Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM Opinion
The New Censors Won't Delete Your Words; They'll Drown Them Out
Winston Smith works at the Ministry of Truth. Each day, the hero of George Orwell's "1984" "corrects" old newspapers to make sure that the information is in still...
From ACM Opinion
Happy 18th Birthday, Wikipedia. Let's Celebrate the Internet's Good Grown-p.
On Tuesday, Wikipedia celebrates its 18th birthday. If the massive crowdsourced encyclopedia project were human, then in most countries, it would just now be considered...
From ACM Opinion
How Russia sed the Internet to Perfect Its Dark Arts
Imagine American politics for a moment as a laboratory experiment. A foreign adversary (let's call it "Russia") begins to play with the subjects, using carrots...
From ACM Opinion
I Fell for Facebook Fake News. Here's Why Millions of You Did, Too.
The Facebook video is nuts, but I can't tear my eyes away. A plane, struggling in a huge storm, does a 360-degree flip before safely landing and letting out terrified...
From ACM News
Here's What We Know about Google's Mysterious Search Engine
President Trump thinks Google's search engine is "rigged." By featuring more mainstream news outlets and relatively fewer conservative sites in the results he sees...
From ACM Opinion
Google's China Plan Isn't Just Evil, It's Bad for Business
Google is proposing a new Faustian bargain with the Chinese government that isn't just morally wrong; it's also terrible for business. Experience has shown that...
From ACM Opinion
The Supreme Court Just Struck a Blow Against Mass Surveillance
The Supreme Court decided Friday that cell-site location information is protected by the Fourth Amendment's guarantee against unreasonable searches and seizures...
From ACM Opinion
10 Ways Tech Will Shape Your Life in 2018, For Better and Worse
Is the outlook for technology in 2018 exciting—or slightly terrifying? Flip a coin. You'd be right either way.
From ACM Opinion
Russia Is Pushing to Control Cyberspace. We Should All Be Worried.
Russia's cyber-meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election has been accompanied by what U.S. and European experts describe as a worrisome Kremlin campaign to...
From ACM Opinion
Apple Is Pulling Vpns from the Chinese App Store. Here's What that Means.
China's restrictive Internet policies are known for blocking Web users who want to reach Google, Facebook or other banned apps. But now some of those policies are...
From ACM Opinion
What to Expect Now That Internet Providers Can Collect and Sell Your Web Browser History
After Congress handed President Trump legislation Tuesday that would wipe away landmark privacy protections for Internet users, we received a lot of reader questions...
From ACM Opinion
Ted Cruz Is Wrong About How Free Speech Is Censored on the Internet
Sen. Ted Cruz wants to engineer a United States takeover of a key Internet organization, ICANN, in the name of protecting freedom of expression.
From ACM Opinion
America Wants to Believe China Can't Innovate. Tech Tells a Different Story.
Silicon Valley may be powered by organic kale, but when Chinese tech gurus gather at 3W, a coffee shop-slash-incubator in the Chinese capital, they want sunflower...
From ACM Opinion
No One Questions Google's Ability to Innovate, So Why Do Its Moonshots Look Like Money Pits?
Consider a question that we have been puzzling over at the World Economic Forum.
From ACM News
Facial Recognition Technology Is Everywhere. It May Not Be Legal.
Being anonymous in public might be a thing of the past.
From ACM Opinion
The White House Just Snagged One of the Most Valuable Players in the Tech Policy World
The White House is adding one of the tech policy world's most valuable players to its roster: Princeton Professor Ed Felten.
From ACM Opinion
The Toughest Case: What If Osama Bin Laden Had an Iphone?
In rebuking Apple and Google for their new smartphone encryption polices on Thursday, FBI Director James B. Comey became the latest law enforcement official to...
From ACM News
How Cloud Storage Complicates the Supreme Court Debate Over Cell Phone Privacy
Should police be able to search the contents of your smartphone without a warrant?
From ACM News
Here's Everything You Should Know About Nsa Address Book Spying in One Faq
A new report from The Washington Post, based on documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden, reveals that the National Security Agency is collecting hundreds...
From ACM Opinion
Technology Can Be Harnessed to Fight Drug Cartels in Mexico
A couple of months ago we visited Juarez, Mexico, a city right across our border—yet so far away.12