Julia Angwin @JuliaAngwin Twitter profile

Pinned Tweet

Julia Angwin

4 years

Now more than ever trying to live by these rules: 📍Show Up 📍Pay Attention 📍Tell the Truth 📍Don’t be Attached to the Consequences

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Last Seen Profiles

@AsakaDistillery

@rkeithbyrd

@ASAPJADEN_41

@elizashapiro

@Capt_Jordan2814

@Mirko_17x

@14Ragazzi

@Deejay_vlm

@emak_emak_emak

@FunkyPsyche

@RagnarokMg

@ilasports

@ClarityEAFC

@LouiseOnAir

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@ScottPenner

@keeniiya

@AughnamullenGFC

@WESTSIDEBARBELL

@octobies

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@xoaidaox

@Jaizurr

@ev3ntic

@MSFTDeepSpeed

@AssetStore

@IvanFloch_

@OpusArtsEvents

@prn_Edg

@SjSpinner

@chadwickboseman

@TyeSportsRadio

@Goldenlionbrum

@lu_luchina71

@yellowjketsgifs

@RiceCoaches

Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

7 years

Roger Ailes once threatened me that he had the rest of his life to get back at me for an article I wrote. Looks like he ran out of time.

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

3 years

🧵: 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.”

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

6 years

LOL Facebook just offered me a $30 credit to boost my post about my investigation into discriminatory ads on their platform. ( ICYMI ) They suggested that I might want to target my ads by “gender and age range” #automatedmarketingfail

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

2 years

Today's journalism lesson: "On background" is a request for anonymity. To be honored, it must be agreed to by both parties. It cannot be unilaterally declared. That's why today we are publishing an email from Amazon which they insist was on background:

alisa-carroll-comment

www.documentcloud.org

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

4 years

Remember when a Google search used to lead you somewhere? Now it increasingly just keeps you on Google. In fact, Google results take up 62.6% of the first screen of search results in a sample of 15,000 searches.

Google’s Top Search Result? Surprise! It’s Google – The Markup

The search engine dedicated almost half of the first page of results in our test to its own products, which dominated the coveted top of the page

themarkup.org

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

6 years

Wow, thanks @facebook . I’ve never been thanked before by a company that I’ve covered so aggressively. Maybe there is hope for civil public discourse in this world, after all…

Meta

@Meta

6 years

Thanks @JuliaAngwin . You've done a lot to uncover issues in our ads systems, which we've worked hard to fix. This new API is an important step towards greater transparency + other changes we're making like view ads and the archive going back 7 years for all political & issue ads.

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

6 years

Last year I wrote about how Facebook let housing advertisers discriminate by race: Today: turns out Facebook didn’t fix it, despite its promises.

Facebook (Still) Letting Housing Advertisers Exclude Users by Race

After ProPublica revealed last year that Facebook advertisers could target housing ads to whites only, the company announced it had built a system to spot and reject discriminatory ads. We retested...

www.propublica.org

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

4 years

Journalism is supposed to afflict the comfortable. So we built an app for that. Introducing Blacklight – a privacy tool that lets you scan any website and see how you are being surveilled. Built by the incomparable @suryamattu .

Blacklight – The Markup

A Real-Time Website Privacy Inspector

themarkup.org

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

6 years

Your identity wasn’t stolen. You are still you. Your financial institution failed to properly the authenticate the person who was impersonating you.

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

6 years

Some personal news: today is my last day at ProPublica. I’ve loved my time here, but I’m starting a crazy adventure. I want to see if I can scale up my style of tech-driven investigations by building a newsroom around it. /1

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

7 years

My latest investigation: Facebook’s secret censorship algorithm that protects white men more than black children.

Facebook’s Secret Censorship Rules Protect White Men From Hate Speech But Not Black Children

A trove of internal documents sheds light on the algorithms that Facebook’s censors use to differentiate between hate speech and legitimate political expression.

www.propublica.org

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

7 years

2016: Russian trolls secretly place political ads on Facebook Today: we start monitoring political ads on FB

Help Us Monitor Political Ads Online

ProPublica launches a “PAC” to scrutinize campaign ads on Facebook.

www.propublica.org

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

5 years

I’m devastated to have been forced out of the organization I conceived to pursue rigorous, evidence-based tech accountability journalism. I will continue to pursue that mission and I hope to find other ways to build the field.

