For years, courts have recognized the use of so-called racially diverse “testers” in the enforcement of federal fair housing laws and Title VII’s ban on job discrimination. A new generation of testers is now exploring discrimination online—whether big-data algorithms could discriminate in finance, employment, real estate and other areas. A group of researchers and journalists […]

The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act has generated a lot of controversy since it became law in 1986, and this week the ACLU filed a lawsuit that challenges what it sees as the law’s overbroad prohibitions. The act forbids people from “exceed[ing] authorized access” to a computer, which technically means that any violation of a […]

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in U.S. federal court challenging the constitutionality of a provision of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), stating that the law prevents researchers from collecting data to determine whether online algorithms result in discrimination. The lawsuit, Sandvig v. Lynch, was filed on behalf of academic researchers […]

They are November Project’s cofounders—and they totally fit their gladiatorial-­sounding names: 6-foot-tall, bald, tattooed former collegiate rowers. Back in 2011, when the friends were trying to stay motivated during a Boston winter, they agreed to work out every weekday morning at 6:30, keeping track of their progress on a spreadsheet named for that first month, […]

When allegations emerged that Facebook was skewing its trending news stories, many learned about it… on Facebook. That underscored the rapid shift in media — not only is news moving from print to digital, but Facebook, Google and other tech platforms are increasingly becoming the main gateways for information. News organizations are necessarily joining the […]

The Orlando shooting massacre at the Pulse gay nightclub that led to the deaths of 49 victims has led to more national attention about hate crimes targeting the gay community. U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch spoke about the attack hours later on Fox News Sunday. “I think we have to keep our eye on a […]

Four academic researchers who specialize in uncovering algorithmic discrimination say that a decades-old federal anti-hacking statute is preventing them from doing work to detect such discrimination. They say a provision of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act could be used to criminally prosecute them for research that involves scraping publicly available data from these sites […]

In a perfect world, investors, board members, and executives would have full confidence in companies’ financial statements. They could rely on the numbers to make intelligent estimates of the magnitude, timing, and uncertainty of future cash flows and to judge whether the resulting estimate of value was fairly represented in the current stock price. And […]

Prosecutors say proving a hate crime can be difficult and can weaken their overall argument to a jury. But some criminologists say prosecutors have a duty to pursue hate crimes convictions nevertheless, because bias attacks terrorize entire communities, not just individuals. “It is important to charge, even if you’re not going to get a few more […]

ISIL gains power most prominently by acquiring land and people in Syria and Iraq, and only uses social media to arrogantly brag about their conquests, Max Abrahms, professor of political science at Northeastern University, said. Posting massacres online can even lead governments to become more resolute in fighting the extremists. “I think that this entire […]

The real mind-bender, though, is that Lewandowski—who remains a true believer in Trump despite the firing—signed a non-disclosure agreement when he left the campaign. Even worse, he may also have signed a non-disparagement agreement. On the face of it, that would seem to mean there exists a legal document somewhere that says Lewandowski cannot criticize […]

Because the control group was more likely to be over age 16, white, and come from two-parent, English-speaking households, and therefore more likely to have job skills and higher educational goals, the results are conservative, said Alicia Sasser Modestino, the Northeastern University professor who coauthored the study with Trinh Nguyen, director of the Mayor’s Office […]