Ethical Tech

Take a look at Facebook’s internal research over mental health on teens

Ever wondered what Facebook’s internal research looks like?  Well, the social media giant has just released the internal research regarding the effect Instagram has on teenager’s mental health, which was heavily dissected by The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) earlier this month.  The WSJ originally claimed that Facebook is aware that “Instagram is harmful for a sizable percentage” of teens, particularly teenage girls,” yet buried the issue under the rug.  In […]

New FTC memo will transform the way big tech operates

Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan recently publicized her policy priorities and vision in a memo that was sent out to staff members on Wednesday.  Supervised by five commissioners who vote on enforcement actions and policy statements, Khan set in stone the main priorities of the agency in the recent FTC memo: fixing power imbalances, reducing harm on the consumers, and […]

Facebook’s Oversight Board demands answers on celebrity rules

Facebook’s oversight board said on Tuesday that it will set in motion an urgent examination process to inspect whether the social networking platform is mitigating posts for famous personages, leading to a direct content rules breach, according to Wall Street inquiry. Facebook’s oversight board is an independent group assigned by the platform to observe its moderation policies […]

U.S. Democrats push for tough data privacy regulations

The U.S. Congress surely returned to work with full force after a summer recess, as a group of Senate Democrats are now pushing the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to construct new regulations around data privacy protection. Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal led the initiative after garnering eight signatures from his colleagues on a letter that was […]

UN urges moratorium on use of AI that imperils human rights

The U.N. human rights chief is calling for a moratorium on the use of artificial intelligence technology that poses a serious risk to human rights, including face-scanning systems that track people in public spaces. Michelle Bachelet, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, also said Wednesday that countries should expressly ban AI applications which don’t […]

Tech giant employees are speaking out like never before

Tech giants know this scenario all too well; employee-activists accuse the company of attempting to impose harsh rules in the workplace, and the same employees get booted out. However, things are quickly taking a surprising shift, as this time, the law began taking notice. Google recently came to an agreement with a recently let-go employee […]

Apple backtracks on child protection features

Following severe backlash targeting Apple’s child protection features announced last month, the smartphone giant decided to delay the update scheduled for roll out this year. “Last month we announced plans for features intended to help protect children from predators who use communication tools to recruit and exploit them, and limit the spread of Child Sexual […]

How 9/11 changed air travel: more security, less privacy

Ask anyone old enough to remember travel before Sept. 11, 2001, and you’re likely to get a gauzy recollection of what flying was like. There was security screening, but it wasn’t anywhere near as intrusive. There were no long checkpoint lines. Passengers and their families could walk right to the gate together, postponing goodbye hugs […]

Texas is one step closer from passing a law against tech giants

Texas is one step further from passing a law cracking down on tech giants trying to moderate political content online. The bill outlaw’s social media companies that have over 50 million users, which include Facebook and Twitter, to censor users and content that is geared towards a political side. Hence, any Texas resident unable to […]

MIT removes famous AI dataset due to distasteful image branding

Earlier this week, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) removed the 80 Million Tiny Images dataset used to train machine learning systems in distinguishing individuals under the pretense that it uses racist and misogynistic labels to identify people.  On Monday, the technology institute published a letter on its Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) website, […]