These past few months, The
Michigan Daily readers have
probably become a bit more
mindful when using Facebook.
Following
the
Cambridge
Analytica
scandal,
people
were outraged. So, we started
clicking away on our profiles’s
privacy settings, congratulating
ourselves on our newly found
concern for the data collected
on us and maybe even stopped
liking things so that advertisers
wouldn’t know our interests.
Indeed, Facebook did a lot of
outrageous
things
with
our
data,
like
allowing
housing
advertisers to target their ads to
only white people and employers
to advertise jobs exclusively to
young people. We might argue
that our beloved social media
platforms
will
slowly
wash
away their sins as journalists
discover and report the misuses
of their algorithms — seemingly
holding Facebook and the like
accountable. Is that the whole
story, though?
With every piece of data
collected about each one of us,
and each algorithm that comes
across our individual online
trails, we become entangled in
a system that takes ownership
of our private lives. Algorithms
and data collection form these
sticky webs around our online
and offline lives — that we both
knowingly and unknowingly get
stuck in. Once we clicked the
“turn off” button in our privacy
settings, it might feel as if we
own our data once again — that
we have liberated ourselves from
some of the algorithmic sticky
webs laid out all around us. But
what about the less educated
people, those who don’t know
enough about privacy, people
who maybe wouldn’t even be
able
to
navigate
Facebook’s
privacy settings? They are still
caught up in that web.
While some of us might
be worried about advertisers
collecting data on our love for
burritos and our favorite series,
others — who might not even
know what to look out for — are
often part of a stickier, denser
part of the web: a web in which
it’s not only Facebook and Netflix
collecting their data.
At the beginning of this
year, I came across an article
published by ProPublica in 2016
about a software used across the
U.S. intended to collect data on
defendants, process it and get a
score. The score would predict
people’s future as criminals —
and it was biased against Black
defendants.
My
inner
geek
who loved the idea of using
math to predict future events
was terrified by that article
for a long time. So, I went on a
journey via Google to discover
what other algorithms were
being used by the government.
During my search, I came across
a website filled with tips on
possible algorithms used by the
government. Then, I got stuck.
I realized I knew nothing about
how these algorithms worked.
From where did they collect
the data? Did they have data
on everyone? How could you
even get your hands on these
algorithms and study them?
Thankfully, Prof. Virginia
Eubanks blessed me (and all of
us) with her book: “Automating
Inequality,” which brings me
back to our algorithmic sticky
web we are all caught in. Her
book shined a light on the
denser, hidden parts of the web
where people from low-income
families might find themselves
caught. She delves into three
algorithms used in different
states: one that decides citizens’
eligibility for welfare programs,
one that assigns scores to people
who find themselves homeless,
and one which tries to predict
child maltreatment in families.
Read again that last sentence.
All of them focus on low income
citizens.
Why?
Because
the
government can only collect
data from those who access
welfare programs, adding them
forever to a database, creating a
score out of their past in order to
categorize their future.
Still, as enlightening as books
can be, they rarely offer us a step-
by-step guide to taking action.
We are only college students
and, for a lot of us, the closest
we have come to algorithms are
the recommendations offered
by Amazon. There are some of
us, like myself, who are not even
American citizens, and so we
obviously start wondering if all
this algorithmic bias isn’t better
fit for a Wired article or a late-
night talk in the dorms than as a
wake-up alarm for protests. I’ve
definitely faced these questions
and I am still navigating them,
but I am looking at all of us when
I am saying this issue needs to
be solved and discussed. Math
and engineering students, take
a break from your classes and
take the time to understand the
world where social justice takes
precedence over the power of
numbers and coding. Humanities
and social science students,
take a break from writing
your paper because if you
don’t intervene, concepts like
justice and fairness will get to
be shaped by a score given by
an algorithm. School has just
started, so don’t get so busy
with your coursework that you
forget to take in the influence
that your work might have in
a society changing at the pace
of an algorithm giving you a
score.
Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Wednesday, September 12, 2018
Emma Chang
Ben Charlson
Joel Danilewitz
Samantha Goldstein
Emily Huhman
Tara Jayaram
Jeremy Kaplan
Lucas Maiman
Magdalena Mihaylova
Ellery Rosenzweig
Jason Rowland
Anu Roy-Chaudhury
Alex Satola
Ali Safawi
Ashley Zhang
Sam Weinberger
DAYTON HARE
Managing Editor
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
tothedaily@michigandaily.com
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890.
ALEXA ST. JOHN
Editor in Chief
ANU ROY-CHAUDHURY AND
ASHLEY ZHANG
Editorial Page Editors
Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s Editorial Board.
All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
ALANNA BERGER | COLUMN
Don’t blame the border
Like many Americans, I spent
this summer — one filled with
political scandals and rampant pop
culture gossip — haunted by one
news story in particular: the story of
Mollie Tibbetts, a University of Iowa
student. Tibbetts’s disappearance
prompted a national media circus,
a desperate search and the ultimate
discovery of her murder resulted in
political outcry.
