Algorithms are based on policies, and policies are created by humans – humans with bias, and humans who are often working to protect the interests of their corporate clients.
Exclusive: Victoria’s Secret Influence on Instagram’s Censorship Policies
Category: business / corporates
On generating engagement
These are the richest companies in the world, and they have the best engineers in the world. They could fix these problems if they wanted to. Twitter could deploy an algorithm to remove more white supremacist hate speech, but they reportedly haven’t because it would eject some very prominent politicians from their platform. Maybe that’s not a bad thing! The truth is, these companies won’t fundamentally change because their entire business model relies on generating more engagement, and nothing generates more engagement than lies, fear and outrage.
On Terms & Conditions
YouTube may terminate your access, or your Google account’s access to all or part of the Service if YouTube believes, in its sole discretion, that provision of the Service to you is no longer commercially viable.
Leaked documents show Facebook leveraged user data to fight rivals and help friends
For example, Facebook gave Amazon special access to user data because it was spending money on Facebook advertising. In another case the messaging app MessageMe was cut off from access to data because it had grown too popular and could compete with Facebook.
Source: Leaked documents show Facebook leveraged user data to fight rivals and help friends
Coca-Cola Named Most Polluting Brand in Plastic Waste Audit
After Coca-Cola, the next biggest contributors to the plastic pollution in the audit were Nestle, PepsiCo, Mondelez International — purveyor of snack brands like Oreo, Ritz, Nabisco, and Nutter Butter — and Unilever.
Source: Coca-Cola Named Most Polluting Brand in Plastic Waste Audit