Pattern Matching
An online speech expert explains why no online platform will be spared from content-moderation controversy
For years a battle of ideas has raged over the limits of online speech, focused largely on Facebook, Twitter, and to a lesser extent YouTube. Innately resistant to the messy and expensive work of policing users’ speech, those vast platforms have grudgingly enlarged their moderation workforces, expanded their content policies, and toughened their enforcement in response to media backlashes, congressional hearings, regulatory threats, advertiser boycotts, and revolts from their own employees. Professional racists such as Milo Yiannopoulos, conspiracy theorists such as Alex Jones, and even grassroots movements such as QAnon have all been booted from major platforms for violating policies after significant backlash. Public officials such as Donald Trump now find themselves fact-checked or their posts hidden. …
Many of us on the OneZero editorial team have at previous jobs spent months fending off PR agencies pitching gadgets of questionable use and longevity in order to produce an annual Holiday Gadget Gift Guide that may or may not have been littered with affiliate codes.
This is not that.
This year Dave Gershgorn convinced the members of our team to tell him about the service or gadget that helped them endure this year. Yes, you might see AirPods, iPads, and Nintendo Switches on this list, but you’ll also see color-changing lightbulbs, deck-building video games (I had to look that up), and other gadgets and services that bring us joy when we step away from what senior editor Sarah Kessler calls, our “desk/prisons.” …
‘Achievement and acclaim, we have learned many times over, do not provide immunity to racism, sexism, misogynoir, intimidation, censorship, or haterade’
Dr. Timnit Gebru, a leading A.I. researcher, was let go from her job at Google earlier this week. This response is written by Joy Buolamwini, the founder of the Algorithmic Justice League, a group focused on equitable and accountable A.I.
Before the headlines, the covers, the blockbuster papers, the awards, and Coded Bias, the feature-length film that glimpses our friendship, Dr. Timnit Gebru, Deborah Raji, and I locked arms in sisterhood. This was a sisterhood formed knowing that as outsiders in academic institutions and emerging researchers exploring the limitations of artificial intelligence, we would need each other.
This week Timnit was ousted from Google for demanding research integrity and Deborah was featured in the 2021 Forbes 30 under 30. These cases are examples of how as highly visible and accomplished Black women we live at the intersections of privilege and oppression, praise and evisceration. The contrast of the Forbes recognition and Google’s Gebrugate reminded me of how we were attacked by Amazon for showing that they, like their peers, sold biased A.I. products despite the impact and recognition of our prior research. …
‘Seeming more like social solitude than social networking so far’
Last month, supporters of President Donald Trump announced their exodus from Facebook to “free speech” platforms such as Parler and MeWe after Facebook banned a series of groups for promoting election fraud conspiracy theories. Within a week, Parler became the most downloaded app on Apple and Android devices, and its user base doubled to more than 10 million members, the company said.
But cutting the Facebook cord appears easier said than done, and fledgling Parler users are gathering in Facebook groups dedicated to the act of abandoning Facebook. …
Big Technology
The tech industry can sideline the press. But should it?
Over Thanksgiving break, a spectacle developed over a forthcoming New York Times story about Coinbase. News of the story first appeared on Coinbase’s blog, where the company posted an email to employees warning of an impending negative article. “The story,” it said, “will allege that several Black employees had negative experiences at Coinbase over the last few years.”
Soon after Coinbase’s post went up, a chorus of tech insiders implored their peers to cut off the press, and tell their stories themselves. “Build your own media arm, hire an [editor-in-chief], and go direct,” Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale tweeted. “The quality of traditional publications is declining simultaneously with our need for them,” said Y-Combinator co-founder Paul Graham. …
‘Your life gets worse when you start advocating for underrepresented people’
Timnit Gebru, one of Google’s most prominent researchers on ethics and computer vision, says she was fired this week after sending an email to Google Brain Women and Allies, an internal resource group at the company.
The email alludes to Google censoring one of Gebru’s research papers without talking to her about it, as well as the poor treatment of those who advocate for underrepresented people at the company. The email was published in full on the outlet Platformer.
After sending the email, Gebru had an exchange with managers and privately threatened to quit unless certain undisclosed conditions were met. …
Gebru is known for influential research about bias in facial recognition
Timnit Gebru, a pioneering researcher on algorithmic bias, said Wednesday night that she had been abruptly let go by Google, where she was technical co-lead of the company’s Ethical Artificial Intelligence Team, after she had privately threatened to resign.
Gebru is known for her co-authorship with Joy Buolamwini of an influential 2018 paper on bias in facial recognition software, among other work. The study found that three leading facial recognition systems were far more likely to misidentify women and people of color than white men. The findings helped to fuel a backlash against facial recognition that has led some major companies and jurisdictions to stop developing or using the technology. …
‘This complaint makes clear that workers have the right to speak to issues of ethical business and the composition of management’
Google illegally surveilled and fired employees for participating in organizing efforts last year, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) said in a complaint filed on Wednesday.
The complaint alleges that the technology giant violated labor laws after spying on, interrogating, and terminating employees Laurence Berland and Kathryn Spiers, both former engineers at Google’s San Francisco office.
Last November, Berland was suspended after publicly opposing Google’s stance on the use of its technology by government agencies. He was fired later that month after organizing employees against the company’s hiring of union-busting firm IRI Consultants, which Googlers learned of from their colleagues’ public calendar entries. …
Big Technology
Uber’s former chief business officer discusses the gig app’s future in an uncertain climate
OneZero is partnering with the Big Technology Podcast from Alex Kantrowitz to bring readers exclusive access to interview transcripts with notable figures in and around the tech industry.
This week, we’re joined by Emil Michael, Uber’s former chief business officer. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
To subscribe to the podcast and hear the interview for yourself, you can check it out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Overcast.
Uber is facing a difficult moment amid the coronavirus pandemic. The service, built on the belief that people would forsake car ownership in favor of its ride-hailing service, is watching many of its customers buy cars and stay home. The new trouble comes after the company worked to right itself after years of turbulence under ex-CEO Travis Kalanick’s leadership. Emil Michael, the former Uber chief business officer and confidant of Kalanick, joined the Big Technology Podcast to discuss Uber’s business prospects, its culture, its current leadership, and its controversies. …
In 2020, Venmoing total strangers in need became a radical act of support — and trust
Raised in a six-bedroom mansion in Philadelphia’s outer exurbs — the kind with a grand circular driveway, tucked 100 yards from the street — 25-year-old Jake learned from an early age that wealthy families like his had a moral obligation to give back through charity.
Jake, who asked OneZero to protect his last name, shares his surname with a major college that renamed itself in honor of his late grandmother. His grandfather, the millionaire founder of a family-run tax software firm, cut $2,500 checks each Christmas to the charities each grandchild selected. Growing up, Jake watched his parents primp for charity galas and endow scholarships. They would casually pick up the tuition of kids they met on their international vacations. …
