Technology
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I Almost Walked Into A Fight: An Accidental Product Review of Apple's AirPods Pro's Noise-Cancellation Technology
Hey, you. Are you in the market for noise-cancelling earbuds? If you are, have I got a product review for you. Let’s start at the beginning though. As most of you know, we’re in the midst of a pandemic. That’s not really central to this story but I feel like it’s irresponsible to not say…
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Facial Recognition Results in Detroit Man Being Arrested for a Crime He Didn't Commit
The long, arduous slog that’s been 2020 has had me reflecting on many things. One of those things has been how extensively movies and shows about cops lie to us. We’re repeatedly inundated with this idea that cops are moral arbiters who, operate like a well-oiled machine, and utilize the most cutting edge technology to…
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Civil Rights Orgs Blast Mark Zuckerberg as Audit Finds Facebook’s Weak Hate Speech Policies Are ‘Serious Setbacks for Civil Rights’
For the last two years, Facebook has touted a major civil rights audit as proof that it was taking seriously allegations that it was aiding the spread of hate and misinformation. The results of that report were released Wednesday morning, and while it praised the company for making some necessary improvements to its platform and…
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Jeff Bezos Says Black Lives Matter, but Will He Make a Meaningful Stand for Black Amazon Employees?
If you look at allyship as some sort of contest, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has been eager to put some points on the board. He’s done this mostly through highly publicized, “spicy” responses to racist customers, and by canceling his meetings on Juneteenth and encouraging other employees “to do the same if you can.” But…
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Zoom Is Taking Too Long to Fix Its Cyberterrorism Problem
Black activists have always used every technological advance we can to organize for a safer, less hostile world for black people. Our ancestors used songs to send messages during slavery. Following Reconstruction, leaders like Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ida B. Wells used newspapers to document lynching’s in the South. During the civil rights movement, our parents…
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To the Person Who I Apparently Share an Email With, You Have a Job Offer on the Table, Bro
My real name, while not traditional, isn’t exactly unique. This means that I remember when Gmail first dropped, and I did a mad dash (did you have to be invited back then? I can’t remember) to get my FIRSTNAME.LASTNAME@gmail.com account. And I did. I’ve had that email account for well over a decade now, and…
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Facebook Introduces the Coronavirus Information Center to 'Ensure That Misinformation Doesn’t Spread'
While Facebook seems to give less than a shit about the rampant racism crippling its platform, they at least appear to be vigilant in their quest to keep users safe and informed regarding the coronavirus. To that end, Facebook has taken a number of steps to ensure that its billions of users aren’t misled by…
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In Wake of Deadly Charlottesville Protests, University of North Carolina Police Surveilled…Anti-Racism Activists
Police at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, alongside state investigators, monitored the cellphones of antiracism protesters demonstrating against the campus’ Confederate statue, “Silent Sam,” in 2017. NBC News broke the story, which comes just a week after the UNC System revealed it paid upwards of $2.5 million to a Confederate group to take the…
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Federal Study Confirms Racial Bias in Facial-Recognition Systems. Which, Yeah, We Know
A federal study released Thursday shows that facial recognition technology used by law enforcement misidentified people of color more often than white people. In other news, water is indeed wet. The Washington Post reports that a study conducted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the federal lab that develops standards for emerging technology,…