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New York Magazine: “Facial recognition technology has some serious, persistent issues. These were clearly shown earlier this year when Amazon’s “Rekognition” mistakenly identified 28 members of Congress as criminals. The technology as a whole largely suffers both from inaccuracy and systemic bias. Regardless of who wields the technology or for what purpose, the algorithms use …
“USAFacts Voter Center is a tool where voters can see congressional candidates in their districts, learn about their positions on important issues, and see data about the issues being debated. Learn more about where our data comes from, how we gather stances, and our methodology.”
Pew – Fact Tank: “The #MeToo hashtag first went viral on Twitter a year ago this month. Although the social movement of the same name existed beforehand, the hashtag was popularized on Oct. 15, 2017, when actress Alyssa Milano urged victims of sexual abuse to share their stories on Twitter in the wake of accusations …
The Verge: “A leaked research presentation [note – the Verge includes a link to the entire presentation posted on Scribd] put together by employees of Google shows the extent to which the search giant is grappling with decisions around freedom of speech and censorship. The presentation, leaked to Breitbart News this week and published in …
Washington Post [paywall] – His family didn’t bury his remains after Shepard was beaten and left to die near Laramie, Wyo., out of concern that the site would be desecrated: “When Matthew Shepard died on a cold night 20 years ago, after being beaten with a pistol butt and tied to a split-rail wood fence, …
Follow-up to recent posting U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – global warming crisis and 10 year ticking clock please see this study via Brookings – Eco-Socialism or Bust – By Thea Riofrancos, Robert Shaw, Will Speck. “To confront climate change, we need to democratize, decarbonize, and decommodify our energy resources. Broadly, our energy vision …
Route Fifty: “A record-breaking 78 cities received perfect scores on the 2018 Municipal Equality Index, a Human Rights Campaign ranking system that measures “LGBTQ inclusion in municipal law, policy and services.” “From San Antonio, Texas to Brookings, South Dakota—this year’s MEI again proves that there are no barriers to municipal LGBTQ equality for a city …
“Two years after Hillary Clinton became the first woman to win the presidential nomination of a major U.S. political party, and with a record number of women running for Congress in 2018, a majority of Americans say they would like to see more women in top leadership positions – not only in politics, but also …
Quartz: “Don’t mess with libraries. One economist learned that lesson the hard way in July after posting a story on Forbes arguing that Amazon should replace local libraries to save taxpayers money. The collective outrage of librarians and Twitter was so great that Forbes deleted the story from its site. The passionate defenders of libraries …
“The vast majority (58%) of individuals in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody as of June 30, 2018 had no criminal record. An even larger proportion – four out of five – either had no record, or had only committed a minor offense such as a traffic violation. Case-by-case records on each of these 44,435 …
Politico.com: “The term “fake news” has become a cudgel for political leaders trying to discredit reporting, but disinformation – false content created explicitly to deceive or misinform – runs rampant online. Just last week, a study out of George Washington University found that a vast majority of Twitter accounts that spread disinformation in 2016 remained …
The New York Times: “Election Day is Nov. 6, but voter registration deadlines in many states are well before that. Deadlines have already passed in Alaska and Rhode Island. Many more are close. Here’s a list of each state’s voter registration deadline. The mail deadlines are when the applications should be postmarked, unless stated otherwise. …
