META Meta Platforms Inc

By Deepa Seetharaman and Jeff Horwitz 

Facebook Inc. is creating new teams dedicated to studying and addressing potential racial bias on its core platform and Instagram unit, in a departure from the company's prior reluctance to explore the way its products affect different minority groups.

The newly formed "equity and inclusion team" at Instagram will examine how Black, Hispanic and other minority users in the U.S. are affected by the company's algorithms, including its machine-learning systems, and how those effects compare with white users, according to people familiar with the matter.

An Instagram representative confirmed the move, adding that the Facebook platform is also creating a similar product team for its namesake app.

"The racial justice movement is a moment of real significance for our company," said Vishal Shah, Instagram's head of product. "Any bias in our systems and policies runs counter to providing a platform for everyone to express themselves."

The move comes amid a continuing advertiser boycott related to how the social-media giant polices its platforms and employee unrest over how it deals with racial issues.

The question of how to detect and correct algorithmic bias is a big one for technology companies and governments alike, as studies have found discrimination in how software drives decisions involving everything from sentencing guidelines to corporate recruiting.

The issue of potential algorithmic bias has been contentious at times within Facebook. Last year, company officials barred employees from studying disparate racial impacts associated with its platform without permission from the so-called M-Team, a senior group of executives that includes Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg and Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, according to people familiar with the matter.

Around that time, as Instagram was creating new thresholds for suspending or deleting accounts, an internal analysis found that users whose activity suggested they were Black were 50% more likely to have their accounts disabled than other users under the proposed changes, according to some of the people. Instagram officials tweaked the parameters to reduce the potential effects, but prohibited further research on those thresholds, the people said.

Facebook doesn't explicitly gather race data from users. The analysis used a proxy for race called "multicultural affinity" -- in this case the African-American ethnic affinity cluster -- based on the content people engage with on the platform. Companies can target ads at these affinity groups, with some restrictions.

Stephanie Otway, an Instagram spokeswoman, said the internal analysis was flawed because the company's existing data doesn't accurately capture race.

In a statement, Facebook said the company had been concerned that using multicultural affinity as a proxy for race was unreliable, and had required high-level approval for race-related research to ensure it was done responsibly. As part of the formation of the new teams studying minority users' experiences, Facebook is talking to outside experts and civil-rights groups about how to reliably and consistently study race.

"It's early; we plan to share more details on this work in the coming months," Ms. Otway said.

The new Instagram team, which hasn't been previously reported, doesn't yet have a leader. The Facebook team is being called the Inclusivity Product Team and will consult with a council of Black users and experts on race, the company said. The new groups will also consult with other product teams and potentially design features meant to support minority users of the platform, the company says.

A civil-rights audit commissioned by Facebook and released this month credited the company with acknowledging the risks and engaging with external experts on the issue The report didn't assess any potential bias in the company's existing algorithms, noting that the auditors weren't given access to internal research and models.

Facebook's moves come against the backdrop of a global debate about race since the May 25 killing of George Floyd, a Black man who was killed in Minneapolis after a police officer pressed his knee on Mr. Floyd's neck for nearly nine minutes. Mr. Floyd's death sparked world-wide protests over racism in nearly every aspect of society, including within the technology industry.

Facebook has been criticized for its handling of race in the past. Academic research has found that Facebook's algorithms and advertising auction system would disproportionately exclude Black users from seeing certain housing or employment ads -- even if the advertiser hadn't sought to discriminate.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development last year accused Facebook of unlawful discrimination by allowing real-estate companies to target potential customers by race, religion and other factors. That lawsuit is pending, and Facebook has said it is working with the agency to address its concerns.

In recent months, there has been mounting internal and external pressure on Facebook to reckon with its impact on minority communities and the lack of racial diversity among its most senior leaders.

One major flashpoint came in late May when Mr. Zuckerberg and other senior officials declined to take down a post in which President Donald Trump called protesters thugs and warned: "When the looting starts, the shooting starts."

Many insiders and civil-rights leaders saw the post as a call for violence and a violation of Facebook's policies. But Facebook officials declined to take it down, and Mr. Zuckerberg later told employees that the phrase had "no history of being read as a dog whistle for vigilante supporters to take justice into their own hands," according to a transcript of an employee town hall reported by tech news site Vox.

Facebook's handling of the Trump post sparked rare public opposition from employees, some of whom aired their concerns on rival social-media site Twitter Inc. Others opted to stage a "virtual walkout" on June 1.

Then, in late June, civil-rights activists including the NAACP and the Anti-Defamation League began organizing an ad boycott of Facebook dubbed #StopHateForProfit for the month of July. Several major advertisers have halted or cut their spending on Facebook this month, including Unilever PLC, Starbucks Corp., Ford Motor Co., Verizon Communication Inc. and many small marketers. Walt Disney Co. has also curtailed its spending on Facebook, The Wall Street Journal earlier reported.

Facebook has announced commitments to boost representation of Black people and minorities among its leadership by 30% in five years. The company also plans to double its Black and Hispanic employee base by 2023.

Nearly 4% of Facebook's U.S.-based employees and 3.4% of company leaders are Black, according to its 2020 diversity report.

Asians make up 44.4% of Facebook's workforce and 25.4% of leadership, while Hispanics make up 6.3% and 4.3% of leadership.

Write to Deepa Seetharaman at Deepa.Seetharaman@wsj.com and Jeff Horwitz at Jeff.Horwitz@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 21, 2020 18:01 ET (22:01 GMT)

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