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Author Archives: Sabrina I. Pacifici

Instagram’s Uneasy Rise as a News Site

The New York Times [read free]: “In this year’s presidential election, more people are turning to Instagram for news, even as the platform tries de-emphasizing “political content.”…Mosheh Oinounou of Mo News is part of a crop of personalities who have figured out how to package information and deliver it on Instagram, increasingly turning the social… Continue Reading

Survey Finds Workers are Putting Businesses at Risk by Oversharing with GenAI Tools

InsideBigData: “Our friends over at Veritas just released a new survey revealing that workers are oversharing with generative AI tools, putting businesses at risk. Nearly a third (31%) of global office workers admitted to inputting potentially sensitive information into generative AI tools, such as customer details or employee financials. Other key findings include: 61% of global… Continue Reading

Tools for Thinking About Censorship

ReactorMag – “One price of free speech is eternal humility, recognizing that none of us is immune to becoming a tool of censorship if we fail to recognize its manipulative tactics. Was it a government action, or did they do it themselves because of pressure?” This is inevitably among our first questions when news breaks… Continue Reading

Why car insurance rates are so high

Vox: “If you pay for car insurance, you’ve probably noticed that rates are really high lately. You’re not alone. Last week’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) report — the government’s method for tracking what people are paying for goods and services and how that’s changing over time — noted that the price of car insurance was… Continue Reading

DOJ funding pipeline subsidizes questionable big data surveillance technologies

Via LLRX – DOJ funding pipeline subsidizes questionable big data surveillance technologies – Professor Andrew Guthrie Ferguson discusses how predictive policing has been shown to be an ineffective and biased policing tool. Yet, the Department of Justice has been funding the crime surveillance and analysis technology for years and continues to do so despite criticism from researchers, privacy… Continue Reading

ARCCI submits first report regarding Hamas October 7 attack to the UN

Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel (ARCCI): “The report clearly demonstrates that this is not a “malfunction” or isolated incident but a clear operational strategy involving systematic, targeted sexual abuse. The report focuses on sexual and gender-based violence during the massacre of October 7, 2023, and the war that ensued, serving as a primary… Continue Reading

National Customer Rage Study

“CCMC’s [Customer Care Measurement and Consulting] Customer Rage Study is an independent analysis of the state of corporate complaint handling in America. The Customer Rage Study offers a clear comparison of customer satisfaction with corporate customer care efforts across decades. A leader in the customer care movement for nearly 45 years, CCMC principals’ work has… Continue Reading

How Google is killing independent sites like ours

And why you shouldn’t trust product recommendations from big media publishers ranking at the top of Google. “Google regularly launches updates to its algorithm to continuously improve search results quality. Think of these updates as a refresh of the system where rankings change: some websites see an improvement while others see a decline. At HouseFresh,… Continue Reading

Silicon Valley has its own ascendant political ideology. It’s past time we call it what it is.

The Rise of Techno-Authoritarianism by Adrienne LaFrance [The Atlantic; read free] “Silicon Valley still attracts many immensely talented people who strive to do good, and who are working to realize the best possible version of a more connected, data-rich global society. Even the most deleterious companies have built some wonderful tools. But these tools, at scale,… Continue Reading

Why The New York Times might win its copyright lawsuit against OpenAI

Ars Technica: “The day after The New York Times sued OpenAI for copyright infringement, the author and systems architect Daniel Jeffries wrote an essay-length tweet arguing that the Times “has a near zero probability of winning” its lawsuit. As we write this, it has been retweeted 288 times and received 885,000 views. “Trying to get… Continue Reading