
News Site to Investigate Big Tech, Helped by Craigslist Founder - PretzelFisch
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/23/business/media/the-markup-craig-newmark.html
======
chrisweekly
This looks awesome.

>"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]

[https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/970091634](https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/970091634)

~~~
akudha
This is awesome and looking forward to it!

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.

~~~
marmadukester39
Five or so years ago I started a project to make it possible to crowdfund
investigative journalism called Uncoverage. We launched with a review in the
Times and things looked rosy. The premise: why should rich people - or editors
- be the ones deciding what gets investigated? A couple of other projects have
made a run at this too. The problem seems to be that the value proposition of
“getting investigation” is too abstract for most people, and we’ve all been
trained that information, and journalism, is free. The project flopped, as did
its competitors like Beacon. The more recently launched Wikitribune is still
going. The day we wake up as a society to the power of paying collectively for
investigation into what may be hurting us instead of waiting for it to be done
for us by the rich, nonprofits or thinly stretched newspapers will be a very
important one. I wish I knew how to bring that about.

------
nemild
Julia Angwin was one of the key people who shed a light on GNU Privacy Guard's
precarious funding, helping OSS dev Werner Koch get donations from Stripe, FB,
and others:

The World's Email Encryption Software Relies on One Guy, Who is Going Broke
(2015)

[https://www.propublica.org/article/the-worlds-email-
encrypti...](https://www.propublica.org/article/the-worlds-email-encryption-
software-relies-on-one-guy-who-is-going-broke)

------
newscracker
> [news articles will] start going up on the website in early 2019.

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.

------
slededit
> 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.

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.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
I'm not sure why you've been downvoted for this. Although I'm inclined to
agree with their starting position it's hard to deny that quality
investigative journalism shouldn't be about proving a preexisting hypothesis.

~~~
chris_mc
If you read the article, they already proved that Facebook was selling illegal
housing ads that were biased racially and they proved that a common parole
software was also biased racially. I think it stands to reason there are
plenty of other inadvertent, or otherwise, issues out there.

~~~
thedailymail
The book "Weapons of Math Destruction" by Cathy O'Neill has plenty of other
examples of how profiling algorithms often end up disadvantaging the
disadvantaged.

------
tlb
The comparison to canned food is interesting. It probably resonates with
people better than comparing the tech industry to cigarettes. Few people now
remember how beloved cigarettes were in their heyday.

~~~
p2t2p
I wonder if anybody could give me a link to read on canned food issues. I come
from Russia and there were non in USSR and Russia after USSR dissolved, what
were the issues in the US?

~~~
schoen
You could look at it from at least two angles: canned food became associated
with lower economic classes, and people became concerned that much of the
nutritional value of canned foods was lost when they were preserved.

[https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/27/really-the-
claim-f...](https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/27/really-the-claim-fresh-
produce-has-more-nutrients-than-canned/)

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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_dinner)

Edit: an example of some marketing about fresh ingredients in a restaurant

[https://www.chipotle.com/cooking](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.

~~~
sonnyblarney
No. Fresh produce is basically always cheaper than processed foods, and there
are no places on the continent that lack access to 'agriculture'. Hawaii, way
up in Northern Canada - maybe.

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.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
People who run their own farms are usually not living in poverty. Poor: yes,
poverty: no.

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.

~~~
sonnyblarney
No.

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.

------
tribby
craig newmark is a generous, effective, and humorous philanthropist. he is
behind an absurdist easter egg that you can find in the bathrooms of various
nonprofits he's supported: a toilet dedicated to his memory.

------
mturmon
Craig Newmark also gave $20M to the CUNY graduate journalism school (where
Jeff Jarvis teaches), which now bears his name.

For a reflection from Jeff on Craig's role, see:
[https://buzzmachine.com/2018/06/11/thank-you-
craig/](https://buzzmachine.com/2018/06/11/thank-you-craig/). It's worth a
look.

------
yRetsyM
I would love for someone to take an investigative look at how the stock market
is not working for society in many ways. I can't help but feel that as the
pressure of being a listed stock weighs on listed companies, their value sets
change and not in ways beneficial to "greater" society.

~~~
tumetab1
I thought that was common sense but you're right. Some non-listed companies
are like that by choice, to avoid all that encompasses being a public listed
company.

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.

------
subpixel
I eagerly await the announcement of Newmark funding an ambitious local news
initiative. That would be a way to put critical information in front of
millions of people.

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.

~~~
ghaff
One problem is that local news doesn't scale. Nothing really replaces local
reporters developing sources and attending a lot of boring selectman, zoning,
etc. meetings. I live in a small town that had a "labor of love" local paper
for a while but it went out of business and now there's effectively no local
coverage.

~~~
subpixel
The proximate reason it went out of business is b/c Craigslist took all it's
classified income. That's why (in addition to Craig Newmark's professed
interest in journalism) I think Craigslist is the perfect organization to be
funding reportage.

It's not my money, so clearly knowing how best to use it comes easily to me.

------
netwanderer2
I can't wait to see their first publishing. With every article seemingly a
sponsored piece nowadays, it's almost impossible to identify those with hidden
agendas from reporters whose only interest is to fill up their quotas. I'm
happy to see any news source that I can trust.

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.

------
psandersen
I'd like to see a serious investigation and discussion around the
recommendation engines used to rank content added here.

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...](https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/65rkxv/what_is_up_with_the_weird_kids_videos_that_have/)
), 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...

~~~
bionoid
> I'd like to see a serious investigation and discussion around the
> recommendation engines [...] Something is seriously wrong with youtube's
> algorithm

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.

~~~
empath75
I like to watch penn and teller fool us videos and if I click on one, my
entire feed is full of magicians for weeks. They need to adjust how quickly
they read signals.

That said, I also watch numberphile and do get a bunch of like math
suggestions like mathologer and v sauce.

------
growlist
Junk food/fast food might be a better villain than canned food: one could
probably live perfectly healthily on canned food alone for decades if need be,
but the same cannot really be said of junk food/fast food.

------
sonnyblarney
I don't think content will be so much a problem, it will be readership. That
said, nice effort.

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mankash666
Can ProPuboica/MarkUp investigate how Apple never comes under the scanner of
anti trust regulators either in the US or EU, while Google, Microsoft get
fingered for far less. For instance, Android, which is open source, has been
fined by the EU, while EU app developers have consistently complained against
Apple's app store authorization and related policies onto deaf ears.

------
Dirlewanger
Sounds great, can't wait. Just hope it doesn't follow the path of the
Intercept: starting out as a legitimate source of in-depth governments
exposees, only to turn into a run-of-the-mill liberal rag that hires lazy
college graduates and unrepentant race-baiters.

------
liftbigweights
Excellent. Now we need Musk to come through with his "pravda" site that
investigates news/journalists.

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.

