Stories

6 April 2023

#lgbtq #twitter

AI surveillance rumors: gay adult content creators face sanctions

Early last month, many gay fetish accounts were charged for distributing online porn to minors, a criminal offense in Germany. Many suspect an automated tool, but no one knows for sure.

Foto von Jon Tyson auf Unsplash

10 March 2023

Reels of Fortune: Instagram-shaped memories for a bigger reach

The algorithm used to do it for us, now we do it for the algorithm: Platforms seek data on what people think good memories are. One user tells us how she constructs an end-of-year Recap Reel on Instagram.

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CC-BY N O E L | F E A N S

1 February 2023

What to expect from Europe’s first AI oversight agency

Spain announced the first national agency for the supervision of Artificial Intelligence. In its current shape, the plan is very industry-friendly and leaves little space to civil society.

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Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash

18 December 2022

Wolt: Couriers’ feelings don’t always match the transparency report

In August, the Finnish delivery service Wolt published its first “algorithmic transparency report”. We asked three couriers about their experiences. They don't always match the report’s contents.

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Image by Geraldine Lewa on Unsplash

29 August 2022

Digital Bouncers: AI in Recruiting

Automated decision-making systems are increasingly used by companies to decide who is best for a job. Applicants are worried about being rejected by a machine, based on programmed prejudices. In Switzerland, employers are especially reluctant to speak about the hiring algorithms that they use.

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Humaaans by Pablo Stanley, CC0 | Adobe Stock

13 September 2021

AlgorithmWatch forced to shut down Instagram monitoring project after threats from Facebook

Digital platforms play an ever-increasing role in structuring and influencing public debate. Civil society watchdogs, researchers and journalists need to be able to hold them to account. But Facebook is increasingly fighting those who try. It shut down New York University’s Ad Observatory in August, and went after AlgorithmWatch, too.

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Twitter's image cropping algorithm has been accused of racial bias. An experiment by students at Bern University of Applied Sciences shows that the issue might have been fixed., 12 March 2021

Twitter apparently fixed their picture cropping

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Racial Health Bias, 3 December 2020

Health algorithms discriminate against Black patients, also in Switzerland

Algorithms used to assess kidney function or predict heart failure use race as a central criterion. There is no scientific basis to do so, and the results discriminate against Blacks.

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Boehlich |Wikimedia

22 July 2020

Swiss police automated crime predictions but has little to show for it

A review of 3 automated systems in use by the Swiss police and judiciary reveals serious issues. Real-world effects are impossible to assess due to a lack of transparency.

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