In September 2018, when Apple introduced iPhone XS, the public was attracted to
the news of “Beautygate”. Some people were saying that the
front-facing camera of Apple’s
new iPhone XS and XS Max appeared to automatically smooth and whiten your skin, reduce shadows, and hide details such as blemishes, freckles, and more in photos when shooting selfies. People complained
that, “I want my selfie to be more realistic. There is a beauty feature now, and I can't close it. It's very unfriendly. Seriously, it is also suspected of racial discrimination.”
Back in 2015, a user of Google hat the image recognition
algorithms in Google Photos were classifying his African-American friends as “gorillas.” Google said it was a mistake, apologized to the user, and promised to fix the problem. But Google hasn’t really fixed anything. They just
simply blocked its image recognition algorithms from
identifying categorizations like gorillas, chimpanzees, and monkeys to limit the service. Technology companies
are always at the centers of controversial topics. Biases exist in technology.
Social media
can take advantage of people's feelings and emotions. Updates and posts on news
timeline could affect individuals' mood because moods are contagious (O'neil,
2016). The less cheerful posts people see, the less happy they are, and
consequently the more negative posts they will make. Facebook uses linguistic
software to classify positive and negative updates by studying the language. Then,
Facebook can control your emotions by pushing selective updates to your
timeline. And people are even unconscious of this process. The power of the hidden
algorithms probably affects some important decisions that people will make.
The internet offers a platform that all assumptions for the society become visible in new and
productive ways. Boyd (2014) believes that “when teens are
online, they bring their experiences with them. They make visible their values
and attitudes, hopes and prejudices” (p. 160). And Rushkoff (2019) mentions that “the thoughts and intentions of a single individual reflect the consciousness of
the whole human organism”. This week’s readings remind me of
an Asian student’s
experience about the verbal
bullying in school. I listened to a recording
of a sociolinguistic interview about Asian Americans. The interviewee is an Asian, she is a junior, and
she was born in the U.S .
Her last name is Man (满). She recalled
that when she was a teenager, white boys in her class always made fun
of her and said, “hey MAN”
or “what’s up MAN”. And they addressed her by using “he/his”
such as “it's HIS book”
or “HE is an Asian”. The interviewee was deeply affected by the language bullying so that she only wrote her first name on her homework for a long period of time. Technology is supposed
to be a tool to end social divisions. However, though people connect to
everyone on social media, that doesn't mean they cross unspoken cultural
boundaries. When she posted a picture of exam, her friends commented that, “how
can you get 100? Cheat?”. Then, they told her it was just a joke. This is
totally in line with that friends are sometimes enemies “when faced with
competition, jealousy, and mistrust” (Boyd, 2014, p. 130). People use aggression to enforce their social values and reject the idea that they are initiating social conflicts. I agree with Rushkoff that children need to be mentally independent and
experience themselves as an independent and ego-driven
individuals before they reach
out to others.
References:
Boyd, D. (2014). It's
complicated: The social lives of networked teens. Yale University Press.
Hi Claire,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your post! I truly believe that bias/discrimination exists in technology. I remember that when I started using emoji many years ago, there was only one skin tone people could use. Fortunately, after years of complaints about a lack of Black and brown representation, five skin tone options were introduced to emoji in 2015. Also, I was bothered by the fact that my Siri sometimes failed to understand my English with Chinese accents. I am not alone, and I saw iPhone users who are from Spain, India and other countries complaining about the same frustrating experience with Siri as I had. The bias/discrimination in technology worth more attention from all of us, particularly software designers and tech companies.
Yes, I think you both raise important points about the fallible, *human* nature of technology. My impression (bolstered by some of boyd's points in chapter 7, about "digital natives" vs. "digital immigrants") is that it can be easy to conflate technological advancements with perfected/unbiased content -- especially when digital technologies can relatively easily obscure the people who are really behind the scenes, pulling the strings, writing the code, feeding the machine learning algorithms, etc. I think that the examples you both provide -- from emotionally-manipulative newsfeed content to exclusive emoji and Siri features -- illustrate the painful shortcomings of technological advancements. We need to talk about these realities, and so I'm glad you've continued this conversation.
ReplyDeleteSomething that I thought was powerful (if not maybe a little idealistic, too) in Rushkoff's "Renaissance" chapters is the conceptualization of technological advancements not as a revolution, but more as a spiral staircase-like renaissance of simultaneous advancement & recycling of past innovations/values. This idea, of being able to "retrieve what we lost the last time around" (pp. 193) while still moving forwards, gives me hope that we'll be able to address the biases and discriminatory features of technology more effectively as we keep moving forwards.
On that note -- one of my former professors made me aware the other day of exactly this sort of initiative that is happening here at Penn -- Annenberg's newly formed (or forming?) Center on Digital Culture and Society. From what I understand, they're trying to harness the new possibilities of digital technologies to foster & share instances of radical storytelling -- which sounds exactly like the kind of "renaissance" Rushkoff alludes to.
Based on the clear ways you've each shown technology to be flawed, I'm curious what you think of this sort of new digital storytelling platform? Do you think it has promise, or do concerns about its ability to support equitable, nuanced communication outweigh any hopes for its success?
Hi Claire! I really liked your discussion and I think you raised some really great points about biases in technology and how they're reflective of the human biases we face in face-to-face interactions. The example you brought up about the Asian American high schooler is a very common experience for us. Sarah above also articulated really well how technological advancements are often conflated with unbiased content. I think it connects to this broader discourse of scientific objectivity which, to be blunt, simply doesn't exist. Scientific - and also technological - explorations are deeply influenced by the biases of the humans who investigate them. This was boyd's point too when she talks about how teens bring their experiences online. The ideas conveyed through social media and technology are really no different from those in conversations that are embedded with indexes and ideologies reproduced across time. In any discussion about how we are to address digital literacy, we have to connect our theories and hypotheticals to the same social practices that are occurring in verbal talk.
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