Facebook mistakenly labels black men 'primates'
source link: https://techxplore.com/news/2021-09-facebook-mistakenly-black-men-primates.html
Go to the source link to view the article. You can view the picture content, updated content and better typesetting reading experience. If the link is broken, please click the button below to view the snapshot at that time.
September 4, 2021
Facebook mistakenly labels black men 'primates'
Credit: CC0 Public Domain
Facebook on Friday said it disabled its topic recommendation feature after it mistook Black men for "primates" in video at the social network.
A Facebook spokesperson called it a "clearly unacceptable error" and said the recommendation software involve was taken offline.
"We apologize to anyone who may have seen these offensive recommendations," Facebook said in response to an AFP inquiry.
"We disabled the entire topic recommendation feature as soon as we realized this was happening so we could investigate the cause and prevent this from happening again."
Facial recognition software has been blasted by civil rights advocates who point out problems with accuracy, particularly it comes to people who are not white.
Facebook users in recent days who watched a British tabloid video featuring Black men were show an auto-generated prompt asking if they would like to "keep seeing videos about Primates," according to the New York Times.
The June 2020 video in question, posted by the Daily Mail, is titled "White man calls cops on black men at marina."
While humans are among the many species in the primate family, the video had nothing to do with monkeys, chimpanzees or gorillas.
A screen capture of the recommendation was shared on Twitter by former Facebook content design manager Darci Groves.
"This 'keep seeing' prompt is unacceptable," Groves tweeted, aiming the message at former colleagues at Facebook.
"This is egregious."
Explore further
© 2021 AFP
Recommend
-
18
Ville de Bitche: Facebook mistakenly removes French town's pagePublished1 hour agoimage captionBitche's official page was removed for being 'in violation of conditions'Facebook has been c...
-
13
7 Behaviors Women Mistakenly Believe Attract Men…but repel them instead.
-
2
WOMANISMBlack Men Keep Picking the Wrong Side
-
6
Facebook sorry after labelling black men 'primates' in video Company blames topic recommendation software for 'clearly unacceptable error'
-
3
5566 members Technology The latest news, reviews and features from the digital and analog world.
-
7
Facebook Apologizes After A.I. Puts ‘Primates’ Label on Video of Black Men
-
7
Facebook apology as AI labels black men 'primates'Published6 hours agoimage sourceGetty ImagesFacebook users who watched a newspaper video featuring black men were asked if the...
-
7
Facebook’s Algorithm Was Mistakenly Elevating Harmful Content For The Last Six Months 7069 members Technology The la...
-
5
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Filed under:
-
6
Hollyw...
About Joyk
Aggregate valuable and interesting links.
Joyk means Joy of geeK