Zeynep Tufekci

The Pandemic Threat That Hasn’t Gone Away

In December 2014, two monkeys in outdoor cages at the Tulane National Primate Research Center, about 40 miles north of New Orleans, became ill with Burkholderia pseudomallei, a deadly bacteria in the federal government’s highest risk category, reserved for pathogens like smallpox, anthrax and Ebola…

An Even Deadlier Pandemic Could Soon Be Here

As the world is just beginning to recover from the devastation of Covid-19, it is facing the possibility of a pandemic of a far more deadly pathogen. Bird flu — known more formally as avian influenza — has long hovered on the horizons of scientists’ fears. This pathogen, especially the H5N1…

What Would Plato Say About ChatGPT?

Plato mourned the invention of the alphabet, worried that the use of text would threaten traditional memory-based arts of rhetoric. In his “Dialogues,” arguing through the voice of Thamus, the Egyptian king of the gods, Plato claimed the use of this more modern technology would create …

We Pay an Ugly Cost for Ads on Twitter

Since Elon Musk became the owner of Twitter last week, there’s been a brouhaha over his plans for it, especially the possibility of various fees, like one for verification badges. Those are the blue check marks that let people know an account belongs to whom it says it belongs. They have mostly…

What Happens After the Worst of the Pandemic Is Behind Us?

No one knows when the pandemic will end. But the worst of it may be over for the United States after this winter. For good reasons — growing vaccine eligibility, boosters and new antiviral treatments — and bad — high levels of prior infections — it’s possible the ongoing Delta surge could be the…

Zuckerberg’s Preposterous Defense of Facebook

Responding to President Trump’s tweet this week that “Facebook was always anti-Trump,” Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook, defended the company by noting that Mr. Trump’s opponents also criticize it — as having aided Mr. Trump. If everyone is upset with you, Mr. Zuckerberg suggested,…