Facebook mistakenly labels black men ‘primates’
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.
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 is egregious," he said.
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