#Cyberculture agenda: “Authoritarians used to be scared of social media, now they rule it

Killing speech softly: How the world’s biggest tech companies are quietly censoring critical expression in the Middle East

 Global Voices Online by Afef Abrougui 

Graphic by Omar Momani for 7iber (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

This post is published as part of an editorial partnership between Global Voices and Ranking Digital Rights.

Following the Charlie Hebdo shootings in January 2015, Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted a message reflecting on religion, free expression and the controversial editorial line of the magazine….

Amazon’s facial recognition AI confuses politicians with criminals

The Next Web by Tristan Greene 

Nearly a decade ago a 47-year-old black woman named Denise Green was pulled from her vehicle and held at gunpoint by six San Francisco police officers. One of them pointed a shotgun at her face, another handcuffed her and directed her to kneel. Despite having a history of knee problems, Green complied with every order given. Twenty minutes later she was released, free to go about her life. The police initially suspected Green of driving a stolen vehicle when a machine learning algorithm designed to scan license plates misidentified hers, and incorrectly flagged her car as stolen. 

Facebook’s Scandals Are Finally Starting to Hurt Its Business 

Slate Articles by April Glaser  




Until now, Facebook has appeared to be immune to the litany of scandals its business has generated over the past couple of years, with ever-increasing growth in revenue and users and an unsinkable stock price. On Wednesday, its ability to coast on its years of success finally seemed to give out. On an earnings call with investors, Facebook reported that its revenue grew by 42 percent over the same time last year, reaching $13.2 billion for the quarter—a number that was lower than the $13.3 billion analysts expected. The slight miss may have been what sent Facebook’s stock plunging more than 23 percent after the call in after-hours trading, but more likely it’s what’s going on with some of the social network’s metrics.