Slashdot is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Submission + - Facebook started trending false news stories on a regular basis (citiesofthefuture.eu)

dkatana writes: "Facebook started trending false news stories on a regular basis." that's the conclusion of Susan Etlinger. She is an industry analyst at the thinktank, Altimeter Group, where she focuses on data strategy, analytics and ethical data use.

“In the Facebook News feed, which is optimized for engagement, the consequence is that the most controversial and provocative stories tend to be shared more than real news reporting, and Facebook has not had a way to make verification and authenticity an important part of the algorithm and then Facebook started trending false news stories on a regular basis.” That, Etlinger told Cities of the Future, “is an example where a machine has too much responsibility.”

When asked about the possibility of people using data and AI to influence political decisions and distort information to the public, Etlinger is outspoken:

We don’t even know the level of intentional misinformation that has been shared.” Etlinger says. “Obviously the US news media, as an example, is full of conspiracy theories right now. The reality is [AI] is an incredibly powerful technology, even more because it is very difficult, and in some cases impossible, to go back and understand exactly what happens in an algorithm, and AI.”

Submission + - Hackers Are Trading Hundreds of Thousands of xHamster Porn Account Details

AmiMoJo writes: Hundreds of thousands of user account details for porn site xHamster are being traded on the digital underground. The database of nearly 380,000 users includes usernames, email addresses, and what appears to be poorly-hashed passwords. The database includes some 40 email addresses belonging to the US Army, and 30 related to various US, UK, and other countries’ government bodies. The hashes in the database have been created with the long-aging algorithm MD5. Hackers can trivially crack these hashes, and plenty of websites exist where anyone can quickly look up the plaintext of an already-cracked hash.

Slashdot Top Deals

It seems that more and more mathematicians are using a new, high level language named "research student".

Working...