Twenty-year-old Tibbetts was
last seen before she went for a jog on
the evening of July 18, 2018. She was
reported missing the next morning
when she did not show up for
work, and for the next month her
image was plastered on major news
outlets and across social media. Her
family pleaded for her safe return
— a cry that went unanswered until
August 21, 2018, when 24-year-old
Cristhian Rivera confessed to her
murder and led authorities to her
body. Rivera later revealed that
he came across Tibbetts on her
evening jog, where he then pursued
her both in his vehicle and on foot.
She repeatedly told him to leave
her alone, finally threatening to call
the police. It was then that Rivera,
angry at her blatant rejection,
allegedly kidnapped and murdered
Tibbetts, leaving her body in a vast
cornfield.
There is much to be said about
Mollie Tibbetts’s story, and many
reasons why it resonated so strongly
with the American people. There
is the shock value of a wholesome
young
Midwestern
woman
meeting a violent and tragic end in
a small sleepy town. Then there’s
the political: Rivera’s contested
legal status. This detail has been
seized upon to support the anti-
immigration narrative of President
Trump and other members of the
Republican Party — a political move
subsequently denounced by the
victim’s father.
But
among
these
various
debates, one fact of her story
remains clear: In 2018, among
an age of anti-misogynist social
movements and female political
empowerment, it still remains
dangerous, even potentially fatal,
for a woman to reject the advances
of a man. The hardest aspect to
swallow of Tibbetts’s story is that
it is not at all unique. In the days
after her body was found, a 2016
Runner’s World survey resurfaced.
The survey asked readers, “How
often, if ever, does a stranger
whistle at you, comment on your
body, needlessly honk at you, or give
you other similar unsolicited sexual
attention?” Forty-three percent of
female respondents answered that
they “sometimes, often, or always”
encountered such attention during
a run, while only 4 percent of their
male counterparts reported the
same. The statistics get even more
abysmal from there. While only
3 percent of female respondents
reported any sort of physical
contact or assault while on a run, 30
percent reported being followed on
foot or by car, 18 percent reported
being sexually propositioned and 5
percent reported being flashed.
Maybe, in light of Tibbetts’s
murder,
a
whistle,
honk
or
unwanted comment seems trivial,
and there is undoubtedly a world
of difference between a catcall
and a murder. But ask any girl or
woman above the age of 15, and
she will certainly have an arsenal
of instances of being leered at,
whistled at, groped or spoken to like
a sexual object by a man in a way
that made her fear for her safety, or
even her life.
These small instances build up
to create a society in which women
are taught to constantly be on edge.
In this society, we’re instructed
to never walk anywhere alone,
especially at night, or if we must,
to never wear headphones, to hold
our keys between our fingers to use
as a potential weapon and to carry
pepper spray. We’re taught that
simply existing as a woman makes
us an open invitation to men, and
we must do everything in our power
to make ourselves less inviting, to
dress ourselves in modest clothing,
to wear less makeup and to drink
less alcohol. We’ve had to hold
ourselves responsible for crimes in
which we were victimized. Perhaps
most difficult of all, we’ve been
conditioned to view every man as
a potential threat, even the ones we
think we trust and know intimately.
While Tibbetts fell victim to
the violence of a stranger, women
are overwhelmingly more likely to
be stalked, threatened, assaulted
or murdered by men they know. In
fact, as reported by the National
Organization for Women, every
day three women are murdered by
an intimate partner, and up to one-
third of female homicide victims are
killed by their partners. The stories
of these women are not as widely
shared as that of Mollie Tibbetts,
maybe because as a society we hold
them responsible for their deaths
because they closely knew their
attackers, or maybe because they
are disproportionately low-income
women of color.
Yet,
these
women,
along
with Mollie Tibbetts and the
smattering of other women who
make headlines from time to time,
highlight the fear that accompanies
the everyday actions of women.
Actions as habitual as going for
a run. When it comes down to it,
Mollie Tibbetts was not killed by
illegal immigration, or because
she made the “mistake” of going
for a run by herself. She, along
with thousands of other women
annually, fell victim to a culture that
encourages male entitlement and
toxic masculinity. She was killed by
a man enraged with her exercising
her theoretical right to say no, a
right that was stripped away from
her and so many others. If we really
want to address the violence that
brought Tibbetts to her end, we
need not look to our borders, but at
ourselves. Until we rectify a society
that places male desire above
Algorithms of inequality
ANAMARIA CUZA | COLUMN
The patriotism of immigration
AARON BAKER | COLUMN
President Donald Trump’s
position
on
immigration
is
blatantly unpatriotic. Through
his comments and actions as
a
candidate
and
President,
we know he is no fan of
undocumented
immigrants
from Mexico and elsewhere.
Many Trump supporters say it’s
only illegal immigration that
the President is opposed to, but
the fact is that the president’s
war against legal immigration
is equally, if not more fervent
than his efforts against illegal
immigration.