The Real Team Markup

@MarkupReal

5 years

The editorial team of @team_markup has signed a statement of unequivocal support for our Editor in Chief, @JuliaAngwin :

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

7 years

Automation FAIL: Facebook auto-emails me urging me to buy an ad to promote my post about their Jew-hating ad category.

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

3 years

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):

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

1 year

Ban TikTok? Most of the national security allegations against TikTok could just as easily be levied against the U.S. tech giants. So let's pass laws forcing all tech to serve us better. My latest for @nytopinion :

Opinion | How to Fix the TikTok Problem (Published 2023)

If only Big Tech were getting the same scrutiny and enforced accountability that TikTok is enduring.

www.nytimes.com

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

1 year

Let’s talk about consent. Do you feel like you ever properly consented to being surveilled online constantly, having a profile built of your interests and having that profile made available to anyone who could pay for it? EU regulators don’t think so either. /1

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

5 years

So.. Google will prevent ad-blockers other than AdBlockPlus from running in Chrome … ...One day after Google won an antitrust ruling that said it was OK for Google to pay AdBlockPlus to whitelist Google's ad tracking.

Proceeding against whitelisting contract between Google and Eyeo terminated after amendments to the...

www.bundeskartellamt.de

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

3 years

Facebook is a newstand. But no one can see which news Facebook is pushing to the top. So we built an app for that called #CitizenBrowser . Our first finding: the sharp impact of Facebook’s political ad ban reversal in the Georgia Senate elections. /1

In Georgia, Facebook’s Changes Brought Back a Partisan News Feed – The Markup

Ahead of crucial senate runoffs, Facebook reversed its political ad ban, and the impact was visible on users’ feeds

themarkup.org

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

7 years

Wanna buy ads targeted to reach Jew-haters? Until we told them about it, Facebook was selling them.

Facebook Enabled Advertisers to Reach ‘Jew Haters’

After being contacted by ProPublica, Facebook removed several anti-Semitic ad categories and promised to improve monitoring.

www.propublica.org

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

6 years

In light of Facebook-Cambridge Analytica kerfuffle, it’s worth reviewing Facebook’s long history of lax enforcement against apps and partners who steal data from its users. /1

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

3 years

In July, we calculated that Google was taking up 41% of the first page of search results to promote its own properties. Today we are releasing a browser extension that shows you just the classic search results. Built by @tenuous @SamMorrisDesign

Introducing Simple Search – The Markup

A new browser extension from The Markup

themarkup.org

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

5 years

Thread alert. Facebook’s changes to its ad targeting system are a huge win for civil rights. I want to tell a story about how that a few journalists helped that change came about - it’s a story of curiosity, persistence, teamwork, tips and expertise. /1

Meta Newsroom

@MetaNewsroom

5 years

Doing More to Protect Against Discrimination in Housing, Employment and Credit Advertising

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

3 years

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

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

4 years

We just figured out why traffic to @themarkup has been spiking. Our story about Google equating black girls with porn has made us rank really high in Google search results for porn! Is there such a thing as algorithmic irony?

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

5 years

I am so grateful to be returning to @team_markup as Editor-in-Chief along with my incredible team of journalists. We are thrilled to welcome the incomparable @nabihasyed as President and the magnificent @elarrubia as Managing Editor for Investigations. /1

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

6 years

Dozens of companies including Verizon, Amazon, UPS, Goldman Sachs - and Facebook itself - are using Facebook’s micro targeting to ensure that their job ads are only shown to younger viewers — a joint @Propublica @NYT investigation.

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

2 years

Critics have long suspected that predictive policing software was racially biased. Today, we have the answer: @themarkup & @gizmodo analyzed 5.9 million algorithmic crime predictions. We found they disproportionately target Black & Latino areas. /1

Crime Prediction Software Promised to Be Free of Biases. New Data Shows It Perpetuates Them – The...

Millions of crime predictions left on an unsecured server show PredPol mostly avoided Whiter neighborhoods, targeted Black and Latino neighborhoods

themarkup.org

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

4 years

Last week, Mark Zuckerberg vowed that Facebook was fighting misinformation. This week, @themarkup was able to buy an ad targeting Facebook users who were interested in “pseudoscience.”

