Samantha Baker

    Associate Contributor

    Sam reports on technology and internet culture, science, the environment, and the arts. She’s particularly interested in how politics is shaped by digital campaign efforts and how humans behave, and are pushed to behave, online.

  • How GOP-linked PR firms use Google’s ad platform to harvest email addresses

    This article was produced in partnership with Point, a YouTube channel for investigative journalism. What's the seventh largest purchaser of US political ads on Google right now? After the Republican Senate and Congressional Leadership Funds and the Trump campaign, comes a group called DedicatedEmails.com –- a limited-liability company specializing in digital marketing for clients looking to attract new customers via "opt-in email lists".

  • Big tobacco keeps starting 'grassroots' Facebook campaigns

    This article was produced in partnership with Point, a YouTube channel for investigative journalism. Facebook groups like 'Oregonians Against Tax Hikes' and 'No Blank Checks for Colorado' look like citizen groups concerned about taxes. But after a few months running extensive Facebook ad campaigns, they recede with members' petition signatures and personal data. They also happen to be owned and operated by tobacco companies. "[Tobacco companies] create these groups to oppose efforts to pass laws either through legislatures or especially through ballot measures," explains Vince Willmore, Vice President of Communications for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. "Every time there's a ballot measure to increase a tobacco tax or pass a smoke-free air law, they'll come up with a front group with a great sounding name when it's entirely funded and run by the tobacco companies."