Philip N. Howard— We need mandatory reporting on the ultimate beneficiaries of data. Citizens should easily be able to see which organizations are receiving and manipulating personal data. Social media companies should be able to report back to users on which advertisers, data-mining firms, and political consulting firms have made
Tracy Campbell— In his first fireside chat after Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt urged Americans “to reject all rumors,” noting that “these ugly little hints of complete disaster fly thick and fast in wartime.” By summer 1942, FDR knew that executive admonishments had failed to curb the avalanche of false information
Cailin O’Connor and James Owen Weatherall— Elemental mercury is the only metal that is liquid at room temperature. Aristotle called it “quicksilver,” a term that captures its strange beauty. But this particular beauty is also deadly. Exposure to mercury can lead to a host of symptoms: sensations of bugs crawling
Cailin O’Connor and James Owen Weatherall— Is that article fake news? Is this meme trustworthy? Is that scientific claim reliable? Over the last few years, it has become clear that most of us are not very good at answering such questions. For this reason, social media has contributed to a