Remember when a Google search used to lead you somewhere?
Now it increasingly just keeps you on Google. In fact, Google results take up 62.6% of the first screen of search results in a sample of 15,000 searches.
It wasn't easy to measure Google search results. @LeonYin wrote two custom scrapers and 68 parsers to identify elements on Google search result pages.
As always, all our data, code and an extensive (like REALLY extensive) methodology here: themarkup.org/google-the-gia…
Google's dominance of search results has real consequences. Founder of travel startup Hipmunk told @adrjeffries that Google's decision to boost Google crushed his business.
Google said that its actions are designed to benefit users, not to benefit itself.
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Huge investigation from @proof__news today: We reveal the trove of YouTube videos that are being used to train AI models (including Anthropic's Claude).
Yes, it includes all your favorite YouTubers - from @hankgreen to @MrBeast to @khanacademy.
Were your favorite YouTubers' videos secretly used to train AI? Search the dataset that we compiled here: proofnews.org/youtube-ai-sea…
We launched our YouTube channel today, too. After all, what better way to report on YouTubers' videos being used without their consent than with a YouTube video?
🧵Amidst rampant surveillance, one bastion of privacy remains – end-to-end encrypted messaging apps like Signal and WhatsApp. But dangerous laws are being proposed in US, UK, EU & beyond to force those apps to scan your messages.
Feeling a sense of deja vu? Yes, you have heard this story before. But it’s worse this time.
Previously, the FBI sought a “master key” that could unlock encrypted content with a search warrant. But they lost after a showdown with Apple in 2016. /2
I’m sad to report that I am leaving @themarkup to pursue other projects, which I will announce soon. It was an honor and a privilege to found @themarkup five years ago to create an investigative newsroom that integrated engineers and journalists. /1
My goal was to use the best of tech – computation, automation, machine learning – to investigate the human impacts of tech. And to do it using the scientific method as our compass rather than the fuzzy concept of “objectivity.” /2
The amazing thing is that it worked! Our precise methodologies allowed us to uncover everything from Google and Amazon self-preferencing to bias in mortgage approval algorithms. These investigations had impact from the halls of Congress to courtrooms across the country. /3
Let’s talk about consent. Do you feel like you ever properly consented to being surveilled online constantly, having a profile built of your interests and having that profile made available to anyone who could pay for it?
EU regulators don’t think so either. /1
Earlier this month @edpb fined Meta €390 million for not getting proper consent before profiling FB & IG users. It was hailed a huge victory for EU’s landmark privacy law, GDPR, but sadly it may not change how you are profiled. /2
The problem is that GDPR enforcement is not in the hands of the EU, but in the member states. And most Big Tech cases land at the Irish regulator @DPCIreland because that is where many tech European headquarters are based. /3
The U.S. is closer to passing a federal privacy law than ever. But there’s a catch: it sets a “ceiling” and not a “floor” for state & local privacy laws.
In this week’s newsletter @cam_kerry says that's “the price of getting strong protections.” /1
But Ashkan Soltani, head of the new privacy agency in California, where a strong privacy law would go into effect next year, tells me the trade-off “is a trap.”
The federal bill “locks into amber” rules that prevent future innovation to protect privacy. /2
The federal bill would also delay privacy enforcement for about two years. California was set to begin enforcing next year, while the fed bill would give the FTC time to prepare guidance and rulemaking.
“I think two years is a reasonable amount of time,” @cam_kerry said. /3
In light of the recent US settlement with Facebook, I want to tell y’all a story about how hard it is to make change in our algorithmic world, why you need a village of researchers, and why law enforcement agencies need to get better at tech. /1
Six years ago, @terryparrisjr & I bought an ad on Facebook, targeted to only white people looking for housing, using a drop-down menu blocking ads from being seen by different “ethnic affinity groups.” Experts said this violated the Fair Housing Act. /2