Article Archive - The Markup

D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine standing at a podium with microphones.

Locked Out

The Markup’s Work Cited in Effort to Outlaw Discriminatory Algorithms

Investigation on tenant screening used to illustrate needed reforms

December 17, 2021 8:00 a.m. UTC

Illustration of the reddit landscape, with upvotes next two images. Lurking underneath are blurred images and images with exclamation points over them.

News

The Shadows of Removed Posts Are Hiding in Plain Sight on Reddit

Offending posts—including sexually explicit images—linger in comment histories long after their removal from subreddits

December 16, 2021 8:00 a.m. UTC

Privacy

Federal Study Acknowledges Failures in Police Surveillance Oversight

For years researchers have called out the Wiretap Report for being outdated and incomplete

December 13, 2021 8:00 a.m. UTC

Red sold sign in the foreground. Houses in the background.

Denied

Legislators, Regulators Call for Additional Scrutiny of Mortgage-Lending Industry After Markup Investigation Finds Disparities

Minnesota attorney general warns lenders: Don’t be surprised if you’re investigated

December 9, 2021 8:00 a.m. UTC

Multiple irises featuring teenagers on location maps. In the background there is a network of circles with dollar signs on them.

Privacy

The Popular Family Safety App Life360 Is Selling Precise Location Data on Its Tens of Millions of Users

The app is a major source of raw location data for a multibillion-dollar industry that buys, packages, and sells people’s movements

December 6, 2021 8:00 a.m. UTC

A police officer overlaid with pink squares.

Prediction: Bias

Crime Prediction Software Promised to Be Free of Biases. New Data Shows It Perpetuates Them

Millions of crime predictions left on an unsecured server show PredPol mostly avoided Whiter neighborhoods, targeted Black and Latino neighborhoods

December 2, 2021 8:00 a.m. UTC

Show Your WorkPrediction: Bias

How We Determined Crime Prediction Software Disproportionately Targeted Low-Income, Black, and Latino Neighborhoods

A trove of unsecured data allowed the first-ever independent analysis of actual crime predictions across the U.S. by the self-described software leader, PredPol

December 2, 2021 8:00 a.m. UTC

Amazon’s Advantage

Introducing Amazon Brand Detector

A browser extension that reveals Amazon brand and exclusive products while you shop on the site

November 29, 2021 8:00 a.m. UTC

A scowling "smiley face" surrounded by blue and red circles of numbers.

Citizen Browser

Facebook Isn’t Telling You How Popular Right-Wing Content Is on the Platform

Facebook insists that mainstream news sites perform the best on its platform. But by other measures, sensationalist, partisan content reigns

November 18, 2021 8:00 a.m. UTC

Show Your WorkCitizen Browser

How We Investigated Facebook’s Most Popular Content

We found that Facebook's popularity metric obscures how well ultra-conservative content does on the platform