Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy (37 page)

altered the news feed algorithm:
Eytan Bakshy, Solomon Messing, and Lada Adamic, “Exposure to Ideologically Diverse News and Opinion,”
Science
348, no. 6239 (May 7, 2015): 1130–32, doi:10.1126/science.aaa1160.

Lada Adamic, a computational social scientist:
Lada Adamic, YouTube video from a talk titled “When Friends Deliver the Newspaper,” originally given at O’Reilly’s Foo Camp, November 25, 2013, accessed January 10, 2016,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2wv-oVC9sE&list=UU0XEyA5oRIKnp7jkGrYw8ZQ—I
.

Karrie Karahalios:
Luckerson, “Here’s How.”

researchers experimented on
680,000
Facebook users:
Adam Kramer, Jamie Guillory, and Jeffrey Hancock, “Experimental Evidence of Massive-Scale Emotional Contagion through Social Networks,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
111, no. 24 (June 2, 2014): 8788–90, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1320040111.

Two researchers:
Robert Epstein and Ronald Robertson, “The Search Engine Manipulation Effect (SEME) and Its Possible Impact on the Outcomes of Elections,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
112, no. 33 (August 18, 2015): E4512–E4521, doi:10.1073/pnas.1419828112.

Some
73
percent of Americans:
Kristin Purcell, Joanna Brenner, and Lee Rainie, “Search Engine Use 2012,”
Pew Research Center
, March 9, 2012,
www.pewinternet.org/2012/03/09/search-engine-use-2012/
.

he traveled to Boca Raton:
Dave Gilson, “Who Was at Romney’s ‘47 Percent’ Fundraiser?,”
Mother Jones
, September 18, 2012,
www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/09/romney-47-percent-fundraiser-florida
.

captured by a bartender:
David Corn, “Meet Scott Prouty, the 47 Percent Video Source,”
Mother Jones
, March 13, 2013,
www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/03/scott-prouty-47-percent-video
.

very likely cost Romney any chance:
Henry Blodget, “Bloomberg: Mitt Romney Just Lost the Election,”
Business Insider
, September 17, 2012,
www.businessinsider.com/mitt-romney-just-lost-the-election-2012-9
.

The Selling of the President
:
Joe McGinniss,
The Selling of the President
1968 (New York: Trident Press, 1969).

Rayid Ghani posted an update:
excerpted on Straight Dope Message Board, accessed January 9, 2016,
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-617517.html
.

heading up the data team for Obama’s campaign:
Alexis Madrigal, “What the Obama Campaign’s Chief Data Scientist Is Up to Now,”
Atlantic Monthly
, May 8, 2013,
www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/05/what-the-obama-campaigns-chief-data-scientist-is-up-to-now/275676/
.

One of Ghani’s projects at Accenture:
Chad Cumby, Andrew Fano, Rayid Ghani, and Marko Krema, “Predicting Customer Shopping Lists from Point-of-Sale Purchase Data,” paper presented at the Proceedings of the Tenth ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, Seattle, 2004, doi:10.1145/1014052.1014098.

each campaign developed profiles of American voters:
Sasha Issenberg, “How President Obama’s Campaign Used Big Data to Rally Individual Voters,”
Technology Review
, December 19, 2012,
www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/509026/how-obamas-team-used-big-data-to-rally-voters/
.

Four years later:
Adam Pasick and Tim FernHolz, “The Stealthy, Eric Schmidt-Backed Startup That’s Working to Put Hillary Clinton in the White House,”
Quartz
, October 9, 2015,
http://qz.com/520652/groundwork-eric-schmidt-startup-working-for-hillary-clinton-campaign/
.

In late
2015
the
Guardian
reported:
Harry Davies, “Ted Cruz Using Firm That Harvested Data on Millions of Unwitting Facebook Users,”
Guardian
, December 11, 2015,
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/11/senator-ted-cruz-president-campaign-facebook-user-data
.

When the Republican Jewish Coalition was meeting:
Tom Hamburger, “Cruz Campaign Credits Psychological Data and Analytics for Its Rising Success,”
Washington Post
, December 13, 2015,
www.washingtonpost.com/politics/cruz-campaign-credits-psychological-data-and-analytics-for-its-rising-success/2015/12/13/4cb0baf8-9dc5-11e5-bce4-708fe33e3288_story.html
.

The Center for Medical Progress:
Eugene Scott, “Anti-abortion Group Releases Fifth Planned Parenthood Video,” CNN, August 5, 2015,
www.cnn.com/2015/08/04/politics/planned-parenthood-fifth-video-houston/
.