Want to Find a Misinformed Public? Facebook’s Already Done It – The Markup

While vowing to police COVID-19 misinformation on its platform, Facebook let advertisers target users interested in “pseudoscience”

themarkup.org

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

2 months

I’m delighted to announce that today I’m launching a new nonprofit journalism studio: Proof News. Proof is into proving things! We question, test, and investigate the most important issues. We will always tell you what we know and what we don’t know.

Proof

Proof provides data-driven reporting and analysis of the most important questions of our time. Join our mailing list for updates.

www.proofnews.org

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

1 year

I’m sad to report that I am leaving @themarkup to pursue other projects, which I will announce soon. It was an honor and a privilege to found @themarkup five years ago to create an investigative newsroom that integrated engineers and journalists. /1

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

3 years

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:

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

3 years

Today the Supreme Court will hear arguments about an outdated anti-hacking law, the CFAA, that threatens data journalists like us @themarkup with criminal penalties. We filed an amicus brief And we are wearing our #ScrapingIsNotACrime t-shirts today.

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

7 years

The underfunding of the Census is a really big deal for accountability journalism. I use Census data in nearly every big data project.

Mike Ananny

@ananny

7 years

This'll likely get buried today but the US Census director quit. The census is a hugely important part of democracy.

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

5 years

Fired tech reporters lunch! ⁦ @kashhill ⁩

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

3 years

2/ @leonyin and @asankin found that YouTube’s ad portal blocked search results for one-third of the 62 racial & social justice phrases tested. For example: All the phrases we tested containing the word “Muslim” were blocked, even innocuous ones like Muslim fashion.

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

2 years

In light of the recent US settlement with Facebook, I want to tell y’all a story about how hard it is to make change in our algorithmic world, why you need a village of researchers, and why law enforcement agencies need to get better at tech. /1

Meta Agrees to Alter Ad Technology in Settlement With U.S. (Published 2022)

The Justice Department had accused Meta’s housing advertising system of discriminating against Facebook users based on their race, gender, religion and other characteristics.

www.nytimes.com

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

3 years

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.

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

2 years

It goes without saying that people whose literal job title is "spokesperson" should rarely if ever qualify for anonymity because of fear of retaliation.

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

3 years

Hello Facebook PR guy. Yes, we do have a small sample in GA. We would love a larger sample. But FB does all it can to prevent independent auditing of its platform. 54 people is not perfect. But it's better than letting FB police itself (track record on that: 👎🏻👎🏻).

Andy Stone

@andymstone

3 years

@JuliaAngwin Interesting that in this whole Twitter thread you don't mention the sample size - 54 people out of a record (for a runoff) 3 million ballots cast. I'm no PhD but I've heard that the plural of anecdote is not data.

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

8 years

The Cato Institute’s timeline of US govt surveillance of political activists is incredible

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

5 years

Facebook’s algorithm prevents a job ad promising equal pay for women - apparently because Facebook decided that equal pay is a political issue and thus the ad must be submitted for political vetting.

Emily Cornella

@CornellaEmily

5 years

@JuliaAngwin thought you would be interested in this article detailing more of FB's algorithmic injustice: . FB rejected a job ad that promises equal pay — once via algorithm, once via manual review.

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

3 years

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 :

Split Screen: How Different Are Americans’ Facebook Feeds? – The Markup

Snapshots from the Facebook feeds of our Citizen Browser panelists illuminate how Facebook’s recommendation algorithm siloes information on the platform.

themarkup.org

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

8 years

Today, as part of our algorithms series, we are launching a tool that lets you see what Facebook knows about you.

Breaking the Black Box: What Facebook Knows About You

We live in an era of increasing automation. But as machines make more decisions for us, it is increasingly important to understand the algorithms that produce their judgments.

www.propublica.org

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

4 years

Facebook’s black box algorithm charged the Biden campaign higher ad rates on average than it charged the Trump campaign. A new investigation by @jeremybmerrill :

Facebook Charged Biden a Higher Price Than Trump for Campaign Ads – The Markup

In swing states, Biden paid average ad rates of $34 compared with Trump’s average of $17 in July and August

themarkup.org

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

3 years

5/ As always, we show our work by providing detailed methodologies and access to our data.

