Losing Your Head to an Algorithm

Here’s where failure to diversify all levels of your workforce shows up in your tech product. I’ve included a link below to a Twitter thread where a white colleague tried to solve the mystery of a Black colleague whose head was virtually cut off when he used a background on Zoom. It was clear that the Zoom algorithm was not reading his darker skin, instead using the white, INANIMATE object behind him as his face! You’ll see in the thread that Zoom reached out to him – after thousands of retweets and likes in a public forum – long past product development, engineering, QA, beta testing, marketing and research, etc. Clearly, Zoom has work to do in filling those spots and every step in the process with people who would know that algorithms don’t always work for melanin-rich complexions!

But it gets worse – in telling the story on Twitter, he saw how that algorithm also failed. On mobile devices, the side-by-side photo he included in his tweet thread only presented the white-faced subject. Even when he switched, so he was on the left and his colleague on the right, Twitter’s algorithm still showed only the white half of the picture. Is that what Twitter’s product-development group looks like too – half or more with one complexion? 

Like Zoom, Twitter and all tech companies need to ensure that their diversity and inclusion efforts are real. As much as I value the hiring and high-positioning of DEI leaders, they cannot be the only Black and brown faces at our companies. All employee groups across the company must be diverse and inclusive, or it will show in your products and services. Don’t wait for it to become a public conversation on social media platforms, where your Communications staff (who should also be diverse!) are left scrambling and in crisis mode.

https://twitter.com/colinmadland/status/1307111816250748933?s=20

#diversity #inclusion #zoom #twitter #representationmatters #dataanalytics #artificialintelligence #AI