Uncategorized
If Tech Fails to Design for the Most Vulnerable, It Fails Us All
(Wired) What do Russian protesters have in common with Twitter users freaked out about Elon Musk reading their DMs and people worried about the criminalization of abortion? It would serve them all to be protected by a more robust set of design practices from companies developing technologies. Let’s back up. Last month, Russian police coerced…
Read MoreOil Giants Sell Dirty Wells to Buyers With Looser Climate Goals, Study Finds
(The New York Times) Around the world, many of the largest energy companies are expected to sell off more than $100 billion of oil fields and other polluting assets in an effort to cut their emissions and make progress toward their corporate climate goals. However, they frequently sell to buyers that disclose little about their…
Read MoreA teen girl sexually exploited on Snapchat takes on American tech
(The Washington Post) She was 12 when he started demanding nude photos, saying she was pretty, that he was her friend. She believed, because they had connected on Snapchat, that her photos and videos would disappear. Now, at 16, she is leading a class-action lawsuit against an app that has become a mainstay of American…
Read MoreStanford Gets $1.1 Billion for New Climate School From John Doerr
(The New York Times) “Climate and sustainability is going to be the new computer science,” Mr. Doerr, who made his estimated $11.3 billion fortune investing in technology companies such as Slack, Google and Amazon, said in an interview. “This is what the young people want to work on with their lives, for all the right…
Read MoreTech’s NDA wall is crumbling. Salesforce is next.
(Protocol) Salesforce just became the latest tech giant to commit to limiting the scope of its non-disclosure agreements, freeing workers up to talk about instances of harassment or discrimination they experience on the job. Salesforce and all California employers are already required to make these changes for workers in the state under California’s Silenced No…
Read MoreThe Power Of DEI To Improve Risk-Adjusted Returns In Private Equity
(Forbes) Assets managed by diverse-owned firms have only increased by a tenth of a percentage point to 1.4% of the $82.2 trillion US asset management industry since 2011 despite extensive investor commitments to increase the diversity of their investment portfolios. Clear research on the performance, risk and financial diversification benefits of diverse managers is necessary…
Read MoreWarren Buffett Faces Renewed Climate Change Challenge by Investors
(The New York Times) Mr. Buffett has repeatedly resisted shareholders who want Berkshire to provide detailed climate disclosures that encompass the whole company, not just parts of it, and spend more on sustainability. His stand may seem odd to some people, given that he has at times backed progressive causes, including higher taxes on the…
Read MoreE.U. Takes Aim at Social Media’s Harms With Landmark New Law
(The New York Times) The law, called the Digital Services Act, is intended to address social media’s societal harms by requiring companies to more aggressively police their platforms for illicit content or risk billions of dollars in fines. Tech companies would be compelled to set up new policies and procedures to remove flagged hate speech,…
Read MoreSocial Media Companies’ Climate Disinformation Problem is Hidden from the Public
(Friends of the Earth) A new scorecard released today by Avaaz, Friends of the Earth, and Greenpeace USA shows that social media companies are leaving the public in the dark about how they’re curbing the spread of climate change dis/misinformation on their platforms. The report comes as the UN’s latest climate report named climate disinformation…
Read MoreWhy it’s so damn hard to make AI fair and unbiased
(Vox) Let’s play a little game. Imagine that you’re a computer scientist. Your company wants you to design a search engine that will show users a bunch of pictures corresponding to their keywords — something akin to Google Images. On a technical level, that’s a piece of cake. You’re a great computer scientist, and this…
Read More