It's the Algorithm, Stupid!
Like it or not, as everything goes digital, algorithms (software rules) will make more and more decisions for us. Every now and then, those rules will misfire. Note that this is totally different than good old bugs in the software; the issue is with the algorithm not being appropriate in a specific context or time period. Let’s take 2 very recent examples of this problem. Remember that famous 1972 pic from the Vietnam War of a naked, 9-year-old girl fleeing napalm bombs? When a Norwegian newspaper, Aftenposten , posted that pic on Facebook (in the context of the horrors of war), Facebook’s algorithms removed the pic because it was (mis)identified as child porn. An honest mistake, obviously. But Aftenpost ’s editor, Espen Egil Hansen, wrote an open letter to Mark Zuckerburg : “Please try to envision a new war where children will be the victims of barrel bombs or nerve gas. Would you once again intercept the documentation of cruelties, just because a tiny minority might possibly ...