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Why Stopping Algorithmic Inequality Requires Taking Race Into Account
In 2019, Michigan lawmakers banned car insurance companies from using certain “non-driving” characteristics, like zip codes or credit scores, to calculate the price of their customers’ coverage. The reform was meant to prevent companies from upcharging certain customers on attributes not directly based on how well they drive, which is especially important when drivers in the predominantly Black city of Detroit have long paid the highest insurance prices in the country.
How We Investigated Car Insurance Loopholes in Michigan
In Detroit, residents know that their sky-high car insurance prices shape almost every aspect of Motor City life. The average cost of auto insurance is $5,300 a year, the highest of any major American city. Median household income is under $38,000, meaning the typical Detroit family spends nearly one out of every seven dollars on car insurance.
How to Get a Discount on Your Car Insurance
As part of the reporting process for The Markup’s investigation into inequitable insurance pricing, we dug through more than 52,000 pages of documents that insurance companies filed with government regulators detailing their pricing algorithms. As a result, we learned about the many different ways you can save some money...
Michigan’s “Fair and Reasonable” Reforms Allowed Car Insurers to Charge More in Black Neighborhoods
This article is coreported with Outlier Media, a service journalism organization in Detroit. Sign up for its newsletters. Alana, a retired preschool teacher on a fixed income, gave up driving because of how expensive it was to insure her car. Insurance, she recalled, cost more than her monthly auto payments. “I’ve turned down at least three good-paying jobs because I couldn’t get there,” she said. “I was so hurt. I went into a deep depression after that.”
Everyone Is Judging AI by These Tests. But Experts Say They’re Close to Meaningless
Technology companies are locked in a frenzied arms race to release ever-more powerful artificial intelligence tools. To demonstrate that power, firms subject the tools to question-and-answer tests known as AI benchmarks and then brag about the results. Google’s CEO, for example, said in December that a version of the company’s...
Our Blended Newsroom’s Summer Reading List
Hello World is a weekly newsletter—delivered every Saturday morning—that goes deep into our original reporting and the questions we put to big thinkers in the field. Browse the archive here. Hey y’all,. We’re officially in the dog days of summer, which also means it’s the best time...
When Government Bureaucracy Fails Them, a Collective of Indigenous Migrants Figure It Out Themselves
In 2020, Victorio Hilario Guzmán, an Indigenous Me’phaa from southern Mexico, was killed in a Bronx hit-and-run while delivering food. His brother Elías, who also works as a deliverista, set out to seek justice, but he couldn’t understand the court proceedings. They were conducted in English, and Elías spoke Tlapaneco, the Me’phaa language, and Spanish, as his second language. To understand the court proceedings, Elías relied on Google Translate or a friend’s help. Only on the last day of sentencing, Elías said, did the court provide a Spanish translator. (New York City’s Office of Language Access did not respond to our request for comment.)
How California’s ‘once in a century’ broadband investment plan could go wrong
It’s Ko, investigative editor here. You might remember news of our merger with the fellow nonprofit newsroom CalMatters—we’ve taken a quick break from Hello World in the last two weeks to officially integrate into one staff of nearly 100. As we’re settling into our new home, it’s been heartening to see our newsrooms’ synergy speak for itself. That’s perhaps clearest through a story out this week from CalMatters’ first-ever tech reporter, Khari Johnson, who delved into California’s effort to distribute $1.8 billion to increase internet access in the state that could be doomed from the start.
A New, Dirty Vision for Higher Education
Hi, I’m Mo Al Elew, and I’m a journalism engineer here at The Markup. As protests against the war in Gaza have spread across college campuses in the U.S. over the last several months, they’ve renewed debates over academic freedom and freedom of speech. Nowhere is this...
These Wrongly Arrested Black Men Say a California Bill Would Let Police Misuse Face Recognition
This article is copublished with CalMatters, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics. Sign up for its newsletters. In 2019 and 2020, three Black men were accused of, and jailed for, crimes they didn’t commit after police used face recognition to falsely identify them. Their wrongful arrest lawsuits are still pending, but their cases bring to light how AI-enabled tools can lead to civil rights violations and lasting consequences for the families of the accused.
How a Defrocked Armenian Preacher Uses YouTube to Spread Misinformation to His Flock
Reverend Barthev Gulumian is a charismatic man, with an inviting presence and an ecclesiastical singing voice. He blesses every chatty elderly lady that asks, he speaks eight languages, including Latin and Ancient Greek, and his nonprofit organization, Faith Hope Love Mission, has been “feeding, clothing and comforting the needy” since 2013.
The Secret To Beating Political Disinformation Is Knowing When Not To Fact-Check
I’m Aaron Sankin, a reporter here at The Markup. A few months ago, I published an interview with a pair of academics who had written a book meant to help teenage internet users navigate an online ecosystem designed to transform them into anxious, unhappy posting machines. Their advice was...
He Found the American Dream on China’s TikTok, the Reality Was More Complicated
Welcome to The Markup, where we use investigative reporting, data analysis, and software engineering to challenge technology to serve the public good. Sign up for Klaxon, a newsletter that delivers our stories and tools directly to your inbox. This article is copublished with Documented, a multilingual news site about immigrants...
V.A. Uses a Suicide Prevention Algorithm To Decide Who Gets Extra Help. It Favors White Men.
The Fuller Project is a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to the coverage of women’s issues around the world. Sign up for the Fuller Project’s newsletter, and follow on Twitter or LinkedIn. An artificial intelligence (AI) program designed to prevent suicide among U.S. military veterans prioritizes White men and ignores...
The Markup Wins AAJA Journalism Excellence Award
Welcome to The Markup, where we use investigative reporting, data analysis, and software engineering to challenge technology to serve the public good. Sign up for Klaxon, a newsletter that delivers our stories and tools directly to your inbox. The Markup’s series on the impact of misinformation on the Vietnamese immigrant...
The Inside Story of the YouTube Influencer Who Peddles Misinformation to Vietnamese Communities
Welcome to The Markup, where we use investigative reporting, data analysis, and software engineering to challenge technology to serve the public good. Sign up for Klaxon, a newsletter that delivers our stories and tools directly to your inbox. Sonia Ohlala is not your typical YouTube influencer. Her videos—all in Vietnamese...
Librarians Are Waging a Quiet War Against International “Data Cartels”
Hello World is a weekly newsletter—delivered every Saturday morning—that goes deep into our original reporting and the questions we put to big thinkers in the field. Browse the archive here. Hi all, Tara here, The Markup’s education reporter. You may have read my story about how college students...
Mortgage Brokers Sent People’s Estimated Credit, Address, and Veteran Status to Facebook
Welcome to The Markup, where we use investigative reporting, data analysis, and software engineering to challenge technology to serve the public good. Sign up for Klaxon, a newsletter that delivers our stories and tools directly to your inbox. When someone applies for a mortgage, they trust a home loan lender...
The Markup Wins Six Awards of Excellence from the Society for News Design
Welcome to The Markup, where we use investigative reporting, data analysis, and software engineering to challenge technology to serve the public good. Sign up for Klaxon, a newsletter that delivers our stories and tools directly to your inbox. The Markup won multiple awards of excellence in the Society for News...
This Journalism Professor Made a NYC Chatbot in Minutes. It Actually Worked
Hi, everyone — Colin Lecher here, an investigative reporter at The Markup. Malfunctioning NYC AI Chatbot Still Active Despite Widespread Evidence It’s Encouraging Illegal Behavior. Mayor Eric Adams said the city is working to fix the problems, and the site now advises visitors to “not use its responses...
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The Markup is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates how powerful institutions are using technology to change our society.
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