Amazon’s facial recognition system, Rekognition, falsely matched 28 U.S. congressmen with criminal mugshots, the American Civil Liberties Union wrote in a blog post Thursday.
Why it matters: The result of the test, which compared all 535 members of Congress against 25,000 public mugshots, fuels the debate over whether algorithmic bias singles out more minorities by law enforcement.
Facebook shares fell nearly 19% on Thursday, or $41.24 per share, wiping out more than $119 billion in value. Within that is a $15 billion hit for founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Data: Money.NET; Chart: Harry Stevens/Axios
This came after Facebook reported slower revenue and user growth in the second quarter.
The big losses came in aftermarket trading yesterday, but Facebook was unable to make up much ground during today's session.
Some Republicans are seeing limited visibility of their accounts in Twitter's automated search box, Vice News reports. Conservatives have seized on the story — even though experts say that it does not prove ideological bias on the platform.
The big picture: Conservatives have claimed for years that social media platforms are biased against them, but Twitter has denied that it has targeted any specific group. A New York Law School professor, Ari Ezra Waldman, told Vice that this isn't indicative "of anti-conservative bias since some Republicans still appear and some don't. This just appears to be a cluster of conservatives who have been affected."
President Trump slammed Twitter's alleged practice of "shadow banning" conservative voices in a Thursday morning tweet:
"Twitter 'SHADOW BANNING' prominent Republicans. Not good. We will look into this discriminatory and illegal practice at once! Many complaints."
The big picture: Some prominent conservatives, like Donald Trump Jr.'s spokesperson and RNC Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel, no longer appeared in the automated drop-down portion of Twitter's search bar, Vice News reported yesterday. Kayvon Beykpour, the company's product lead, responded that the issue was a side effect of Twitter's use of machine learning to enact a new policy to "reduce people’s ability to detract from healthy public conversation" — an issue highlighted by New York magazine — and that it was issuing a fix.
Facebook lost more than $125 billion in value after the markets closed, with shares plummeting more than 20%, following an earnings report that missed revenue and user growth estimates.
Why it matters: Facebook is part of a small group of companies that has been keeping the overall stock markets afloat for much of 2018.
Facebook's stock price was free-falling (down 23% at one point) in after-hours trading on Wednesday, as the company warned investors on its earnings call that changes to its platform will continue to depress its revenue growth rate for the rest of the year.
Why it matters: Facebook's business appeared invincible for the past two years despite a string of controversies. That tide may now be turning.
Qualcomm acknowledged Wednesday that it expects Apple will go exclusively with rival chipmakers to supply the modems on the next iPhone. The move comes as the two companies remained locked in a bitter licensing dispute.
Why it matters: Although Apple designs its own processors, it relies on others for modem chips and had been a big Qualcomm customer until recently. Apple has used a mix of Intel and Qualcomm modems in recent iPhones. Qualcomm will still supply some modem chips for older iPhone models.
Facebook stock was down double digits after hours Wednesday after the company reported that it missed revenue and user growth estimates for the second quarter and predicted it will continue to see slowed revenue growth in future quarters.
Why it matters: For months the tech giant seemed unstoppable, posting record earnings continually despite months of public relations fallout and product changes. Today's earnings show that product changes to address user privacy and engagement are starting to affect the company's bottom line.
As expected, Qualcomm plans to drop its long-running bid to buy rival NXP Semiconductors, instead spending up to $30 billion to buy back its own stock. The company announced the moves alongside a better-than-expected quarterly earnings report.
The bottom line: The deal, announced back in 2016, had been stalled awaiting Chinese regulatory approval. Qualcomm's latest tender offer had been slated to expire later this evening.
Alphabet-owned self-driving vehicle company Waymo is starting a test pilot program in Phoenix that will allow Walmart customers to use its autonomous car service to pick up groceries at stores as soon as this week.
Why it matters: This is one of several partnerships Waymo is piecing together in the summer to get people into cars and test out the service. Companies such as AutoNation and Avis Budget Group are also in on the testing. Walmart customers will save on their groceries when they order groceries on Walmart's website and use the service, per Waymo's blog post.
Qualcomm is likely to announce later today it is dropping its stalled plan to acquire NXP Semiconductors and instead launch a stock buyback, CNBC reported.
Why it matters: The deal's end was expected as Qualcomm's bid has been caught up in US-China politics with no end in sight. Qualcomm's current offer expires just before midnight (Eastern Time) tonight and Qualcomm reports earnings later today.
Just hours after official approval for a Facebook subsidiary to operate in Hangzhou appeared on a Chinese government website, the approval was withdrawn, reports The New York Times' Paul Mozur, citing a source familiar with the matter.
The bottom line: China has kept Facebook out of the country for a decade, and the abrupt withdrawal of approval indicates that Mark Zuckerberg's quest to crack the Chinese market is still a long shot.
Longtime Democratic strategist Joe Trippi, who worked on Doug Jones’ victorious Senate campaign, told CNN's Jake Tapper that Russian actors interfered in the special election last year using Twitter, but said they didn't influence the outcome.
"We literally have ten thousands Russian bots that were ... popping out forty-thousand post per minute, not per hour — on Twitter. ... There's active engagement in our politics. I'm not saying they change any votes, but what are we doing to stop it."
— Joe Trippi
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly referred to Joe Trippi as Sen. Jones' campaign manager. Trippi was a consultant to the campaign, not the campaign manager.
