Article Archive - The Markup

Excerpt of six panels of Dorothy Gambrell’s comic on discovering her work was used to train Midjourney

Hello World

What Happens When Your Art Is Used to Train AI

A conversation with web cartoonist Dorothy Gambrell on the curdled internet, labor, and how we became just numbers

March 2, 2024 08:00 ET

The BreakdownAutomated Censorship

How Automated Content Moderation Works (Even When It Doesn’t)

Instagram, YouTube, and other platforms moderate billions of posts—here are some of their common techniques

March 1, 2024 08:00 ET

Monochromatic illustration of the side profiles of four people: a bearded person wearing glasses, a person with curly hair, a person wearing a hijab, and a person with short hair; the person wearing a hijab is drawn with a white dotted outline and is transparent, unlike the other three people.

Show Your WorkAutomated Censorship

How We Investigated Shadowbanning on Instagram

We found that Instagram heavily demoted nongraphic images of war, deleted captions and hid comments without notification, suppressed hashtags, and limited users’ ability to appeal moderation decisions

February 25, 2024 08:00 ET

Illustration of the side profiles of four people: a bearded person wearing glasses, a person with curly hair, a person wearing a hijab, and a person with short brown hair; the person wearing a hijab is drawn with a white dotted outline and is transparent, unlike the other three people.

Automated Censorship

Demoted, Deleted, and Denied: There’s More Than Just Shadowbanning on Instagram

An investigation by The Markup found that the platform demoted images of the Israel–Hamas war, deleted captions without warning, and denied users the option to appeal

February 25, 2024 08:00 ET

Illustration of a short-haired person wearing headphones and a hoodie looking at their phone, set against a background of rectangular speech bubbles; half of them are dotted outlines on a dark background, while the other half are filled with various patterns and set on pink and purple gradient

Automated Censorship

What to Do If You Think You’ve Been Shadowbanned on Instagram

How to appeal, check violations, and more

February 25, 2024 08:00 ET

A photo illustration of a woman wearing a virtual reality headset amidst surveillance imagery on the U.S.–Mexico border.

Hello World

A Virtual Reality Tour of Surveillance Tech at the Border

A conversation with Dave Maass of the Electronic Frontier Foundation

February 24, 2024 08:00 ET

Photograph of Senator Ron Wyden speaking

Privacy

What Happens to Your Sensitive Data When a Data Broker Goes Bankrupt?

Data on sensitive locations, such as abortion clinics, could be sold off, raising alarms

February 23, 2024 10:15 ET

Illustration of four comic panels showing the “This is fine” cartoon dog doing a meditative body scan and getting rid of the fire in the room by doing so

Hello World

An Essential Guide For Mindful Posting

A conversation with Whitney Phillips and Ryan Milner about how their book on teens’ responsible social media use has important lessons for digital denizens of all ages

February 17, 2024 08:00 ET