The Making of the Fox News White House

Tyler Comrie

Fox has long been a bane of liberals, but in the past two years many people who watch the network closely, including some Fox alumni, say that it has evolved into something that hasn’t existed before in the United States. Nicole Hemmer, an assistant professor of Presidential studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center and the author of “Messengers of the Right,” a history of the conservative media’s impact on American politics, says of Fox, “It’s the closest we’ve come to having state TV.”

→ The New Yorker

Market Concentration Is Threatening the US Economy

Americans’ need the same resolve in fighting for competition that their corporations have shown in fighting against it.

The challenge, as always, is political. But with US corporations having amassed so much power, there is reason to doubt that the American political system is up to the task of reform. Add to that the globalization of corporate power and the orgy of deregulation and crony capitalism under Trump, and it is clear that Europe will have to take the lead.

→ Project Syndicate

People Want to Know About Algorithms—but Not Too Much

Sarah Mazzetti

At the heart of this conundrum are the tangled vines of transparency and trust. When we interact with algorithms, we know we are dealing with machines. Yet somehow their intelligence and their ability to mimic our own patterns of thought and communication confuse us into viewing them as human. Researchers have observed that when computer users are asked to describe how machines interact with them, they use anthropomorphic terms such as “integrity,” “honesty,” and “cruelty.” I also refer to algorithms’ “behavior” or their “going rogue.” Our language, at least, would suggest that we expect the same degree of trustworthiness, benevolence, and fairness from the computer algorithms we deal with as we do from our human peers.

→ Wired

The Secret Lives of Facebook Moderators in America

That people don’t know there are human beings doing this work is, of course, by design. Facebook would rather talk about its advancements in artificial intelligence, and dangle the prospect that its reliance on human moderators will decline over time.

But given the limits of the technology, and the infinite varieties of human speech, such a day appears to be very far away. In the meantime, the call center model of content moderation is taking an ugly toll on many of its workers. As first responders on platforms with billions of users, they are performing a critical function of modern civil society, while being paid less than half as much as many others who work on the front lines. They do the work as long as they can — and when they leave, an NDA ensures that they retreat even further into the shadows.

To Facebook, it will seem as if they never worked there at all. Technically, they never did.

→ The Verge

A 300mph Projectile on Wheels

The new Jesko by Koenigsegg, named after the company founder’s father, is claimed to be the world’s first road-legal 300 mph car. That top speed translates to more than 480 kilometers per hour. To put it in more relatable terms, this car can travel fast enough to cover the length of a football field — doesn’t matter which version of football you prefer — in less than a second. When you think of it in those terms, you’ll probably also realize just how theoretical performance like that is: there aren’t many straight lines in the world long enough to let a person hit such ludicrous speeds.

→ The Verge