Research later showed:
Jackie Calmes, “Planned Parenthood Videos Were Altered, Analysis Finds,”
New York Times
, August 27, 2015,
www.nytimes.com/2015/08/28/us/abortion-planned-parenthood-videos.html
.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/nov/29/suspect-in-planned-parenthood-attack-said-no-more-baby-parts-after-arrest
.

According to Zeynep Tufekci:
Zeynep Tufekci, phone interview by author, April 3, 2015.

more than
43
percent of Republicans:
Peter Schroeder, “Poll: 43 Percent of Republicans Believe Obama Is a Muslim,”
Hill
, September 13, 2015,
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/253515-poll-43-percent-of-republicans-believe-obama-is-a-muslim
.

still directing
75
percent of their media buy:
Elizabeth Wilner, “Romney and Republicans Outspent Obama, but Couldn’t Out-advertise Him,”
Advertising Age
, November 9, 2012,
http://adage.com/article/campaign-trail/romney-outspent-obama-advertise/238241/
.

Simulmedia, in New York:
Steven Perlberg, “Targeted Ads? TV Can Do That Now Too,”
Wall Street Journal
, November 20, 2014,
www.wsj.com/articles/targeted-ads-tv-can-do-that-now-too-1416506504
.

CONCLUSION

President Bill Clinton signed:
Richard Socarides, “Why Bill Clinton Signed the Defense of Marriage Act,”
New Yorker
, March 8, 2013,
www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/why-bill-clinton-signed-the-defense-of-marriage-act
.

tech giant IBM announced:
Nick Gillespie, “What’s Good for IBM…,”
Chicago Tribune
, November 5, 1996,
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1996-11-05/news/9611050018_1_gay-marriage-defense-of-marriage-act-same-sex
.

“In terms of business competitiveness”:
Businessweek Archives, “Same Sex Benefits: Where IBM Goes, Others May Follow,”
Bloomberg Business
, October 6, 1996,
www.bloomberg.com/bw/stories/1996-10-06/same-sex-benefits-where-ibm-goes-others-may-follow
.

a gay man, Tim Cook:
Timothy Donald Cook, “Tim Cook Speaks Up,”
Bloomberg Business
, October 30, 2014,
www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-10-30/tim-cook-speaks-up
.

Apple, the most valuable company:
Verne Kopytoff, “Apple: The First $700 Billion Company,”
Fortune
, February 10, 2015,
http://fortune.com/2015/02/10/apple-the-first-700-billion-company/
.

In
1907
alone
,
3,242
miners died:
MSHA, “Coal Fatalities for 1900 Through 2014,” US Department of Labor, accessed January 9, 2016,
www.msha.gov/stats/centurystats/coalstats.asp
.

drew up such an oath:
Emanuel Derman and Paul Wilmott, “The Financial Modeler’s Manifesto,” January 7, 2009,
www.uio.no/studier/emner/sv/oekonomi/ECON4135/h09/undervisningsmateriale/FinancialModelersManifesto.pdf
.

FindFamilyResources:
FindFamilyResources website, accessed January 9, 2016,
http://findfamilyresources.com/
.

If you plot year-to-year scores on a chart:
Gary Rubinstein, “Analyzing Released NYC Value-Added Data Part 2,”
Gary Rubinstein’s Blog
, February 28, 2012,
http://garyrubinstein.teachforus.org/2012/02/28/analyzing-released-nyc-value-added-data-part2/
.

as the computer scientist Cynthia Dwork has noted:
Claire Cain Miller, “Algorithms and Bias: Q. and A. with Cynthia Dwork,”
New York Times
, August 10, 2015,
www.nytimes.com/2015/08/11/upshot/algorithms-and-bias-q-and-a-with-cynthia-dwork.html
.

Web Transparency and Accountability Project:
Elizabeth Dwoskin, “How Social Bias Creeps into Web Technology,”
Wall Street Journal
, August 21, 2015,
www.wsj.com/articles/computers-are-showing-their-biases-and-tech-firms-are-concerned-1440102894
.

Message Machine:
Jeff Larson, “Message Machine Starts Providing Answers,”
Pro Publica
, October 18, 2012,
www.propublica.org/article/message-machine-starts-providing-answers
.

Fair Credit Reporting Act:
Federal Trade Commission, “Fair Credit Reporting Act,” 15 USC § 1681 et seq., FTC website,
www.ftc.gov/enforcement/rules/rulemaking-regulatory-reform-proceedings/fair-credit-reporting-act
.

Equal Credit Opportunity Act:
Federal Trade Commission, “Your Equal Credit Opportunity Rights,” FTC website,
www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0347-your-equal-credit-opportunity-rights
.