# Great new Series on Algorithms in our everyday lives - ProPublica

**URL:** <https://forum.code.org/t/great-new-series-on-algorithms-in-our-everyday-lives-propublica/5714>\
**Category:** Resources, Tools, Differentiation\
**Created:** [October 6, 2016, 1:02pm UTC](https://forum.code.org/t/great-new-series-on-algorithms-in-our-everyday-lives-propublica/5714 "2016-10-06T13:02:23Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![steve1](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.code.org/steve1/32/7641_2.png) [@steve1](https://forum.code.org/u/steve1)\
**Post date:** [October 6, 2016, 1:02pm UTC](https://forum.code.org/t/great-new-series-on-algorithms-in-our-everyday-lives-propublica/5714/1 "2016-10-06T13:02:23Z")

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ProPublica is an excellent nonprofit media outlet. they partner with other organizations to do in depth stories on our world. they have just released the second “episode” of Breaking the Black Box where they look at what they call “Black Box” algorithms (meaning algorithms that are secret or proprietary but have significant impact on our lives.

Episode 1: Facebook

> **[Breaking the Black Box: What Facebook Knows About You — ProPublica](https://www.propublica.org/article/breaking-the-black-box-what-facebook-knows-about-you)**
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> We live in an era of increasing automation. But as machines make more decisions for us, it is increasingly important to understand the algorithms that produce their judgments.

Episode 2: Amazon

Earlier they did a great story on “Machine Bias” where they looked at how our justice system is using predictive algorithms to predict who will or won’t be a criminal. It hasn’t worked out so well. ☹

> **[Machine Bias — ProPublica](https://www.propublica.org/article/machine-bias-risk-assessments-in-criminal-sentencing)**
>
> There’s software used across the country to predict future criminals. And it’s biased against blacks.

Steve Wright  
CS Teacher  
Oakland, CA

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**Author:** ![karenma](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.code.org/karenma/32/4924_2.png) [@karenma](https://forum.code.org/u/karenma)\
**Post date:** [October 7, 2016, 11:55pm UTC](https://forum.code.org/t/great-new-series-on-algorithms-in-our-everyday-lives-propublica/5714/2 "2016-10-07T23:55:26Z")

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Thank you for sharing this. These resources can definitely be used to teach how data is collected using algorithms in everything we do.

Karen