Facebook labels black men 'primates'

Facebook's AI-powered recommendation system asked users watching a Daily Mail video featuring Black men whether they like to '[k]eep seeing videos about 'Primates', prompting significant controversy.

The video was published by the Daily Mail on its Facebook page and depicted white people, including police officers, confronting Black men. No primates were shown. 

The discovery led to accusations of racism, condemnation of Facebook's apparent inability to manage inappropriate content on its platform, including its over-reliance on technology to detect and manage unsafe content. 

The company apologised for its 'unacceptable error', said it had disabled its topic recommendation feature responsible for the message, and would look to ensure it does not happen again.

News, commentary, analysis 🗞️

• https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/03/technology/facebook-ai-race-primates.html

• https://engadget.com/facebook-ai-mislabels-video-black-men-primates-044255703.html

• https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/09/04/facebook-sorry-labelling-black-men-primates-video/

• https://eu.usatoday.com/story/tech/2021/09/03/facebook-video-black-men-primates-apology/5721948001/

• https://www.thedailybeast.com/facebook-ai-slaps-primates-label-on-daily-mail-video-of-black-men

• https://www.thewrap.com/facebook-apology-primates-label-video-black-men/

• https://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/facebook-mistakenly-labels-black-men-primates/news-story/48d4bb3956b64eaf58b71d1a7953256b

• https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/4/22657026/facebook-mislabeling-video-black-men-primates-algorithm

• https://www.forbes.com/sites/edwardsegal/2021/09/04/facebook-apologizes-for-embarassing-mistake-caused-by-ai/