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Julia Angwin Profile picture
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29 Oct, 4 tweets, 2 min read
Facebook’s black box algorithm charged the Biden campaign higher ad rates on average than it charged the Trump campaign.

A new investigation by @jeremybmerrill:

themarkup.org/election-2020/…
In swing states during July and August, Biden paid ad rates of about $34 compared with $17 paid by Trump’s campaign.

The gap narrowed in the fall - but overall Biden has paid 11% more than Trump.

As always, we show our work:
themarkup.org/election-2020/…
If Facebook were a TV station, it would be illegal for it to charge different ad prices to the candidates.But Facebook is not subject to the same rules.

Facebook’s response to us was that we don’t understand how ads work:
BTW, the data we used to analyze Facebook’s ad prices comes from the NYU Ad Observatory – which just received a cease and desist order from Facebook.

@themarkup has joined a coalition asking Facebook to withdraw its threats against the researchers.

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More from @JuliaAngwin

Julia Angwin Profile picture
22 Sep
Journalism is supposed to afflict the comfortable.

So we built an app for that.

Introducing Blacklight – a privacy tool that lets you scan any website and see how you are being surveilled. Built by the incomparable @suryamattu.

themarkup.org/blacklight/
@suryamattu Blacklight was born from a conversation @suryamattu and I had updating the privacy series “What They Know” that I led ten years ago at @wsj.

What did we find? The Tl;DR: surveillance has become creepier and more difficult to stop.

themarkup.org/blacklight/202…
@suryamattu @WSJ Using Blacklight, @ASankin found that some of the most sensitive websites on the Internet - banks, medical clinics, child safety – were sharing their users personal data with third parties.

SunTrust Bank was sending user passwords to a 3rd party!

themarkup.org/blacklight/202…
Read 7 tweets
Julia Angwin Profile picture
28 Jul
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.

themarkup.org/google-the-gia…
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. Image
Read 4 tweets
Julia Angwin Profile picture
18 Jun
Amazon bans dangerous listings. But we found nearly 100 listings for banned weapons, drug equipment, and spy gear.

Several were listed as “Amazon’s Choice.” Five were sold by Amazon itself.

Amazing reporting from @AnnieGilbertson and @jonkeegan themarkup.org/banned-bounty/… /1
These materials are not only dangerous - but deadly. In an interview from prison, Eric Falkowski told us that he bought pill presses on @amazon and used them to make counterfeit prescription opioids. His fake pills killed two people and sickened 20 others. /2
Amazon says it catches billions of improper listings a year. But it was pretty easy for us evade its rules. @jonkeegan set up a seller account and listed two weapons parts for sale just by varying the words and codes he used in the listing. /3
Read 6 tweets
Julia Angwin Profile picture
28 May
Looking to rent an apartment? Prepare to be subjected to the unaccountable algorithms that landlords across the nation are using to screen tenants.

@lkirchner reports in a joint investigation with @MattGoldstein26 of @nytimes /1

themarkup.org/locked-out/202…
They found that these screening companies often use the loosest possible standards for matching names, including so-called “wild-card” searches where the records of anyone whose names shares first three letters similar as yours can be included in your report. /2 Image
Credit bureaus use much stricter standards for name-matching. In 2017, the big three said they would only match records that contained the same name, address and SSN or date of birth. The tenant screening industry has not made a similar commitment. /3

s3.amazonaws.com/rdcms-cdia/fil…
Read 6 tweets
Julia Angwin Profile picture
16 Apr
Results of our 50-state FOIA for COVID testing algorithms are in - and the differences are stark.

Just one example: If you’re a senior with a fever, you qualify for a test in Utah but not Wisconsin.

themarkup.org/coronavirus/20…
At @themarkup we always show our work: here’s all the data we have from 20 jurisdictions.

Thanks to @tenuous and Emmanuel Martinez for the hard work of classifying data and @SamMorrisDesign for the hard work of beautifying it.

themarkup.org/coronavirus/20…
We will continue to update the data as we get responses from other states.

We are also formally appealing decisions in two states and refiling in one state.

Legal work is a key part of our investigative work, thanks to our fearless advocate @nabihasyed.
Read 4 tweets
Julia Angwin Profile picture
14 Apr
Today I published my first article for @themarkup(!): the privacy pros and cons of Apple and Google’s plans for COVID-19 contact-tracing apps.

TL;DR - it’s good at protecting anonymity but vulnerable to spoofing, trolls and other abuses. /1
Pros: it’s opt-in, it’s anonymous, it’s mostly decentralized and personal information isn’t required for use.

Cons: It’s vulnerable to trolls, spoofing, adtech, false alerts. It's unclear how apps will be vetted. And it relies on testing which is currently inadequate. /2
Security expert @rossjanderson perfectly sums up the way that the service can be abused by people who want to sow panic by claiming a COVID diagnosis /3
Read 8 tweets

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