Research

Experts are evenly split on whether the coming decade will see a reduction in false and misleading narratives online. Those forecasting improvement place their hopes in technological fixes and in societal solutions. Others think the dark side of human nature is aided more than stifled by technology.

Researchers at the University of Washington have found a way to track a person’s location and app use through serving ads on mobile apps.

The result opens the door for significant privacy invasions through the app-based advertising system. The researchers obtained the information by purchasing a series of ads targeted to specific locations and apps, then checking which mobile subscribers fit the targeting. In experiments conducted on Android devices, the team was able to pinpoint a person’s location within eight meters through a targeted ad. They tested ads on 10 different apps, including Grindr, Imgur, Words with Friends, and Talkatone, all using widely available ad networks. By serving ad content to a user’s apps, the ad buyers could learn what apps the user has installed. That information could be sensitive, revealing a user’s sexual orientation or religious affiliation. Researchers could also find out when a user went to a specific place. After targeting ads to a specific location, the ad network would notify them within 10 minutes of when the user arrived.

According to a new Morning Consult/Politico Poll, 46 percent of respondents said they thought the news media fabricated stories about President Donald Trump or his administration, compared with 37 percent who said they did not. A majority (51%) said the government should not have the power to revoke broadcast licenses of major news organizations, versus 28% who said yes (the rest had no opinion). But more Republicans think it should (46%) than should not (33%). The online poll was conducted Oct. 12-16 among 1,991 registered voters.

A recent report from the Pew Research Center found that about one-in-six news stories about President Donald Trump or the administration (16%) during the first 100 days of Trump’s presidency included one of his tweets. Another element measured in the study was whether statements from the journalist or statements cited in a story gave an overall positive or negative evaluation of the Trump administration’s words or actions – or fell somewhere in between.

This deeper analysis reveals that the stories that included a direct tweet from Trump were more likely than others to have an overall negative assessment of him or his administration – that is, had at least twice as many negative as positive statements. Just over half of stories that had a tweet from Trump (54%) had a negative assessment, 12 percentage points higher than stories that did not contain any of his tweets (42%). (Overall, 44% of all stories studied during the time period studied gave a negative assessment.)

The Connected Government Act (S 1769) would require all federal agencies that create or update a website intended for use by the public to ensure that the website is mobile friendly. A mobile friendly website is defined as one that is configured in such a way that it may be easily navigated and viewed on a smartphone, tablet computer, or similar mobile device. In addition, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the General Services Administration (GSA), would report on the implementation of these requirements within 18 months.

Enacting S. 1769 would not affect direct spending or revenues; therefore, pay-as-you-go procedures do not apply. CBO estimates that enacting S. 1769 would not increase direct spending or on-budget deficits in any of the four consecutive 10-year periods beginning in 2028. S. 1769 contains no intergovernmental or private-sector mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act.

When Americans are asked what has brought the biggest improvement to their lives in the past five decades, they name technology more than any other advancement. And as Americans think about the next 50 years, they expect that technology, along with medical advances, will continue to have a major impact, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted May to June of 2017. Technology was cited most (42%), while far fewer respondents mentioned medicine and health (14%), civil and equal rights (10%) or other advancements. Technology was identified as the biggest improvement by whites (47%) and Hispanics (35%), while blacks were about as likely to name technology (26%) as they were civil and equal rights (21%).

Women in the US are substantially more likely than men to say gender discrimination is a major problem in the technology industry, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in July and August. The survey comes amid public debate about underrepresentation and treatment of women – as well as racial and ethnic minorities – in the industry.

Critics of Silicon Valley have cited high-profile cases as evidence that the industry has fostered a hostile workplace culture. For their part, tech companies point to their commitment to increasing workforce diversity, even as some employees claim the industry is increasingly hostile to white males. The new survey finds that roughly three-quarters of Americans (73%) say discrimination against women is a problem in the tech industry, with 37% citing it as a major problem and an equal share citing it as a minor one. But 44% of women say it is a major problem, compared with just 29% of men. And roughly a third of men (32%) say discrimination against women is not a problem, compared with 17% of women. Younger women are more likely than older women to view gender discrimination as a major problem in the tech industry. About half (49%) of women younger than 50 say this, compared with 39% of women 50 and older.

In February 2017, four political scientists formed Bright Line Watch. Their mission was a chilling sign of the times, a reflection of the fears that swept across the United States as Donald Trump swept into office. They existed, they said, to “monitor the status of democratic practices and highlight potential threats to American democracy.” The danger was from our new president, and from ourselves.

The third wave of results, which will be presented at a conference on threats to American democracy on Oct 6, contains good news of a sort: Trump’s presidency, at least in the view of these experts, has not done visible damage to the workings of the American political system. The media is more invigorated, more profitable, and more trusted since his election. The firing of FBI Director James Comey led to the appointment — from within Trump’s own administration, no less — of special counsel Bob Mueller. Early in Trump’s presidency, Yuval Levin, the editor of the conservative journal National Affairs, predicted to me that this White House was likelier to be defined by “dysfunction than autocracy,” and so far he’s been right.

Digital news and social media continue to grow, with mobile devices rapidly becoming one of the most common ways for Americans to get news. As journalists and media practitioners gather for the annual Online News Association conference, here are 10 key findings from recent Pew Research Center reports about today’s digital news media landscape:

Advances in robotics and artificial intelligence have the potential to automate a wide range of human activities and to dramatically reshape the way that Americans live and work in the coming decades. The public generally expresses more worry than enthusiasm about emerging automation technologies – especially when it comes to jobs. US adults are roughly twice as likely to express worry (72%) as enthusiasm (33%) about a future in which robots and computers are capable of doing many jobs that are currently done by humans.

The public supports policies that would limit the scope of automation technologies: The vast majority of Americans (87%) would favor a requirement that all driverless vehicles have a human in the driver’s seat who can take control of the vehicle in the event of an emergency, with 53% favoring this policy strongly. And in the event that robots and computers are able to do most of the jobs that are done by humans today, 85% of Americans are in favor of limiting machines to performing primarily those jobs that are dangerous or unhealthy for humans.