News Site to Investigate Big Tech, Helped by Craigslist Founder
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
>"The site will explore three broad investigative categories: how profiling software discriminates against the poor and other vulnerable groups; internet health and infections like bots, scams and misinformation; and the awesome power of the tech companies. The Markup will release all its stories under a creative commons license so other organizations can republish them, as ProPublica does."
Also, anyone interested in the high-level question of how technology impacts society is likely to enjoy the only non-fiction book written by one of my favorite authors: The Blind Giant, by Nick Harkaway.[1]
The one thing that is bugging me is - yet another project that depends on the generosity of a rich person, a project that is so important and vital.
1. Reader Funded: Accountable directly to user contributions. Common with activists. Good for not being the but needs to raise interest. Sensationalizing is a temptation. Has an echochamber risk as passion sustains it even at the cost of rationality. The viewers must both care enough to support. See cases like Greenpeace trying to ban chlorine as the element of death. 2. Patron supplied: stable funding from a wealthy base. No need to try to sensationalize or generate a profit but control rests with them. 3. Government funded: similar to 2 but vulnerable to politics usually unless held as sacrosanct. 4. Ad funded: A hybrid system of 1 and 2 essentially. A broader base of supporters and only need to care enough to read to support but advertisers have influence. 5. Endowment based - a seed fund internally accountable only. Which means either nothing to keep itself in check or somebody able to exert influence.
There are no easy answers and all exist.
The World's Email Encryption Software Relies on One Guy, Who is Going Broke (2015)
https://www.propublica.org/article/the-worlds-email-encrypti...
I really can't wait for this to take off sooner!
> Ms. Angwin compares tech to canned food, an innovation that took some time to be seen with more scrutiny.
Technology has become a boon in many ways and improved people's lives significantly, but we also seem to be heading toward a future that's completely controlled by a few powerful companies who won't (and after a certain point can't) stop being evil and making huge groups of people further disadvantaged because of said technology.
This site's emphasis on combining technologists with journalists is much needed.
I only hope it can survive the long term and that readers will support it. I for one will be looking forward to the content and supporting it monetarily or otherwise.
Shouldn't they prove "if" software discriminates before figuring out "how"? It seems like they already have a conclusion in mind which rarely produces quality results.
https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/27/really-the-claim-f...
Today people who see themselves as well-off and/or health-conscious may pride themselves on eating fresh (as well as local and in-season) foods, although it can be an expensive habit in places that don't have as much local agriculture. Restaurants will brag about how they don't use packaged food and how they made dishes from fresh ingredients.
If you go to supermarkets that cater to poorer people, you'll probably see comparatively more preserved foods, although this is far from the only factor and all supermarkets will certainly offer a significant selection of preserved foods.
This phenomenon is probably even more pronounced with "TV dinners", which when they were introduced were seen as impressive and futuristic and somewhat luxurious, and nowadays the original styles are seen as somewhat unhealthy and unappetizing and are often associated with poverty or a lack of leisure time (although there are also frozen prepared dishes that are marketed differently).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_dinner
Edit: an example of some marketing about fresh ingredients in a restaurant
https://www.chipotle.com/cooking
Chipotle isn't a very expensive restaurant but they know that being able to say or imply that they prepare most of their items on-site from fresh ingredients makes it look a lot fancier to visitors, compared to other restaurants that might use more canned or frozen ingredients.
I buy a big bad of produce from the local market and it comes to like $12. A bag of arbitrary goods from the processed isles would be 5 times that.
The only dietary staple that's expensive is meat.
My grandparents grew up on farms, they were poor, they never saw or ate a 'TV dinner' why on earth would they?
TV dinners and canned foods are not about economic poverty.
But its only fair to note, organic vegetables can be way more expensive than processed regular (commercially grown and processed) vegetables. That's pretty much the definition of commercial - where production cost is the driving factor.
It usually just means no pesticides etc..
Eating well for really cheap takes some upfront resources that really impoverished people wouldn't have, like kitchen space, cooking equipment, a lot of freezer or shelf space, equipment for freezing or canning your own food, etc.
Those things are all fairly cheap, so poor people living on a farm can afford them since it will save them a lot of money in the long run, but truly impoverished people can't afford that even if it will save them money.
Produce is cheaper than processed food universally.
100% of domiciles in the United States have refrigerators, cooking spaces, and 'shelf space'. (Did you really just use 'shelf space' as an argument?)
The facts are clear - the argument of 'cost of eating well' doesn't make a whole lot of sense because with a marginal bit of thought, it's entirely possible to eat well and save money.
