Aaron Sankin

Investigative Reporter

Aaron Sankin reports on how technology can be used to harm marginalized people. His focus is on platform governance, online extremism, and regulatory policy.

Before The Markup, he covered online extremism for the Center for Investigative Reporting, where he launched the Hate Report newsletter and co-created the Hate Sleuths citizen journalism initiative. Before that, he was a senior staff writer at the Daily Dot and a founding editor of the Huffington Post’s San Francisco vertical.

His work has earned various awards, including a 2018 Public Radio News Directors Incorporated Award and a 2018 Webby Award. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Motley Fool, and Gizmodo.

aaron@themarkup.org @ASankin

Illustration of two search bars. One for 'white girls' and one for 'black girls', the black girls one is pixelated

Google the Giant

Google Ad Portal Equated “Black Girls” with Porn

Searching Google’s ad buying portal for “Black girls” returned hundreds of terms leading to “adult content”

July 23, 2020 08:00 ET

Coronavirus

¿Desea encontrar un público desinformado? Facebook ya lo hizo

Justo cuando se compromete a vigilar la desinformación que hay sobre COVID-19 en su plataforma, Facebook permite que los avisadores se dirijan a aquellos usuarios que están interesados en la“pseudociencia”

July 15, 2020 08:00 ET

Illustration of an annotated billboard that reads 'Antifa Supersoldiers Are Coming'. The annotations read 'Out-of-Context Headline, Locally Targeted Facebook Ads and Algorithmically generated content'

Anatomy of a Fake News Headline

How a series of algorithms whiffed and ended up warning Oregonians of an antifa invasion

July 7, 2020 08:00 ET

Coronavirus

Want to Find a Misinformed Public? Facebook’s Already Done It

While vowing to police COVID-19 misinformation on its platform, Facebook let advertisers target users interested in“pseudoscience”

April 23, 2020 08:00 ET

Ask The Markup

Can I Opt Out of Facial Scans at the Airport?

Technically, yes, but it is not always easy

March 2, 2020 10:33 ET

Show Your WorkAllstate’s Algorithm

How We Analyzed Allstate’s Car Insurance Algorithm

By parsing a rare document containing fine details of the company’s auto insurance pricing, we found stark differences in how high proposed price hikes were allowed to rise

February 25, 2020 05:00 ET

Allstate’s Algorithm

Suckers List: How Allstate’s Secret Auto Insurance Algorithm Squeezes Big Spenders

Insurers are supposed to price based on risk, but Allstate’s algorithm put a thumb on the scale