Author: Kalev Leetaru
Why Do We Blame Social Media For Being Addictive Instead Of Ourselves?
The growing backlash against social media's addictiveness and its “behavioral engineering” and “psychological manipulation” raises the question of whether social…
Are Facebook's Privacy And Security Scandals Actually Helping It?
Facebook’s remarkable ability to escape the past year unscathed and in fact post record profits and growth numbers suggests we…
Governments Can't Regulate Social Media Because They Are Too Dependent On It
Social platforms have become indispensable staples of the modern state, used by elected officials all the way up to world…
Does Facebook Survive Because Of Its Size Or Because We Gave Up On Privacy And Security?
Facebook’s lack of consequences for its breaches leaves us with only two uncomfortable possibilities: either the company has become simply…
Facebook Demands Email Passwords Then Quietly Uploads Contact Lists But Once Again We Don't Care
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Facebook’s latest privacy scandal is not that it happened at all, but rather that…
Scientific Visualizations For Teaching Used To Mean Plaster Models
Physical mathematical models rose into popularity during the late 1800’s to early 1900’s and were once a ubiquitous sight in…
Big Data Can Help Us See Through Government Redactions
The rise of massive centralized FOIA archives, digitized news archives and a bit of statistical analysis can help scholars readily…
We Are Voluntarily Surrendering The Data We Long Fought To Protect
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the modern privacy story is the way in which we have voluntarily surrendered all…
Our Entire AI Revolution Is Built On A Correlation House Of Cards
Today's AI algorithms are merely correlation machines, sifting through vast piles of numbers to record subtle correlations among inputs without…
Cameras Construct Reality Rather Than Capture Truth
With more cameras than citizens, why do governments still find themselves unable to catch criminals and why do we as…
Once Upon A Time We Had To Convince People To Share Their Thoughts
Looking back to the rise of personal tape recorders half a century ago, it is interesting to contemplate a world…
WashPost: Actually, The Mueller Report Showed That Russia Did Affect The Vote
The Washington Post's Philip Bump explores media coverage of several key events investigated by the Mueller report. Read The Full…
Social Media Is Reverting Society From Adults Back Into Children
Social media has become a toxic cesspool of hate and stupidity, where the loudest and most obnoxious one wins and…
Facebook's Terrible Automatic Video Captions Are No Laughing Matter
The difference between Facebook and YouTube's automatic closed captioning of a recent NASA video reminds us that AI done right…
AI Package Delivery Drones Are Just Killer Robots In Waiting
Modified civilian drones today are capable of navigating denied spaces, seeking targets based on facial recognition and delivering lethal force,…
Instagram's Seizure Of Sussexroyal And Our Lack Of Digital Property Rights
In the digital dictatorships of our social media platforms, there is no such thing as digital property rights and companies…
Facebook's Password Breach Is Even Worse But It Won't Matter Because We Don't Care
The unfortunate truth about Facebook's latest security breach admission is that the public has become so inured to cybersecurity breaches…
Why Do We Believe What We Read On The Internet?
In the early days of the modern web there was a running joke about not believing everything one read on…
We're Increasingly Experiencing Events Through Live Streaming
One of the early promises of internet video was the ability to experience the world through the eyes of others….
Deep Learning And The Limits Of Learning By Correlation Rather Than Causation
For AI evolve beyond the simplistic and constrained tasks of today towards the complex generalized intelligences of tomorrow will require…
Waymo Reminds Us: Successful Complex AI Combines Deep Learning And Traditional Code
Waymo reminds us that for truly robust complex deep learning systems that must interact with the chaotic cacophony of the…
500 Forbes Columns And Counting
In the just over three years and four months since his debut Forbes column on September 15, 2015 announcing "Reimagining…
As The Cloud Courts The Enterprise It Goes Big Memory
As the commercial cloud has increasingly courted the enterprise, the major cloud vendors have been rolling out ever-larger machine options,…
The Four Eras Of Wikipedia And Visualizing History Without Maps
Maps are an especially powerful lens through which to understand history, connecting our world through one of its two fundamental…