by Cathy O'Neil
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.
Americans with Disabilities Act: US Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, “Information and Technical Assistance on the Americans with Disabilities Act,” Americans with Disabilities Act website, www.ada.gov/.
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act: US Department of Labor, “The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act,” November 2015, www.dol.gov/ebsa/newsroom/fshipaa.html.
the European model: L-Soft, “Opt-In Laws in North America and Europe,” Lsoft.com, www.lsoft.com/resources/optinlaws.asp.
illegal to sell user data: Elizabeth Dwoskin, “EU Data-Privacy Law Raises Daunting Prospects for U.S. Companies,” Wall Street Journal, December 16, 2015, www.wsj.com/articles/eu-data-privacy-law-raises-daunting-prospects-for-us-companies-1450306033.
the number of homeless people in the city: Meghan Henry, Alvaro Cortes, Azim Shivji, and Katherine Buck, “The 2014 Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) to Congress,” US Department of Housing and Urban Development, October 2014, www.hudexchange.info/resources/documents/2014-AHAR-Part1.pdf.
wean families from Section 8: Giselle Routhier, “Mayor Bloomberg’s Revolving Door of Homelessness,” Safety Net, Spring 2012, www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/mayor-bloombergs-revolving-door-of-homelessness/.
Made in a Free World: Issie Lapowsky, “The Next Big Thing You Missed: Software That Helps Businesses Rid Their Supply Chains of Slave Labor,” Wired, February 3, 2015, www.wired.com/2015/02/frdm/.
Eckerd, a child and family services nonprofit: Darian Woods, “Who Will Seize the Child Abuse Prediction Market?,” Chronicle for Social Change, May 28, 2015, https://chronicleofsocialchange.org/featured/who-will-seize-the-child-abuse-prediction-market/10861.
Boston Globe: Michael Levenson, “Can Analytics Help Fix the DCF?,” Boston Globe, November 7, 2015, www.bostonglobe.com/2015/11/07/childwelfare-bostonglobe-com/AZ2kZ7ziiP8cBMOite2KKP/story.html.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Cathy O’Neil is a data scientist and the author of the blog mathbabe.org. She earned a PhD in mathemati
cs from Harvard and taught at Barnard College before moving to the private sector, where she worked for the hedge fund D. E. Shaw. She then worked as a data scientist at various start-ups, building models that predict people’s purchases and clicks. O’Neil started the Lede Program in Data Journalism at Columbia and is the author of Doing Data Science. She appears weekly on the Slate Money podcast.
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