The algorithm and products of Facebook and its photo service , Instagram , are being examined for possible racial discrimination and how to address it.
According to an announcement from the social networking platform, the application decided to become more proactive, examining the challenges faced by minorities on both Facebook platforms, as well as possible racial discrimination that may exist in the applications' algorithms and their products.
This move comes at a time when the social media platform is facing increased pressure to combat hateful content on its website, following the killing of George Floyd police a 46-year-old black man from Minneapolis.
Civil rights groups have criticized the company for not doing enough to tackle hate speech, prompting major advertisers to stop promoting ads on Facebook this month as part of the campaign.
Users of color and other minorities have also complained that their posts about racism are being mistakenly flagged by the company as hate speech. Mark Luckie, the former CEO of the social media platform, who is of color, accused it of “disappointing” its users of color. He even pointed out that there is a theory that content from these minorities is being removed more than that of other groups.
“The racial justice movement is a truly important initiative for our company. Any bias in systems and policies goes against the purpose of the platform, which is for everyone to express themselves,” said Vishal Shah, Instagram’s Vice President.
Instagram is creating a new team focused on “ ensuring fairness and honest product development .” The team is called Equity , and it will work with Facebook’s AI team . Instagram employees will also support features that promote equality, such as tools that help businesses.
Facebook is creating the Inclusivity and recently launched a council that will help incorporate the views of users of color and other minorities as it develops new products.
The Wall Street Journal, which reported on the creation of the new groups, said that the study of racial discrimination has been a “controversial” issue on Facebook and Instagram in the past. An internal investigation found that users whose activity indicated they were people of color were 50 percent more likely than other users to have their accounts disabled. Instagram addressed the issue, but prohibited further research into the matter.
Facebook has expressed concerns about the reliability of the metrics used to determine a user's race. As part of the investigation, employees examined the "multicultural relevance" of users, which in the past has suggested to advertisers users who are likely to be interested in ads based on Hispanic, Asian American and African American communities .
The social media platform has assigned users a “multicultural affiliation” based on their activity on the platform.
In 2017, the company disabled the ability for advertisers to target users with “multicultural affiliation” due to concerns that advertisers could use the tool to exclude people of specific races.
Facebook said its work to investigate and address potential racial discrimination is still in its early stages, but plans to share more information in the coming months.
