Good morning! Today: a deep dive into how predictive policing works—and why it should be scrapped, Russian hackers are allegedly targeting vaccine researchers, and the online battle for the mental health of workers in service jobs. Get your friends to sign up here to get The Download every day.
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Predictive policing algorithms are racist. They need to be dismantled.
There’s a long history of data and tech being weaponized against Black communities, and predictive policing algorithms are a significant part of that, say civil rights experts and activists.
What are they? These algorithms either draw links between locations to predict where and when crimes are more likely to happen, or draw on data about people, like their gender, age, and criminal record, to predict their chance of being involved in criminal activity in future. They can create dangerous feedback loops since they’re trained on historic data, which can embed racist patterns of policing behavior. As a result, they’re far more likely to predict crime in minority neighborhoods or people, leading to more arrests of minorities, which in turn pushes more racist data back into the system.
Could we fix them? Some researchers are investigating. But the study of these tools is complicated by their lack of transparency, both from law enforcement and the companies that develop them. Until there’s a clear way to make these tools beneficial rather than harmful, civil right advocates and scholars think their use should be suspended. Read the full story.
—Will Douglas Heaven
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Russian hackers have been accused of targeting covid-19 vaccine researchers
The hackers: The Russian intelligence hacking group known as Cozy Bear or APT29 has been blamed. Its goal was very likely to be to steal “information and intellectual property relating to the development and testing of COVID-19 vaccines,” the report says.
Uncertainty: Espionage is on the rise. Earlier this year, Vietnamese hackers appeared to have targeted Chinese government ministries to collect data on the then-emerging crisis. In May, both Iranian and Chinese government-sponsored hackers were also accused of trying to steal vaccine research. But for the most part, the vaccines are not secret. They’re described in scientific reports, and their makeup is known—although details of their manufacture, and supply agreements, could be valuable secrets to steal. Read the full story.
—Patrick Howell O’Neill
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The online battle for the mental health of workers in service jobs
Tensions rising: Nearly every day, a story about a confrontation between restaurant or shop workers and a customer upset about pandemic-related safety requirements makes the news. Messages exchanged on TikTok, in private Facebook groups, and in other semi-private online spaces have become a form of homebrewed therapy for workers trying to deal with the stress. But alongside this are online spaces where Americans who refuse to wear masks or abide by other safety requirements promote protests and boycotts over mask policies, and support those who show up in public places without one.
Stress on stress: Workers in service jobs have long endured stressful conditions for low pay. Many of these workers now face unemployment, fears about job security, and the daily dangers inherent in serving others during a pandemic. On top of all that, the pandemic has made dangerous encounters with customers more frequent—and social media has made such interactions more visible. No wonder there’s so much anxiety among restaurant workers right now.
Any silver lining? Some services are offering free or affordable therapy or mental health care for service workers, but it’s a band-aid over a huge, growing problem. Read the full story.
—Abby Ohlheiser
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We can still have nice things
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The top ten must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 Which drugs can help to treat coronavirus? 💊
There is strong evidence for a handful of existing treatments. ( NYT $)
+ Does air conditioning pose a covid-19 transmission risk? ( Slate)
+ The US has shattered its coronavirus record with 77,000 cases in one day. ( Reuters)
+ Texas and Arizona have had to turn to refrigerator masks as morgues become full. ( Ars Technica)
2 OpenAI’s fiction-spewing AI is learning to generate images
Oh good, a new technique for making deepfakes. ( TR)
3 The FBI is investigating the Twitter hack
Whoever launched the bitcoin scam attack may well come to regret it. ( Reuters)
+ Who was behind it? ( Krebs on Security)
+ Twitter says 130 accounts were accessed. ( CNET)
+ It won’t be easy to hide the stolen bitcoin. ( Engadget)
4 Voting misinformation is rife on Facebook
Almost half of the top-performing posts on voting are misleading or outright false. ( ProPublica)
+ Twitter is also letting Trump spread false information about the election. ( CNN)
5 Whatever Thailand is doing to curb covid-19, it’s working
Its neighbors Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos have largely been spared, too. ( NYT $)
+ The pandemic is taking a particular toll on women. ( Foreign Affairs)
6 Are voice assistants anti-competitive? The EU is investigating.
Given they force you to rely solely on one company’s services, the answer seems to be “yes.” ( The Verge)
7 The US military is using online gaming to recruit teens 🎮
These tactics are uncomfortably reminiscent of grooming. ( The Nation)
+ Twitch has told the US Army to stop using fake prize giveaways as a recruitment tool. ( The Verge)
8 Indians are reeling from the ban on TikTok
It was the company’s biggest market after China. ( NPR)
9 How to improve scientific peer review: hire some haters
Papers are not being sufficiently challenged, and that’s a problem for all of us. ( Wired $)
10 A Jurassic Park Twitter account is satirizing companies’ response to the pandemic
Too real. ( Buzzfeed)
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“The science should not stand in the way.”
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