How We Discovered Google’s Social Justice Blocklist for YouTube Ad Placements – The Markup

Despite committing to dismantling systemic racism, YouTube blocks advertisers from using many racial justice and cultural identity terms to target videos for ads

themarkup.org

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

3 years

🚨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:

Amazon Puts Its Own “Brands” First Above Better-Rated Products – The Markup

The online giant gives a leg up to hundreds of house brand and exclusive products that most people don’t know are connected to Amazon

themarkup.org

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

3 years

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 & @colinlecher report:

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

10 years

Awesome: @lorrietweet in her dress printed with the most common passwords http://t.co/zbYf0jrhHS

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

1 year

👇🏼 🧵Princeton researchers studied Twitter’s new blue checkmarks & find they may be illegally deceptive and could violate Twitter’s FTC consent decree.

Jonathan Mayer

@jonathanmayer

1 year

Our research calls into question whether Twitter Blue is legal. Continued use of the blue check and the term verification, when they are so misleading and harmful to consumers, could constitute a deceptive business practice under the FTC Act and state consumer protection laws.

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

4 years

Bezos clarifies, under questioning, that that global retail market includes every single type of retail including restaurants… Turns out Amazon’s market share of online retail is closer to 40%, he admits. Defining your market is THE key argument in antitrust.

Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

4 years

Market share claims by tech CEOs: Facebook: We have tons of competition. Amazon: we have less than 1% of the $25 trillion global retail market. Apple: We don’t have a dominant position in any market. Google: No comment.

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

5 years

I am so moved and grateful for all the support flooding in. If ever there was a silver lining in having your dream stolen from you, it is all the love that is coming in. Thank you.

The Real Team Markup

@MarkupReal

5 years

Support for @JuliaAngwin extends beyond our newsroom as well

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

2 years

This particular case was extra weird, though, because the Amazon spokesperson was ok with being identified but wanted to be paraphrased, not quoted directly. We don't allow others to dictate how we use the information they provide us.

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

1 year

ChatGPT is great at its job. But its job is to be a bullshit generator -- an automated creator of plausible lies. "It is very good at being persuasive, but it’s not trained to produce true statements" @random_walker says in my latest newsletter. /1

Decoding the Hype About AI – The Markup

A conversation with Arvind Narayanan

themarkup.org

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

2 years

If we didn't agree it was on background, then it was not. Because it destroys trust with readers, we only grant anonymity when a source faces retaliation and we can't get the information any other way.

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

8 years

Facebook lets advertisers block blacks, hispanics from seeing ads - which could violate anti-discrimination laws.

Facebook Lets Advertisers Exclude Users by Race

Facebook’s system allows advertisers to exclude black, Hispanic, and other “ethnic affinities” from seeing ads.

www.propublica.org

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

2 years

And what was Amazon all fussed about? That would be today's investigation by @darakerr and @tenuous about rising COVID cases in Amazon warehouses:

Data Provided by Amazon Workers Offers Rare Glimpse into COVID Cases in California Warehouses – The...

Workers say getting sick leave and information on outbreaks can be a struggle

themarkup.org

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

3 years

Facebook says “technical issues” prevented it from realizing that groups like “Donald Trump is Our President” were political.

The Markup

@themarkup

3 years

Facebook is blaming technical issues for its broken promise to Senator Markey and Congress that it would stop recommending political groups to its users before the November election. @alfredwkng and @leonyin report.

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

7 years

THREAD => Here’s a short story about journalism and freedom of expression./1

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

7 years

This is what automated anti-semitism looks like:

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

6 years

Come work with me! New job posting at @ProPublica for a job investigating the tech platforms...

Join ProPublica to Report on the Technology Platforms Dominating Our Lives

ProPublica is an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest.

www.propublica.org

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

9 years

Hmmm, Atlantic article on rise of ubiquitous surveillance is complaining that I block ad tracking technology.

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

6 years

If ever there was a time when journalists needed to work harder to analyze the impacts of technology on society, this is it. So @thejefflarson and I are going to give it a try. /2

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

6 years

So, in short, data theft has very few consequences for the the companies. Oil companies spill oil - they pay for the cleanup. Data companies spill data - we pay for our own cleanup as best we can by tweaking our privacy settings or vowing to quit Facebook. Weak sauce at best.

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

7 years

I was surprised they thought a journalist would be willing to censor her own work. That cannot and should not ever be the norm. /END

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

2 years

Turns out Facebook was vacuuming up student data that was being entered on online financial aid applications. The latest @themarkup investigation by @suryamattu @colinlecher , enabled by the tools developed by @MozillaRally .