President
Trump
has
proposed to cut legal immigration
in half by weakening the family
ties clause of our immigration
system that allows legal residents
to sponsor family members. He
wants to limit naturalization for
legal immigrants if they have
ever used government welfare
programs. He has also cut the
number of green cards we grant
and is lessening the number
of asylum seekers we accept.
And let’s not forget his leaked
comments that he doesn’t want
people — legal or illegal — from
“shithole”
countries
—
each
of which was poor and brown
—
immigrating here. Why are
Trump’s immigration policies
unpatriotic?
In one of former President
Ronald Reagan’s last televised
addresses
as
president,
he
explained why he felt America
was an exceptional country:
“America represents something
universal in the human spirit …
Anybody from any corner of the
world can come to America to
live and become an American.”
Reagan’s patriotism is rooted in
the belief that American values
are universal. That is, anyone
should be able to become an
American because the American
identity is rooted in its values.
This
is
called
civic
nationalism, where the national
identity is based on shared values
rather than a shared perceptible
identity. Late Sen. John McCain
echoed
Reagan’s
sentiment
last May, when he said that you
don’t even need to know English
to be fully American, you only
need to have American values.
What are these values? I would
say they are they are pretty
clearly delineated in the U.S.
Constitution and the Declaration
of Independence. They are a
capacious set of values rooted
in the basic liberal tradition of
free speech, individual rights
and due process. These values
can incorporate a wide variety
of political positions, ideologies,
religions and cultures.
The
vast
majority
of
countries
in
the
world
are
nation-states with an ethnic,
religious or hegemonic cultural
identity that serves as the basis
of their national identity. Nation-
states like China, Italy or India
have
commonly
perceived
shared traits, like traditions,
religious beliefs or histories
that many citizens associate
with their national identity. If
you lie outside these common
traits, integrating as a fully
equal citizen in social and even
sometimes legal terms can be
hard. The extent of exclusivity
to the national identities of the
nation-states of the world varies,
but I would argue none come
close to the level of inclusivity
the American identity has had
in recent history. We grew up
calling America a nation of
immigrants for a reason.
But it was only in 1965, after
the
Civil
Rights
Movement
had left its mark, that America
liberalized
its
immigration
policy and became the country
Reagan and McCain praised.
From 1924 to 1965, America
closed its doors with the passage
of the Immigration Act of 1924.
An ethnic and racial hierarchy
was codified in a quota system
that essentially only let Northern
Europeans enter.
Back then, xenophobia was
directed toward not only non-
European
groups,
but
also
European
groups
perceived
as threatening to the Anglo-
American character of America.
Italians, Jews, Irish and at one
point even Germans, threatened
the homogeneity of the dominant
culture. Italians, the Irish and
the Jews were considered non-
white races and faced widespread
discrimination. Eventually, all
of these groups integrated into
the dominant culture, a process
which changed the immigrant
groups but also changed the
country for the better. America,
despite the incessant plague of
xenophobia, has continually been
shaped by immigrants.
Since 1965, after the repeal
of the Immigration Act of 1924,
America’s demographics have
begun to unsurprisingly change
drastically. By 2065, so long
as current rate of immigration
remains constant, 46 percent of
America will be white creating a
majority-minority nation. When
Trump said he doesn’t want
people from shithole countries,
he was harkening back to the
tradition of xenophobia that
resulted in the 1924 act. In fact,
Attorney General Jeff Sessions
actually cited the Immigration
Act of 1924 as a model for
current immigration policy in an
interview with Breitbart News
Network.
The fear that immigrants
perceived as different cannot
integrate into American society is
clearly not new. And it is as wrong
now as it was wrong in 1924. The
implicit argument today that
non-European immigrants carry
an immutable cultural alienness
that renders them unable to
integrate into American society
is
incorrect.
Yet,
Hispanic
immigrants, most often the target
of anti-immigration rhetoric, are
integrating into American society
just as European immigrants
have integrated in the past. Like
President Reagan said, anyone
can become American because
anyone can live by the values of
liberty and justice and strive to
uphold these values when we all
seem to be falling short.
Economic arguments against
immigration similarly fall short
of the facts and succumb to
misperceptions.
Immigrants
contribute to the economy rather
than slow it down. Immigrants
are more likely than native-born
Americans to start a business and
contribute a net increase to the
living standards of the average
American. The impetus against
immigration is largely a visceral
fear that someone who looks
different or practices a different
religion can’t have the same
values or way of life. But isn’t the
true testament to the strength
of our values the fact that we
believe anyone can live by them?
Aaron Baker can be reached at
aaronbak@umich.edu.
Alanna Berger can be reached at
balanna@umich.edu.
Anamaria Cuza can be reached at
anacuza@umich.edu.
In 2018, among an age
of anti-misogynist
social movements, it still
remains potentially fatal
for a woman to reject the
advances of a man
Anyone should be able
to become an American
because the American
identity is rooted in its
values
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420 Maynard
With every piece of data
collected about each one of
us, we become entangled in a
system that takes ownership
of our private lives