Prediction: Bias
Predictive Policing Software Terrible At Predicting Crimes
A software company sold a New Jersey police department an algorithm that was right less than 1% of the time
Evelyn Larrubia
Managing Editor for Investigations
Evelyn Larrubia worked with our talented staff of journalists to find and tell stories that show how technology and the use of data affect us all. She believes independent nonpartisan journalism is central to a healthy democracy. Evelyn left The Markup in November 2022.
She has decades of experience reporting and editing accountability and investigative journalism, including 12 years as a reporter for the Los Angeles Times. Her most important stories have been built on data analysis that exposed wrongs, and told through a human lens.
Before joining The Markup, she was Executive Editor of public radio’s Marketplace and, before that, Managing Editor of News and Investigations for KPCC, Los Angeles’s NPR news station.
Her work has garnered more than a dozen national journalism awards, including the Livingston Award for Young Journalists and the Scripps Howard Ursula and Gilbert Farfel Prize for Investigative Reporting. She was a 2010–11 John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford, and in 2017, CCNMA named her Latina Journalist of the Year.
Still Loading
Dollars to Megabits, You May Be Paying 400 Times As Much As Your Neighbor for Internet Service
An investigation by The Markup found that AT&T, Verizon, EarthLink, and CenturyLink disproportionately offered lower-income and least-White neighborhoods slow internet service for the same price as speedy connections they offered in other parts of town
Citizen Browser
As Demand for Medication Abortion Increases, Facebook Allows Ads for Potentially Dangerous “Abortion Reversal” Procedure
The ads appear as the company faces criticism for limiting content about medication abortions
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
Show Your WorkAmazon’s Advantage
How We Analyzed Amazon’s Treatment of Its “Brands” in Search Results
We found that Amazon routinely puts its own brands and exclusive products first, above competitors with better ratings and more reviews
Amazon’s Advantage
Amazon Puts Its Own “Brands” First Above Better-Rated Products
The online giant gives a leg up to hundreds of house brand and exclusive products that most people don’t know are connected to Amazon
Denied
The Secret Bias Hidden in Mortgage-Approval Algorithms
Even accounting for factors lenders said would explain disparities, people of color are denied mortgages at significantly higher rates than White people
Show Your WorkDenied
How We Investigated Racial Disparities in Federal Mortgage Data
Even after including factors the mortgage industry said explain differences, lenders are still more likely to deny people of color than White people under similar financial circumstances
Google the Giant
Google Blocks Advertisers from Targeting Black Lives Matter YouTube Videos
“Black power” and “Black Lives Matter” can't be used to find videos for ads, but “White power” and “White lives matter” were just fine
Show Your WorkGoogle the Giant
How We Discovered Google’s Social Justice Blocklist for YouTube Ad Placements
Despite committing to dismantling systemic racism, YouTube blocks advertisers from using many racial justice and cultural identity terms to target videos for ads
Page 1 of 2