Surya Mattu

@suryamattu

2 years

. @colinlecher and I found that sent financial aid applicants’ personal data to FB. For those not in the US, this is the site where students need to go to apply for help affording college. 2/

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

4 years

I’m so thrilled to be launching @themarkup with my favorite topic: price discrimination. Big data and predictive algorithms can enable the ability to tailor prices to individuals on a massive scale, just the way that online ads are now micro-targeted.

Suckers List: How Allstate’s Secret Auto Insurance Algorithm Squeezes Big Spenders – The Markup

Insurers are supposed to price based on risk, but Allstate’s algorithm put a thumb on the scale

themarkup.org

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

7 years

Hey Steve Bannon, thanks for the T-shirt idea. @ProPublica is selling "we're not shutting up" shirts here.

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

7 years

The only reason we know about this is a Facebook internal investigation. Is this the oversight we need for election advertising?

Carol Leonnig

@CarolLeonnig

7 years

SCOOP on RUSSIA: Facebook reveals to Congress it found it sold political ads to Russian troll farm in 2016 election

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

6 years

ICYMI Facebook’s announcement that it is shutting down relationships with data brokers is a big deal. /1

Shutting Down Partner Categories | Meta

We want to let advertisers know that we will be shutting down Partner Categories. This product enables third-party data providers to offer their targeting directly on Facebook. While this is common...

about.fb.com

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

7 years

Here’s the latest in our series on algorithmic accountability - a look at disparities in auto insurance prices:

Minority Neighborhoods Pay Higher Car Insurance Premiums Than White Areas With the Same Risk

Our analysis of premiums and payouts in California, Illinois, Texas and Missouri shows that some major insurers charge minority neighborhoods as much as 30 percent more than other areas with similar...

www.propublica.org

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

8 years

This past summer Google quietly dropped its historic ban on merging Web browsing info with your name.

Google Has Quietly Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking

Google is the latest tech company to drop the longstanding wall between anonymous online ad tracking and user’s names.

www.propublica.org

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

3 years

How it started / How it's going Facebook & Holocaust denial edition

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

3 years

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:

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

2 years

Why should you care about privacy if you have nothing to hide? Because privacy is about power, not creepiness or secrets, says @neilmrichards in this week's newsletter:

Why Privacy Matters – The Markup

A conversation with Neil Richards

themarkup.org

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

4 years

I went on vacation and came back to find that Facebook had quietly ended racial ad profiling. It’s a big change. Over the years, Facebook’s racial ad targeting has been repeatedly found to enable illegal discrimination.

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

6 years

In September we began a crowdsourcing project to collect political ads on Facebook Today we are releasing a searchable database of all the ads we’ve collected so far

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

3 years

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 :

Uber and Lyft Experiment with Labor Practices Amid Driver Shortage – The Markup

Drivers say the companies should just pay better

themarkup.org

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

2 years

Facebook says top content on its platform comes from reputable sources like UNICEF, ABC News & the CDC. But our #CitizenBrowser data shows that sensational partisan content from Daily Wire & The Western Journal are top performers. @corintxt reports:

Facebook Isn’t Telling You How Popular Right-Wing Content Is on the Platform – The Markup

Facebook insists that mainstream news sites perform the best on its platform. But by other measures, sensationalist, partisan content reigns

themarkup.org

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

3 years

@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.

Opinion | Meet Executive Order 12333: The Reagan rule that lets the NSA spy on Americans

Why Americans should be worried about Executive Order 12333.√

www.washingtonpost.com

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

7 years

Facebook doesn’t show its users the info it buys about their income, purchases etc. from data brokers.

Facebook Doesn’t Tell Users Everything It Really Knows About Them

The site shows users how Facebook categorizes them. It doesn’t reveal the data it is buying about their offline lives.

www.propublica.org

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

7 years

France just fined Facebook for continuing to track users across the Web without their consent h/t @vtoubiana

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

4 years

Today I published my first article for @themarkup (!): the privacy pros and cons of Apple and Google’s plans for COVID-19 contact-tracing apps. TL;DR - it’s good at protecting anonymity but vulnerable to spoofing, trolls and other abuses. /1

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

1 year

Claim #2 : TikTok could use its algorithm to promote Chinese propoganda or suppress dissent. Verdict: True but the worst such abuses we've seen have come from Facebook abetting Russian propoganda, a Myanmar genocide and a U.S. insurrection.

