The Hidden Gems From 2019

The day after Robert Mueller’s congressional testimony, Steve Lohr came out with an article on how the personal data held by tech companies is not just a privacy concern but a wealth and power concentration concern, too.

Consumers are often unaware of the many uses of their data. So far, privacy concerns have been the main focus of scrutiny. But the attention of lawmakers is starting to turn to the concentration of data wealth in the hands of a few companies.

The morning after the House impeachment vote, Karen Weise published an investigation into how Amazon controls the many businesses that rely on it.

“Some guy we had never talked to gave us a call and was like, ‘We have changed the rules,’” said Charlie Cole, who runs Tumi’s online business. He pushed back, but wasn’t successful. “It was like talking to a brick wall,” he said. “They want to be able to control everything.”

Cade Metz went to Bhubaneswar, India, to show the lives of the people who are training computers to replace people. He wrote a nuanced, human piece that reveals the frenzy of work behind algorithms that seem seamless.

In facilities like the one I visited in Bhubaneswar and in other cities in India, China, Nepal, the Philippines, East Africa and the United States, tens of thousands of office workers are punching a clock while they teach the machines.

Jack Nicas and Keith Collins exposed the way Apple’s algorithms kept Apple services ranked high in the App Store. Midway through the reporting, the algorithm changed. Apple representatives told Jack that the change was not an admission of wrongdoing but a way to handicap themselves to make it easier for their competitors.

If you searched for “podcast” in May 2018, you would have had to scroll through as many as 14 Apple apps before finding one made by another publisher.

Just as the holidays were kicking off, Adam Satariano had a tale from the Faroe Islands, “At the Edge of the World, a New Battleground for the U.S. and China.” The photos by Ben Quinton are especially stunning.

No location is now too small for the United States and China to focus on as they tussle over the future of technology. The Faroe Islands, whose proximity to the arctic gives it added military importance, joins countries across Europe caught in the middle of the two superpowers over Huawei, the crown jewel of the Chinese tech sector.

Davey Alba, the tech team’s new reporter on disinformation, wrote about how Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, told Congress that the company would share a huge amount of data related to disinformation. It didn’t happen as promised.

As a result, researchers say, the public may have little more insight into disinformation campaigns on the social network heading into the 2020 presidential election than they had in 2016.

During summer’s long vacation-filled months, Brian Chen wrote a confessional: “I Shared My Phone Number. I Learned I Shouldn’t Have.”

For most of our lives, we have been conditioned to share our phone numbers with businesses and acquaintances without hesitation. In August, I learned this was a bad idea.

Natasha Singer profiled Baroness Beeban Kidron, a member of Britain’s House of Lords who is fighting Big Tech on behalf of children’s privacy.

“The idea that it’s O.K. to nudge kids into endless behaviors, just because you are pushing their evolutionary buttons — it’s not a fair fight,” Lady Kidron told me, as she sat a few tables away from a Facebook policy executive. “It’s little Timmy in his bedroom versus Mark Zuckerberg in his Valley.”

And last but not least, Daisuke Wakabayashi profiled Luigi Zingales, a professor from the famously free-market University of Chicago who is now leading calls for regulating tech.

“My conclusions may surprise some people who identify Chicago faculty, especially the economic and financial faculty, with a certain ideology. Chicago faculty, however, abide to a method, not an ideology,” Mr. Zingales said.

Happy New Year! May all your best work go viral in 2020, if only in your heart.