Peering Inside the Platforms
This episode focuses on how best to create mechanisms for outside scrutiny of technology platforms. The first segment is with Brandon Silverman, the founder and former CEO of CrowdTangle, an analytics toolset acquired by Facebook in 2016 that permitted academics, journalists and others to inspect how information spreads on the platform. And the second segment is a panel provided courtesy of the non-partisan policy organization the German Marshall Fund of the United States. On June 15, GMF hosted Opening the Black Box: Auditing Algorithms for Accountable Tech, featuring Anna Lenhart, Senior Technology Policy Advisor, Rep. Lori Trahan, a Democrat from Massachusetts; Deborah Raji, a fellow at the Mozilla Foundation and a PhD Candidate in Computer Science at UC Berkeley; and Mona Sloane, a sociologist affiliated with NYU and the University of Tübingen AI center. The panel was moderated by Ellen P. Goodman, a Professor at Rutgers Law School and a Visiting Senior Fellow at The German Marshall Fund of the United States.