Category: Policy Home

Northeastern Research Scientist, Piotr Sapiezynski, testified at an EU Parliament hearing on legislation regarding transparency and targeting of political ads. Sapienzynski shared research findings that Facebook’s ad delivery algorithm makes it more difficult and expensive for political campaigns to reach viewers with different political views. [Northeaster News] Piotr speaks to EU as part of the…Continue Reading Sapiezynski speaks to EU Parliament regarding Facebook ad delivery algorithms

Earlier this week, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced a lawsuit and proposed a settlement with Meta, formally known as Facebook. Among other things, their lawsuit (available at: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/press-release/file/1514051/download) alleges that two of Meta’s algorithms have discriminatory effects under the Fair Housing Act (FHA). This is the first instance that the DOJ has charged…Continue Reading DOJ and Meta settle on discriminatory ad algorithm

Work on dark patters lead by graduate student, Johanna Gunawan, and PI’s Choffnes (both at Northeastern) and Hartzog (soon moving to Boston), was cited in a European Commission final report titled, “Behavioural study on unfair commercial practices in the digital environment : dark patterns and manipulative personalisation”. This work examines how dark patterns vary across…Continue Reading Dark pattern work cited in EU final report

Organizers: Susan Landau (Tufts University), David Choffnes (Northeastern University) Organized by: SPLICE and ProperData Date: Wednesday, April 13, 2022 Our two SATC Frontier projects (SPLICE and ProperData) hosted a joint virtual workshop. The focus of the workshop was on smart IoT home devices and the new privacy and security threats, including national-security ones, arising from…Continue Reading SPLICE and ProperData host joint IoT Workshop