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NYC’s AI Chatbot Tells Businesses to Break the Law
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 nonprofit newsroom that covers New...
Instagram Creators: Check If Your Posts Are “Political”
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. If you opened Instagram last week, you may have seen one of...
Trump, Kate, and a Misplaced Shark
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 everyone,. Sisi here, and we need to talk about Donald Trump, Kate Middleton, and one very specific...
The Markup Wins Sigma Award
The Markup’s investigation into racial disparities in Los Angeles’s intake system for unhoused people has won a 2024 Sigma Award, which celebrates the best data journalism from around the world. Judges said the investigation “uses data to expose racial disparities and systematic issues that were previously largely supported...
The Future of Border Patrol: AI Is Always Watching
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. U.S. Customs and Border Protection is trying to build AI-powered border surveillance...
The Markup Nominated for NIHCM Award
Two investigations in The Markup’s Pixel Hunt series are finalists for the 2024 National Institute for Health Care Management Foundation Data-Driven Storytelling Award. The award recognizes excellence in health reporting that is data-driven, sparks policy change, broadly informs the public, and/or stimulates conversation on timely issues, among other criteria.
I Used ChatGPT as a Reporting Assistant. It Didn’t Go Well
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. Hello, readers!. When it comes to developments in artificial intelligence, things are moving fast. It’s been less than...
Blacklight Updated With New Tracking Info and Caching Options
If you’re using Blacklight for an ongoing research project or data collection, please read this announcement. Blacklight, The Markup’s real-time web privacy detector tool, has exposed privacy violations on COVID-19 vaccine websites, spurred legislative action, and made more than 10 million scans. Starting March 20 2024, users can begin to take advantage of two improvements.
Whistleblowing While Black: How Truth-Telling Changes the Careers of Black Women in Tech
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 was copublished with The 19th, a nonprofit newsroom covering gender,...
With AI, Anyone Can Be a Victim of Nonconsensual Porn. Can Laws Keep Up?
This article was copublished with The 19th, a nonprofit newsroom covering gender, politics, and policy. Sign up for The 19th’s newsletter here. More than two dozen students at Westfield High School in New Jersey were horrified last year to learn that naked images of them were circulating among their peers. According to the school, some students had used Artificial Intelligence (AI) to create pornographic images of others from original photos. And they’re not the only teenage girls being victimized by fake nude photos: Students in Washington State and Canada have also reported facing similar situations as the ability to realistically alter photos becomes more broadly accessible with websites and apps.
Apocalypse Not
Hi everyone, Michael Reilly here. It’s still early in 2024, but is anyone else exhausted by the levels of drama and hyperventilation surrounding AI? One thing that’s been particularly striking for me is some people’s willingness to invoke catastrophe—actual apocalyptic visions of our future—to describe their spiffy chatbots and image generators.
Teachers Are Using AI to Create New Worlds, Help Students with Homework, and Teach English
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. AI seems to be everywhere these days—and more and more, that includes...
What Happens When Your Art Is Used to Train AI
I’m Gabriel Hongsdusit, The Markup’s visual designer. In my role as an illustrator and art director, I create, find, and commission images for our stories on technology. I put a lot of thought into how illustration can hold AI accountable. This week, I spoke with Dorothy Gambrell, who...
How Automated Content Moderation Works (Even When It Doesn’t)
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 social media platforms get as big as Instagram—more than 2 billion...
How We Investigated Shadowbanning on Instagram
Since the Israel–Hamas war began, hundreds of users have accused Instagram of censoring their posts supporting Palestine. Many users specifically said that what they were sharing on Instagram was being shadowbanned—that is, hidden for everyone except the original user who posted. To investigate, The Markup reviewed hundreds of screenshots and videos from users, analyzed metadata from thousands of accounts and posts, spoke with experts, and interviewed 20 users who believed their content had been blocked or demoted.
What To Do If You Think You’ve Been Shadowbanned on Instagram
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. As The Markup was investigating whether Instagram practiced shadowbanning—covertly hiding what people...
Demoted, Deleted, and Denied: There’s More Than Just Shadowbanning on Instagram
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. For the last seven years, Nabeel Shah has used Instagram as a...
A Virtual Reality Tour of Surveillance Tech at the Border
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. After reading my daily news stories amid his declining health, my grandfather made it a habit of traveling...
L.A. Is Changing How It Scores “Vulnerability” of Unhoused People
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. One year after a Markup investigation revealed racial bias in Los Angeles’s...
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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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