Jeff Kao is a computational journalist at ProPublica who uses data science to cover technology. His collaboration with The New York Times on Chinese government censorship of the coronavirus outbreak was a part of the newspaper’s winning entry for the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for public service. His project on videos posted to Parler during the Capitol riots was cited throughout President Donald Trump’s second impeachment hearing and won the 2021 IRE Award for breaking news. His work has also won the Loeb Award for international reporting (2022), the SOPA Award for journalistic innovation (2022) and the SABEW Award for technology reporting (2019).
Kao previously worked as a machine learning engineer at Atrium LTS, where he developed natural language processing systems for legal services. He holds a law degree from Columbia Law School, where he was the editor in chief of the Columbia Science and Technology Law Review, and a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the University of Waterloo.
We identified websites that collected Google ad revenue despite publishing false claims about COVID-19, climate change and other issues in apparent violation of Google policies.
The Wuhan lab at the center of suspicions about the pandemic’s onset was far more troubled than known, documents unearthed by a Senate team reveal. Tracing the evidence, Vanity Fair and ProPublica give the clearest view yet of a biocomplex in crisis.
Experts say a recent wave of pro-Putin disinformation is consistent with the work of Russia’s Internet Research Agency, a network of paid trolls who attempted to influence the 2016 presidential election.
Online, the country’s propagandists have promoted a vision of the Games free of hostility or controversy. For example: The New York Times and ProPublica have identified over 3,000 inauthentic-looking Twitter accounts that appear in on the effort.
Celebrated scientist Joe Tsien retreated to China after his university and the U.S. government began investigating him. He says he’s a victim of anti-Asian discrimination, but key parts of his story don’t add up.
A ProPublica/Washington Post analysis of Facebook posts, internal company documents and interviews, provides the clearest evidence yet that the social media giant played a critical role in spreading lies that fomented the violence of Jan. 6.
Chinese propaganda officials have tried to shape the global discussion of the tennis player Peng Shuai’s accusations and disappearance, but their top-down strategy has largely stumbled.
Thousands of videos of Uyghurs denying abuses against their community are showing up on Twitter and YouTube. They’re part of an elaborate influence campaign by Chinese officials to counter reports of human rights violations in Xinjiang.
The public funds six-figure “sick day” payouts, $2,500 “perfect attendance” bonuses and lucrative “extra duty” assignments identified in a ProPublica, Asbury Park Press analysis of New Jersey police union contracts.
ProPublica sifted through thousands of videos taken by Parler users to create an immersive, first-person view of the Capitol riot as experienced by those who were there.
This collection of clips from the insurrection, while incomplete, offers a unique experience of the historic event through hundreds of participants' eyes.
As the coronavirus spread in China, the government stage-managed what appeared on the domestic internet to make the virus look less severe and the authorities more capable, according to thousands of leaked directives and other files.
The malware attack, which sent fake email replies to voters and businesses, spotlights an overlooked vulnerability in counties that don’t follow best practices for computer security.
Coronavirus death counts are based on positive tests and driven by hospital deaths. But data from major metropolitan areas shows a spike in at-home deaths, prompting one expert to say current numbers were just “the tip of the iceberg.”
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