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I Thought My Job Was To Report On Tech In India. Instead, I’ve Watched Democracy Decline. - 16 avril 2021
I love writing about tech. But covering how a Hindu nationalist government is using it to destroy a secular democracy isn’t what I signed up for.
I was in a cavernous college auditorium on the frigid winter afternoon in New Delhi in 2015 when Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, was selling the promise of India, his (...)
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Clearview AI Offered Thousands Of Cops Free Trials - 9 avril 2021
A BuzzFeed News investigation has found that employees at law enforcement agencies across the US ran thousands of Clearview AI facial recognition searches — often without the knowledge of the public or even their own departments.
A controversial facial recognition tool designed for policing has been quietly (...)
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Conspiracy Theory Books About COVID Are All Over Amazon - 28 mars 2021
Amazon is promoting COVID conspiracy books around the world.
Conspiracy theorist David Icke’s lies about COVID-19 caused Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Spotify to ban him. But on Amazon, Icke, who believes in the existence of lizard people, is recommended reading.
Despite being filled with misinformation about (...)
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This Clearview AI Patent Proposal Describes Using Facial Recognition For Dating - 14 février 2021
A Clearview AI Patent Application Describes Facial Recognition For Dating, And Identifying Drug Users And Homeless People
A patent unveiled on Thursday describes several potential uses for Clearview AI, such as creating networks for people in industries like real estate or retail to “share headshots of high-risk (...)
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Facebook Pauses Ads For Gun Accessories And Military Gear After Complaints From Lawmakers And Employees - 17 janvier 2021
“Out of an abundance of caution, we are temporarily banning ads promoting weapons accessories and protective equipment in the U.S. until at least January 22nd.”
Following complaints from Senators and employees, Facebook on Saturday said it was temporarily halting ads for gun accessories and military gear in the US (...)
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China’s Camps Have Forced Labor And Growing US Market - 6 janvier 2021
Observers have long warned of rising forced labor in Xinjiang. Satellite images show factories built just steps away from cell blocks.
ALMATY — China has built more than 100 new facilities in Xinjiang where it can not only lock people up, but also force them to work in dedicated factory buildings right on site, (...)
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Facebook Employees Leaving As Hate Speech Festers - 30 décembre 2020
A departing Facebook employee said the social network’s failure to act on hate speech “makes it embarrassing to work here.”
On Wednesday, a Facebook data scientist departed the social networking company after a two-year stint, leaving a farewell note for their colleagues to ponder. As part of a team focused on (...)
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Facebook Is Developing A Tool To Summarize News Articles - 15 décembre 2020
"We all get the privilege of seeing the future because we are making it.”
Facebook told employees on Tuesday that it’s developing a tool to summarize news articles so users won’t have to read them. It also laid out early plans for a neural sensor to detect people’s thoughts and translate them into action.
Those (...)
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Facebook’s Metric For “Violence And Incitement Trends" Is Rising - 6 novembre 2020
The metric, which assesses the potential for danger based on keywords, rose to 580 from 400 this week — a 45% increase.
As votes are being tallied across the country to determine the next US president, internal Facebook data shows that the company has seen a significant increase in what it calls “violence and (...)
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Whistleblower Says Facebook Ignored Global Political Manipulation - 14 septembre 2020
A 6,600-word internal memo from a fired Facebook data scientist details how the social network knew leaders of countries around the world were using their site to manipulate voters — and failed to act.
Facebook ignored or was slow to act on evidence that fake accounts on its platform have been undermining elections (...)
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Facebook Didn’t Remove Kenosha Militia Event Page - 3 septembre 2020
Facebook said it removed a militia event associated with the shooting of three protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin. It didn’t. Here’s what really happened, and why it could happen again.
Despite Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s previous statements that the company had removed a militia event where people discussed (...)
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Blanked-Out Spots On China’s Maps Helped Us Uncover Xinjiang’s Camps - 31 août 2020
China’s Baidu blanked out parts of its mapping platform. We used those locations to find a network of buildings bearing the hallmarks of prisons and internment camps in Xinjiang. Here’s how we did it.
In the summer of 2018, as it became even harder for journalists to work effectively in Xinjiang, a far-western (...)
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Facebook’s Kenosha Guard Militia Event Was Reported 455 Times. Moderators Said It Was Fine. - 29 août 2020
CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that the reason the militia page and an associated event remained online after a shooting that killed two people was due to “an operational mistake.”
In a companywide meeting on Thursday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that a militia page advocating for followers to bring weapons to an (...)
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A “Bug” In Instagram’s Hashtags Has Been Favoring Donald Trump - 25 août 2020
“A technical error caused a number of hashtags to not show related hashtags. We’ve disabled this feature while we investigate.”
For at least the last two months, a key Instagram feature, which algorithmically pushes users toward supposedly related content, has been treating hashtags associated with President Donald (...)
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Trump Disputing Election A Worry For Facebook Employees - 16 août 2020
Facebook employees collected evidence showing the company is giving right-wing pages preferential treatment when it comes to misinformation. And they’re worried about how the company will handle the president’s falsehoods in an election year.
Facebook employees collected evidence showing the company is giving (...)
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GEDmatch Just Made Big Changes To How Police Can Use Its Data To Solve Crimes - 27 juillet 2020
GEDmatch’s revamped genetic privacy policy could set off legal battles that go all the way to the US Supreme Court.
It just got harder for police to find the perpetrators of violent crimes by sleuthing in people’s family trees.
Days after BuzzFeed News revealed that the website GEDmatch had bent its published (...)
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Hackers Attacked Two Leading Genetic Genealogy Websites - 26 juillet 2020
First GEDmatch, the DNA database that helped identify the Golden State Killer, was hacked. Then email addresses from its users were used in a phishing attack on another leading genealogy site.
On July 19, genealogy enthusiasts who use the website GEDmatch to upload their DNA information and find relatives to fill (...)
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Many Police Departments Have Software That Can Identify People In Crowds - 28 juin 2020
BriefCam, a facial recognition and surveillance video analysis company, sells the ability to surveil protesters and enforce social distancing — without the public knowing.
As protesters demand an end to police brutality and the coronavirus pandemic sweeps the nation, police departments around the country are using (...)
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A Tech Company Spied On Police Brutality Protesters - 27 juin 2020
Data company Mobilewalla used cellphone information to estimate the demographics of protesters. Sen. Elizabeth Warren says it’s “shady” and concerning.
On the weekend of May 29, thousands of people marched, sang, grieved, and chanted, demanding an end to police brutality and the defunding of police departments in (...)
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Luxury Bag Factory Worker Jailed For A Facebook Post - 12 juin 2020
A Cambodian woman who makes bags for brands like Michael Kors and Kate Spade was jailed for two months after expressing her fears about the coronavirus.
“I’m sorry if I seem distracted, I’m not fully myself yet,” Soy Sros said, pushing sweaty brown bangs off her forehead.
It had been less than a day since Soy was (...)
