“It’s true that many of Clark’s actions defy logic. In key ways, he never fit the mold of a classic con man.”
tech
Posted inFeature
The Strangely Beautiful Experience of Google Reviews
Glimpses of humanity in an unlikely corner of the internet.
Posted inEditor's Pick
When Drivers Are Attacked, Uber Leaves Police Waiting for Help
“Uber is slow to respond to law enforcement requests, leaving drivers vulnerable to repeated attacks.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Aristocrat Inc.
“How a small computer chip company, owned by the author’s mother, became the target of a sprawling pan-Asian crime ring that operated throughout Silicon Valley.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Failure to Launch
“True community-building, as tech founders should have realized by now, requires more than renting a mansion in Beverly Hills.” In this Vox investigation, Rebecca Jennings does what she does best: reporting on the influencer and creator economy while writing compellingly about some new corner of internet and tech culture. In this piece, she gets behind […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Milk Money
Reeves Wiederman reports on how the baby-formula shortage in the U.S. created an opportunity for new companies to enter an industry historically dominated by a few corporations. Laura Modi, a Google and Airbnb alum who founded the baby-formula startup Bobbie, is one such CEO hoping to transform an industry “that has grown complacent.” As Modi […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Very Online
CJR fellow Karen Maniraho talks with five very online journalists — Ryan Broderick, Jason Parham, Taylor Lorenz, Rebecca Jennings, and Rusty Foster — about what it’s like to cover tech and internet culture today, how they navigate through viral moments and algorithms, and how they look for meaning in a constantly noise-polluted, chaotic space. Because […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
How the AI Industry Profits from Catastrophe
The demand for data labeling in the artificial intelligence industry — tagging videos, sorting photos, and transcribing audio in order to train AI — has created a massive need for cheap labor, leading data-labeling platforms such as Appen to hire low-pay workers in countries like Venezuela, the Philippines, and Kenya to do these tasks. In […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Taking Stock
Rob Horning explores the term “creator” in this essay on labor, exploitation, and content production and consumption on the internet. “Creator,” like “creativity,” is essentially a null term that signifies nothing about one’s activity but instead marks one’s limitless availability — a willingness to make anything at all in one’s life into content for sale.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Weighing Big Tech’s Promise to Black America
“Floyd’s killing sparked widespread protests in the streets and calls for racial justice in Fortune 500 boardrooms. But while corporate America’s official responses often felt like crisis PR disguised as philanthropy, Netflix’s approach stood out.”