Last week, Nieman Lab revealed that USA Today‘s parent company USA Today Co (formerly Gannett) was partnering with AI surveillance firm Palantir to monetize “actionable intelligence” on its audience.
According to USA Today CEO Mike Reed, the goal is to “build a common intelligence layer” on reader data to “monetize those relationships faster and at much greater value.”
The largest newspaper’s new partnership with the Peter Thiel-cofounded company, which has long been mired in controversy — from collaborating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and being linked to US airstrikes that killed over 120 schoolchildren in Iran to its mercurial CEO, who has a long history of strange outbursts — has raised plenty of eyebrows.
Workers represented by The News Guild, the country’s largest communications and media labor union, including journalists at USA Today, were “shocked” by the news, according to a new statement, and are calling for the company to “immediately end its partnership with Palantir.”
“While [Reed] championed this partnership as a way to drive revenue, we believe it threatens to undermine trust in our news outlets and raises serious questions about the data security of our readers,” the statement reads.
“We have significant ethical issues with Palantir, whose artificial intelligence software has been used to advance widespread surveillance and power immigration crackdowns,” the union wrote. “Not only does partnering with Palantir, a major player in the news we cover, create an inherent conflict of interest, but it fails the journalists who have been assaulted and falsely arrested while covering immigration enforcement actions and protests.”
The News Guild accused USA Today Co of not disclosing details regarding the new partnership and raised concerns over how readers’ personal information and data will be treated and protected.
“Without answers, how can journalists encourage readers to subscribe to our news outlets?” the union wrote.
As a result, the union is calling for USA Today Co to “steer clear” in order to maintain journalistic integrity and maintain “with the kind of responsibility and skepticism that the nation’s largest network of journalists should exhibit.”
The union also called attention to the dire state of the news industry, with a major pivot to AI being cited to justify major layoffs at countless newspapers and publications.
Even within Palantir’s own ranks, employees are starting to speak up, with some starting to wonder whether “they’re the bad guys,” as Wired reported earlier this year.
The company’s reputation has taken such a major hit that even its major contract with the UK government’s National Health Service is on shaky ground. Earlier this year, London mayor Sadiq Khan also blocked a Palantir contract with the city’s Metropolitan police force, arguing the department “did not adequately demonstrate value for money for Londoners.”
More on Palantir: USA Today Partners With Palantir to Gain “Actionable Intelligence” On Its Audiences
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