Online Images Reinforce Bias

A recent study published in the Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology reveals that gender bias is alive and thrivingnon some of the biggest sites out there: Twitter, Shutterstock, NYTimes.com, and Wikipedia.Photos of professions like librarian, nurse, computer programmer, and civil engineers tended to reinforce existing stereotypes. Women were over-represented in fields like nursing and under-represented in fields like computer programming. When compared to employment figures from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, images shown on these sites had discrepancies with actual numbers. The disparity is more pronounced when automated algorithms are used on sites like Twitter as compared to curated sites like the NYTimes.com.The study suggests that more careful and direct curation would help with the problem. The goal is prevent bias from being designed into digital media platforms and artificial intelligence software.It's interesting to think that as flawed as humans are, they are actually better at this than machines.Source: https://hyperallergic.com/541323/online-images-reinforce-gender-biases-around-professions-study-says/