Jeff Larson
Jeff Larson was a reporter at ProPublica.
Jeff Larson was a reporter at ProPublica. He won the Livingston Award for the 2011 series Redistricting: How Powerful Interests are Drawing You Out of a Vote.
Help Us Monitor Political Ads Online
ProPublica launches a “PAC” to scrutinize campaign ads on Facebook.
Despite Disavowals, Leading Tech Companies Help Extremist Sites Monetize Hate
Most tech companies have policies against working with hate websites. Yet a ProPublica survey found that PayPal, Stripe, Newsmax and others help keep more than half of the most-visited extremist sites in business.
How We Investigated Technology Companies Supporting Hate Sites
We wrote software to find the external domains contacted by popular websites that have been identified as extremist by either the Southern Poverty Law Center or the Anti-Defamation League.
Democratic Congress Members Raise Alarm About Security at Trump Properties
After ProPublica found security holes in networks at Trump properties, two dozen House members ask White House counsel to intervene, saying “these networks may already be stolen and the systems may already be compromised.”
Any Half-Decent Hacker Could Break Into Mar-a-Lago
We tested internet security at four Trump properties. It’s not good.
Chicago Area Disparities in Car Insurance Premiums
Some car insurers charge higher premiums in Chicago’s minority neighborhoods than in predominantly white neighborhoods with similar risk of accidents.
Bias in Criminal Risk Scores Is Mathematically Inevitable, Researchers Say
ProPublica’s analysis of bias against black defendants in criminal risk scores has prompted research showing that the disparity can be addressed — if the algorithms focus on the fairness of outcomes.
Breaking the Black Box: How Machines Learn to Be Racist
Artificial Intelligence is only as good as the patterns we teach it. To illustrate the sensitivity of AI systems, we built an AI engine that deduced synonyms from news articles published by different types of news organizations.
ProPublica Responds to Company’s Critique of Machine Bias Story
Northpointe asserts that a software program it sells that predicts the likelihood a person will commit future crimes is equally fair to black and white defendants. We re-examined the data, considered the company’s criticisms, and stand by our conclusions.