll probably be asked to hand over your biometric data in the process. NEW:
With the rise of self-guided tours, many companies are requiring facial recognition to see a property
NEW TOOL: Students can connect to school Wi-Fi and monitor their school’s censorship in just a few clicks.
Share with a K-12 student in your life ⬇️
If you are a K-12 student, help extend our internet censorship investigation by connecting to your school’s wifi and clicking on websites to test them.
NEW DATA: Schools censorblock much of the web—and the practice is inhibiting students’ learning and even safety.
With USA TODAY:
The Trevor Project? Blocked. Planned Parenthood? Blocked. NASA? BLOCKED
New Yorkers may soon have gun detectors and massive robots in subway stations.
But when will we have tech that keeps people off the tracks?
Rather than security robots or gun detectors, officials could invest in tech that deters someone from jumping or being pushed into the tracks
We coded retroactively and it damn near wrecked us. 😵💫
We coded retroactively and it damn near wrecked us
Instagram will no longer recommend “political” content to users from accounts they don’t follow.
Check whether your content’s reach is being limited:
The platform will not “proactively recommend content about politics.” See if what you’ve posted counts
“It’s the same problems over and over again.”
Dave Maass of Electronic Frontier Foundation says CBP has thrown money at surveillance tech for years, without aiding the border crisis.
Why he and other experts don’t think upgrading tech with AI will help:
Human rights advocates warn of algorithmic bias, legal violations, and other dire consequences of relying on AI to monitor the border
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AI data centers are draining energy and water resources, and regulators aren’t keeping up. Questions about ChatGPT and other AI tech’s impact on the environment? Ask us in the comments below. . . . #chatgpt #ai #generativeart #generativeai #artificialintelligence #climatechange #environment #gretathunberg #planetearth #energy #dalle
Shocked but not surprised 🫠 we need the people and communities most impacted by AI’s pitfalls on AI councils like Meta’s. . . . #AI #artificialintelligence #meta #tech #generativeai #equity #racialbias #racism #technews #google
Meta is back at it again… this time, collecting sensitive data from mortgage lenders’ sites. . . . #homeownership #homeowner #mortgage #mortgagebroker #dataprivacy #privacy #data #credit #creditscore
🏡 Have you seen this trend in housing? Let us know in the comments. . . . #facialrecognition #landlords #landlordproblems #faceid #ai #artificialintelligence #facescan #dataprivacy #privacy #data #househunting #rent #tenants #renters
The company's CEO claims the tech could “save lives” in the event of a shooting. Read more at mrkup.org/axon.
Is this all news to you? . . . #ai #climatechange #artificialintelligence #chatgpt #chatgpt3 #chatgpt4 #globalwarming
A new study from Purdue revealed that a one-hour Zoom call produces between 150 to 1,000 grams in carbon dioxide. That can be cut dramatically by just turning off your camera. Zoom isn’t the only tech with a serious carbon footprint. Learn more by reading here: https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/blog/ai-internet-carbon-footprint/
It’s here ✨ A breakdown of the most useful info to find in any privacy policy: http://mrkup.org/CoLpH
“We need to understand, as the U.S. Congress, whether or not Meta is collecting, has collected, has access to, or is storing, medical or health data for U.S. persons.” Senator Jon Ossoff questioned Meta’s chief product officer in a Senate committee hearing last week:
The site in question is Hey Jane, and most of the trackers were removed after we flagged them. The company provides access to abortion pills by mail, a service advocates say has become critically important in the wake of Roe v. Wade being overturned. Now, many worry about the consequences this kind of tracking could have on abortion seekers. Read more of what we found at mrkup.org/heyjane.
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