Misinformation in the Modern Age

Understanding bias in hiring algorithms and ways to mitigate it requires us to explore how predictive technologies work at each step of the hiring process.

NPR's Scott Simon speaks with Washington Post columnist Michelle Singletary about how algorithms of computer-driven lending programs, somehow, manage to discriminate against minorities.

In what may be the first known case of its kind, a faulty facial recognition match led to a Michigan man’s arrest for a crime he did not commit.

lgorithmic tools are in widespread use across the criminal justice system today. Predictive policing algorithms, including PredPol and HunchLab, inform police deployment with estimates of where crime is most likely to occur.[1] Patternizr is a pattern recognition tool at the New York Police Department that helps detectives automatically discover related crimes.[2] Police departments also use facial recognition software to identify possible suspects from video footage. District attorneys in Chicago and New York have leveraged predictive models to focus prosecution efforts on high-risk individuals.[4] In San Francisco, the district attorney uses an algorithm that obscures race information from case materials to reduce bias in charging decisions.

A 2011 Kentucky law requires judges to consult an algorithm when deciding whether defendants must post cash bail. More whites were allowed to go home, but not blacks.

Pew Research Center survey conducted Jan. 25-Feb. 8, 2021.

Roughly six-in-ten parents with lower incomes said it’s likely their homebound children would face at least one digital obstacle to doing their schoolwork

Black and Hispanic adults remain less likely than whites to say they own a traditional computer or have high speed internet at home, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in early 2019. But smartphones are playing a role in helping to bridge these differences.

Wealthy end users are getting fiber, but predominantly low-income users are not being transitioned off legacy infrastructure. The result being “digital redlining” of broadband, where wealthy broadband users are getting the benefits of cheaper and faster Internet access through fiber, and low-income broadband users are being left behind with more expensive slow access by that same carrier.

Algorithm systematically removes black YouTube creators' content, or limits how much it can earn from advertising, they allege.

Four Black YouTube creators–Lisa Cabrera, Catherine Jones, Denotra Nicole Lewis, and Kimberly Carleste Newman–have filed suit against the platform (and parent company Google), accusing it of “knowingly, intentionally, and systematically” using algorithms to “restrict access and drive them off YouTube.”

Have you ever heard of Facebook’s “real name” policy? Facebook’s policy requires users to sign up for accounts using their real names, saying that the policy helps to reduce harassment by fake accounts. Seems reasonable, yes? But, who gets to decide what a “real name” is? And how might the policy be wielded to deny access or to exclude/marginalize people?

By Jennifer Stark and Nicholas Diakopoulos

Which tech companies employ the most people of colour and which are more of a whitewash?We sifted through the global employee data of several leading tech firms where available. The data isn’t exactly black and white: not all companies declare their figures and most don’t reveal the ratio of manual labourers to executives. But some interesting patterns arise and it’s clear that some are better represented than others.

By Amy Tennery and Gina Cherelus. Reuters.

By Corey Atad. Vice, February 25, 2016

From global protests against racial injustice to the 2020 election, some Americans who use social media are taking to these platforms to mobilize others and show their support for causes or issues. But experiences and attitudes related to political activities on social media vary by race and ethnicity, age, and party, according to a Pew Research Center survey of U.S. adults conducted June 16-22, 2020.

The M+R Benchmarks Study collects a vast array of data from 201 nonprofits across a wide spectrum of issue areas, and track the key metrics that are driving digital marketing, advocacy, and fundraising programs.

This essay foregrounds how technocultural assemblages - software platforms, algorithms, digital networks and affects - are constitutive of online racialized identities.

This paper seeks to shed light on the ways people of color, in the United States, are using social media to challenge racial bias.

Twitter investigates whether the neural network that selects which part of an image to show in a photo preview favors showing the faces of white people over Black people.

US government tests find even top-performing facial recognition systems misidentify blacks at rates five to 10 times higher than they do whites.

By Rachel Kraus. Mashable, June 9, 2020

By Janice Gassam Asare.. Forbes, Apr 14, 2020

By Megan McCluskey. Time, July 22, 2020

Learn the skills that will make a dramatic difference in your ability to sort fact from fiction on the web (and everything in between).

A year into the pandemic, this is how COVID-19 is being searched. Search interest in Vaccine has reached an all-time high globally.

This factsheet identifies some of the main types, sources, and claims of COVID-19 misinformation seen so far.

Dr. Mark Sawyer of Rady Children’s Hospital recommended that the FDA authorize Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine

Michael E. Pichichero, MD, Hematology News

AFP Fact Check, AFP Australia

Concerns about the safety and effectiveness of possible vaccine, pace of approval process.

Psychologists’ research on misinformation may help in the fight to debunk myths surrounding COVID-19.

Fragile mRNA molecules used in COVID-19 vaccines can’t get into cells on their own. They owe their success to lipid nanoparticles that took decades to refine.

GAO@100: GAO-20-583SP

Claims on social media about vaccines and misleading statements about their safety.

Ihor Sawczuk, M.D., chief research officer at Hackensack Meridian Health, talks about the federal approval process for vaccines as well as why the new COVID-19 vaccines are safe for most people.

AgencyIQ explains the basics of the EUA program, its features and its potential limitations.