ProPublica investigative journalist Julia Angwin and data scientist Jeff Larson They announced that they were leaving the US company to set up a newsroom entirely dedicated to technology and algorithmic research.
After nearly a decade, I’m leaving @ProPublica To start a new thing @Julia Angwin. I’m incredibly proud of the work we’ve done and in awe of great work @ProPublica will do
We plan to increase our investigations into technology and mechanisms. Good luck to you all!
— Jeff Larson (@thejefflarson) April 9, 2018
Some personal news: Today is my last day at ProPublica. I’ve loved my time here, but I’m about to embark on a crazy adventure. I want to see if I can increase my tech-oriented style of inquiries by building a newsroom around it. /1
— Julia Angwin (@JuliaAngwin) April 9, 2018
If ever there was a time when journalists needed to work harder to examine the effects of technology on society, now is it. So @thejefflarson And I’m going to try it. /2
— Julia Angwin (@JuliaAngwin) April 9, 2018
The timing of this new initiative is particularly good, with Mark Zuckerberg testifying before the US Congress about Facebook’s failure to protect user data. However, according to Angwin, it took a long time to come. He worked at the Wall Street Journal for 13 years and in 2010 created an investigative team that brought together programmers and journalists to create a three-year series. „What do they know” („What They Know”), which looks at the rise of the surveillance economy. Your book Dragnet Nation: The Quest for Privacy, Security and Freedom in a World of Unrelenting Surveillance It was released in 2014.
In that year Joined ProPublica A similar group, which brought together programmers and journalists, created a series.Mechanical dependence”, which explores the “injustices” of algorithms.
„I’ve long wanted to build a newsroom around the idea of connecting technologists with journalists,” Angwin explains. „This article will be about that.” Its co-founder, Jeff Larsen, has worked at ProPublica for more than 10 years as a web developer and data scientist, and Angwin programmed much of the work he did there.
The new company, which will be a non-profit organization funded by donations and philanthropic efforts, will be headquartered in New York and in the San Francisco Bay Area. „We hide the impact of technology on society,” he says. „It involves large platforms, but technology that is used in other aspects of life, in hopes of achieving research like we did Racial bias in software Used in criminal justice and constructive mechanisms Unreasonably high car insurance rates In minority neighborhoods. We also plan to develop tools like The Facebook political ad aggregator we built at ProPublicaAnd it allows the public to understand the problems of technology.
Angwin and Larsen hope to begin hiring within months and launch the site in early 2019. „We hope to build a substantial newsroom that can publish daily,” Angwin says.
This is Article Originally published Niman Laboratoryand edited and published on IJNet with permission.