Try not to be a creep
A mere 72 hours after the world received the biggest privacy wake-up call OF ALL TIME, Spotify decided to -- nbd, lol -- go ahead and give its own overreach-y privacy policy a try. It was all a "misunderstanding," of course -- poor communication, deepest regrets, etc. Fair enough, Spotify, but now you know we're watchin' ya.
1. How bias creeps into Web technology. Programs, as we know, are made by people -- and people make mistakes. But the question of correcting software bias remains. Should algorithms care about diversity? Can we better craft the data that programs "learn" from? Or -- and this is also possible -- is there really nothing to be done?
2. Finding yourself in the Ashley Madison hack. A man who is not Evan Ratliff registered for an account with Evan's email address. And the philosophical ripples of that little mix-up go a lot further than you might expect.
3. Falling in love on an anonymous app. Maybe Whisper's not so terrible, I take it all back.
I am usually v. skeptical of "hot new apps" but feel like I can get behind Giphy Cam
Postscripts: The bots of slack. The future (?) of coffee. The secrets of Facebook's trending feed. Pro tip for *all* human interactions: Try not to be a creep. Yep, McDonald's ripped off a meme for an ad. News junkies, you finally get your own dating app. Ladies of tech, it could be so much worse! (Like -- observe how bad peak irony hurts!) We get so many notifications, but we can't tell them apart. This weird real-life Chatrouette game is a bona fide work of art. Finally, we'll conclude with some things we see less positively: the most unfaithful states, the grossest Facebook page, "this giant jacuzzi of insanity."
See ya Monday!
@caitlindewey
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