Author: Taylor Hatmaker

Facebook taps Peggy Alford for its board, Reed Hastings and Erskine Bowles to depart Facebook’s board is undergoing its biggest shakeup in memory. On Friday, the company announced that Peggy Alford would be nominated to join the company’s board of directors. “Peggy is one of those rare people who’s an expert across many different areas — from business management to finance operations to product development,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said of the change. “I know she will have great ideas that help us address both the opportunities and challenges facing…

Nancy Pelosi warns tech companies that Section 230 is ‘in jeopardy’ In a new interview with Recode, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made some notable comments on what by all accounts is the most important law underpinning the modern internet as we know it. Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act is as short as it is potent — and it’s worth getting familiar with. It states “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another…

Democrats draw up bill that would require tech platforms to assess algorithmic bias Democratic lawmakers have proposed a bill to address the algorithmic biases lurking under the surface of tech’s biggest platforms. The bill, known as the Algorithmic Accountability Act, was introduced by Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR), Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Representative Yvette Clarke (D-NY) will sponsor parallel legislation in the House. The bill is well timed. Over the last month alone, Facebook found itself settling over discriminatory practices that affected job ads as well as drawing civil charges from…

‘Hateful comments’ result in YouTube disabling chat during a livestreamed hearing on hate At today’s House Judiciary hearing addressing “Hate Crimes and the Rise of White Nationalism,” hate appears to have prevailed. As the hearing’s livestream aired on the House Judiciary’s YouTube channel, comments in the live chat accompanying the stream were so inflammatory that YouTube actually disabled the chat feature mid-hearing. Many of those comments were anti-semitic in nature. Hate speech has no place on YouTube. We’ve invested heavily in teams and technology dedicated to removing hateful comments /…

Proposed bill would forbid big tech platforms from using dark pattern design A new piece of bipartisan legislation aims to protect people from one of the sketchiest practices that tech companies employ to subtly influence user behavior. Known as “dark patterns,” this dodgy design strategy often pushes users toward giving up their privacy unwittingly and allowing a company deeper access to their personal data. To fittingly celebrate the one year anniversary of Mark Zuckerberg’s appearance before Congress, Senators Mark Warner (D-VA) and Deb Fischer (R-NE) have proposed the Deceptive Experiences…

Cybercrime groups continue to flourish on Facebook You might be surprised what you can buy on Facebook, if you know where to look. Researchers with Cisco’s Talos security research team have uncovered a wave of Facebook groups dedicated to making money from a variety of illicit and otherwise sketchy online behaviors, including phishing schemes, trading hacked credentials and spamming. The 74 groups researchers detected boasted a cumulative 385,000 members. Remarkably, the groups weren’t even really trying to conceal their activities. For example, Talos found posts openly selling credit card numbers…

HyperSciences raises an untraditional .6M for its hypersonic drilling vision We profiled HyperSciences in February, when the team had just successfully completed a launch milestone for a small business grant with NASA. The last time we checked in, the hypersonic drilling company had raised about $5 million as part of an untraditional Reg A offering. By the end of March, HyperSciences rounded out its first major round with $9.6 million from 3,552 individual investors on SeedInvest in the equity crowdfunding platform’s second largest raise to date. The heart of HyperSciences’…

Google pulls controversial anti-gay religious app from the Play Store The same day the Human Rights Campaign downranked the company in its index of the best LGBTQ-friendly employers, Google decided to yank a controversial app accused of promoting conversion therapy from the Play Store. On that list, known as the Corporate Equality Index, the HRC, a prominent LGBTQ rights organization, included a footnote that it was aware of the conversion therapy-style app by Living Hope Ministries in the Google Play Store. The app’s removal was first reported by Axios. TechCrunch…

Facebook’s handling of Alex Jones is a microcosm of its content policy problem A revealing cluster of emails leaked to Business Insider offers a glimpse at how Facebook decides what content is objectionable in high profile cases. In this instance, a group of executives at Facebook went hands on in determining if an Alex Jones Instagram post violated the platform’s terms of service or not. As Business Insider reports, 20 Facebook and Instagram executives hashed it out over the Jones post, which depicted a mural known as “False Profits” by…

Palantir wins 0 million contract to build the U.S. Army’s next battlefield software system Palantir just landed a landmark contract with the U.S. Army worth north of $800 million. The Washington Posts reports that the Silicon Valley data analytics company was tapped over traditional defense contractor Raytheon on the project, which tasks Palantir with delivering a comprehensive combat intelligence hardware and software suite to replace the Army’s outdated system, known as DCGS-A. A year ago, the Army named Palantir and Raytheon as finalists to compete for the contract, which will…