NYC wants a chief algorithm officer to counter bias, build transparency; Ars Technica, November 25, 2019

Kate Cox, Ars Technica; NYC wants a chief algorithm officer to counter bias, build transparency

"It takes a lot of automation to make the nation's largest city run, but it's easy for that kind of automation to perpetuate existing problems and fall unevenly on the residents it's supposed to serve. So to mitigate the harms and ideally increase the benefits, New York City has created a high-level city government position essentially to manage algorithms."

N.Y. Mayor Taps Drexel Professor For First Algorithm Quality-Control Task Force; Drexel Now, June 4, 2018

Drexel Now; N.Y. Mayor Taps Drexel Professor For First Algorithm Quality-Control Task Force

"But how do we ensure that the algorithms are the impartial arbiters we expect them to be? Drexel University professor Julia Stoyanovich is part of the first group in the nation helping to answer this question in the biggest urban area in the world. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio tapped Stoyanovich to serve on the city’s Automated Decision Systems Task Force, a team charged with creating a process for reviewing algorithms through the lens of fairness, equity and accountability...

The [Automated Decision Systems] Task Force is the product of New York City’s algorithmic accountability law, which was passed in 2017 to ensure transparency in how the city uses automated decision systems. By 2019, the group must “provide recommendations about how agency automated decision systems data may be shared with the public and how agencies may address instances where people are harmed by agency automated decision systems,” according to one of the provisions of the law."

Broadband City: How New York Is Bridging Its Digital Divide; Nation, 1/8/16

Maya Wiley, Nation; Broadband City: How New York Is Bridging Its Digital Divide:

" Few would debate that the information superhighway is both an on-ramp and HOV lane for the global economy. Whether a resident needs to get online to access homework or supplemental educational tools, to search for a job or start a business, broadband is a necessity. Most may not realize how many can’t afford it. Jillian Maldonado, a South Bronx single mom who was earning $300 a week as an Avon representative is an all-too-familiar victim of the digital divide. After a long day, she would come home, make her young son dinner, and then take him past the check-cashing store, a small grocery, and the occasional drug dealer to get to the library to get him online to do his homework.

A family that doesn’t know how it will make its monthly rent payment may not have $75 a month for in-home broadband, let alone a computer. More than a third of low-income New Yorkers still do not have broadband at home. It’s why this year, for the first time in the history of the city, we added a broadband category to the capital budget and pledged $70 million over the next 10 years towards free or low-cost wireless service for low-income communities. These investments are part of the mayor’s aggressive approach to expanding broadband access."

Where Freedom of Expression Runs Headlong Into the Impulse to Censor; New York Times, 2/28/11

Clyde Haberman, New York Times; Where Freedom of Expression Runs Headlong Into the Impulse to Censor:

"“The principle of free speech is easy when the speech is something that’s popular and noncontroversial,” Mr. Siegel said. “The real test is when you disagree with the content of the speech and you still defend the right of someone to articulate the message.”"