If you're talking 'homeless' - well that's another thing entirely.
I think there may be some issues with 'time' - with two working parents not normative, and possibly kids, people have less time.
As for your grandparents they were poor farmers so of course labor and seeds were cheap for them - they already had the prerequisites by definition.
I'm really befuddled at some of the reasoning here.
You buy groceries, right?
Because if you do, and you look at the prices, well then it's pretty clear.
So this should be an exercise in understanding why that is the case, not trying to reason against the reality that produce is cheap.
Most produce, and most of the best foods are really cheap.
Even other things like lentils, beans, quinoa (a little more expensive), chick peas.
You just have to cook it.
As for your argument 'preserved foods should be cheaper' - which by the way is a reasonable point for someone who takes an academic perspective and doesn't actually buy groceries, the answer is simply that those 'massive costs' are indeed that massive. They include expensive things like 'metal' in the cans. Fuel for transportation. Branding. Marketing. Distribution. Supply chains. Etc.
Fresh food is accessible to everyone in America with any kind of domicile. The notion that poor people eat more processed foods due to economic situation doesn't hold a lot of water, though there might be some issues around the margins (again: time), but I suggest it's more simply due to bad behaviours and bad eating habits.
FYI: poor people are also much more likely to smoke - which is a prohibitively expensive activity. Granted - it's addictive - but still.
The thought of homemade garlic hummus with baked peppers has inspired me to go and do that literally right now. It'll cost me $1 ... but a lot of time which I don't really have ...
Edit: My grandparents did not have electricity or cars as children and did not have plumbing until middle age w/ several children. Does that count as 'poor'?
For a reflection from Jeff on Craig's role, see: https://buzzmachine.com/2018/06/11/thank-you-craig/. It's worth a look.
The law requires that the executive board to provide value to shareholders (valuation or dividends). This usually translate in quarter reports with good numbers for greater valuations. It's known that this requirement and tradition skews boards to short term goals which can damage companies' future.
This is the good scenario, just a skew for short term goals.
The bad scenario is when the quarter reports look good my quasi-illegal number juggling and also legal practices which should be illegal like a company buying it's own stocks to please shareholders.
Currently this even worse because central banks interventions from low interest rates (it has been cheaper for a company to use debt buy it's own stocks than to invest) to central banks buying stocks and causing inflated valuations.
This initiative may also be important, but it doesn't do anything to fill the void of local investigative reporting and press accountability created when Craigslist denuded local newsrooms.
It's not my money, so clearly knowing how best to use it comes easily to me.
Mr. Newmark has put it correctly when he said "we're at an information war now". I have seen it first hand how information was reported incorrectly and intentionally on popular news websites just to attack and harm individuals. Our privacy is long gone as people spying on you just so they can sell your private life information to those who have interest. Information is literally being used as weapon nowadays so it's really time we need to wake up.
I hope they have enough power that will back them up as no doubt they will face relentless pressures from the big tech companies.
Something is seriously wrong with youtube's algorithm, whether in the technical implementation or how it deals with spam/unintended consequences.
Kids watching cartoons get recommended messed up stuff (e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/65rkxv/what_i... ), watch a single Jordan Peterson video and youtube will recommend you every fringe alt-right anti-feminism video it can find for months... It is toxic, causes real harm, normalizes extremist viewpoints and is shifting the Overton window in politics.
I'm not advocating censorship in any way, my concern is if algorithms/implementation bias what people see towards what will get the strongest reaction it is at least in a similar class of harm as censorship...
I have a hunch this is a natural consequence of using something like UCB (upper confidence bound) for contextual bandits to rank results when the feature vectors are using broad user / video clusters. Are explore vs exploit reinforcement learning algorithms used in production very susceptible to adversarial spam? Any evidence of fringe videos paying for viewbots etc...
I had a pretty surreal experience last year. My youtube use is almost exclusively for learning; coding, maths, astronomy, science, and so on. Recommendations were never great for me, usually recommending videos I've already watched. At some point I inadvertently clicked a link to a teenage girl's vlog, and watched maybe 5 seconds of it before closing. Instantly half of my recommendations were teenage girl's vlogs. I then misclicked a video in recommendations a few days later, and it turned into exclusively teenage girl vlogs. A year later, it's slightly recovered, but I still get them.
I am pretty confident their recommendation would not be overrun with science if they inadvertantly click a video.
That said, I also watch numberphile and do get a bunch of like math suggestions like mathologer and v sauce.
I feel the two biggest threats to american life and freedom are "big tech" and "big news". It's about time these companies get closer scrutiny.