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

7 years

I’m part of @ProPublica ’s team of accountability journalists. Here’s how to reach me.

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

6 years

This story is shocking. An entrepreneur is sentenced to 15 months in prison for taking an innovative approach to extending the life of computers - which cuts into Microsoft’s sales of new computers. h/t @Susan_Hennessey

E-waste recycler Eric Lundgren loses appeal on computer restore disks, must serve 15-month prison...

A plan to provide “restore disks” to computer users equaled copyright infringement, according to Microsoft and the government, even though the software was available free online.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

6 years

When @thejefflarson and I left ProPublica, we had no money and just a dream. Thank you a million times, @joi @zittrain @timhwang for believing in us and giving us our seed money to get started!

MIT Media Lab

@medialab

6 years

Introducing The Markup, a new venture incubated by the AI Initiative: Investigative journalism that seeks to uncover how institutions use and abuse tech in ways that harm people and damage society, founded by @JuliaAngwin , @SuePGardner , @thejefflarson .

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

6 years

In August my email account was attacked. So I wrote a reconstruction of what happened and why:

Cheap Tricks: The Low Cost of Internet Harassment

How haters attacked three ProPublica reporters with email bombs and Twitter bots and covered their tracks.

www.propublica.org

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

4 years

The NYU Ad Observatory is the only window researchers have to see microtargeting information about political ads on Facebook. Very disappointing to see that Facebook is trying to shut that down.

Alex Abdo

@AlexanderAbdo

4 years

This is a disturbing development. Last Friday, Facebook sent a cease-and-desist letter to two NYU researchers ( @LauraEdelson2 and Damon McCoy), demanding that they shut down their research into political ads and disinformation on FB’s platform.

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

4 years

Market share claims by tech CEOs: Facebook: We have tons of competition. Amazon: we have less than 1% of the $25 trillion global retail market. Apple: We don’t have a dominant position in any market. Google: No comment.

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

7 years

NYT oped calls for FB political ads to be made public. That's exactly what we're doing.

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

3 years

🚨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:

Powerful DNA Software Used in Hundreds of Criminal Cases Faces New Scrutiny – The Markup

After decades of secrecy, two judges have ruled defendants can investigate whether TrueAllele’s probabilistic genotyping algorithm works as advertised

themarkup.org

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

7 years

We've updated our how-to-leak to @ProPublica page with more info on how to safely use Signal.

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

4 years

It’s finally happening folks! @themarkup begins publishing next week! We’re thrilled to announce our board of directors today @dlboardman @MHarrisPerry @paulohm @DeleOlojede @nicolewong @sdkarle and Jason Yurasek. Welcome!

The Markup

@themarkup

4 years

Set a reminder. Mark your calendars. Turn post notifications on. The Markup launches on Feb. 25 with nonprofit, nonpartisan, data-driven investigations. Yeah, we’re excited, too.

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

8 years

There’s an algorithm that predicts future criminality - and its biased against blacks. My latest investigation:

Machine Bias

There’s software used across the country to predict future criminals. And it’s biased against blacks.

www.propublica.org

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

4 years

Anonymity is a privilege that journalists should only grant to sources who face retaliation for providing information in the public interest. Which is why @themarkup doesn’t allow corporate spokespeople to talk “on background.” My newsletter:

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

2 years

Excited to partner with @mozilla to examine how Facebook tracks users across the Internet. As @knowtheory says: Independent research is urgent because “the world cannot wait on platforms to do the right thing."

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

3 years

This week, Facebook VP Monica Bickert told Congress that financial service ads can't use microtargeting. But we found that four different credit & loan ads targeted by age to our #CitizenBrowser panelists on Facebook. @corintxt & @alfredwkng report:

Credit Card Ads Were Targeted by Age, Violating Facebook’s Anti-Discrimination Policy – The Markup

Such ads, along with other age-targeted financial product ads, may violate civil rights laws, attorneys say

themarkup.org

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Julia Angwin

@JuliaAngwin

6 years

Donald Trump is buying Facebook ads to complain about the “Fake News Machine” (Just one of the things you can learn browsing our database of political ads on FB)

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