ethnicity
Latest
Instagram starts asking some users about their race and ethnicity
The data could help Instagram make the app fairer and more inclusive.
Amazon will perform a racial equality audit of its hourly workers
The audit will only look at the company’s hourly employees.
NYC bill bans AI recruiting tools that fail bias checks
New York City's council has passed a bill banning AI hiring tools that don't pass anti-discrimination checks.
Tesla must pay $137 million in discrimination lawsuit
Tesla has been ordered to pay $137 million in damages to a former Black worker who accused the company of ignoring discrimination and racial abuse.
Twitter's AI bounty program reveals bias toward young, pretty white people
Twitter's first AI bias bounty has wrapped up, and it learned that beauty filters skew its photo algorithm — among other issues.
English soccer to boycott social media for four days over racist abuse
English football is boycotting social media for four days starting later this month to pile pressure on Facebook and Twitter to combat racist abuse online.
A Hulu docuseries based on the The New York Times' 1619 Project is on the way
The Pulitzer-winning project examined the history of slavery in the US.
Apple's upcoming iOS update unblocks 'Asian' as adult content
According to Mashable, the latest iOS 14.5 Beta's adult content filter no longer blocks searches containing the word "Asian."
Peacock is removing racist scenes from classic WWE matches
NBCUniversal's Peacock is removing racist scenes from classic WWE matches as it comes to terms with a troublesome streaming catalog.
Facebook reportedly investigated over 'systemic' racism in hiring
Facebook is said to be under investigation for allegedly 'systemic' racism in its hiring and job promotions.
EA bans a FIFA player for life after racist abuse of ex-footballer Ian Wright
The teen sent the messages to Wright after losing an Ultimate Team game.
Apple's parental controls prevent kids from searching for 'Asian' things
“Asian food” is off-limits, as are terms like “Asian fusion,” “Asian diaspora,” “Asian communities”, “Asian countries” and “Asian politics”, “Asian cultures” and “Asian hairstyles”.
Disney+ restricts kids from watching content with racist stereotypes
Disney is taking an additional step to provide children the proper context when seeing titles like 'The Jungle Book' and 'Peter Pan.'
Grindr will finally remove the app's ethnicity filter
Many users are asking why it's taken so long for Grindr to remove the ethnicity filter.
Two-thirds of online gamers in the US experience 'severe' harassment
It's no secret that online gaming can harbor toxic and abusive behavior. But a new survey by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) says as many as many as two-thirds of US online gamers have experienced "severe" harassment. More than half of the respondents said they've been targeted based on their race, religion, ability, gender, sexual orientation or ethnicity. Nearly 30 percent claim they've been doxxed in an online game, and nearly a quarter of respondents say they've been exposed to white supremacist ideology.
Facebook enables advertisers to exclude users by 'ethnic affinity'
Facebook's features let advertisers limit which users see their material, ideally those who will be more interested in their products. But currently included in the "demographics" section of their ad-targeting tool is the ability to select which users see material based on their "ethnic affinity," which the social titan began offering two years ago to aid its multicultural advertising. Facebook automatically lumps users into these categories based on their activity and interests -- categories which advertisers can choose to exclude or specifically target.
Apple hired more women, but still has a huge gender gap
Apple's largely white guy workforce isn't going to change overnight, but the company made strides this year, according to its latest diversity report. After promising changes in June, Tim Cook said "we're working hard to expand our recruiting efforts, so we continue to hire talented people from groups that are currently underrepresented in the industry." Globally, it hired 11,000 women over the past year compared to around 6,500 this year before. The company also took on 50 percent more black employees and 66 percent more Hispanics in the US over the same period. That's positive, but Apple is still 69 percent male and 55 percent white, just a percent better than last year.
Double Dragon with diversity in 'Beatdown City'
Game developer Shawn Allen grew up as a biracial black kid raised by a white mom in a mostly Latin neighborhood in Manhattan. Now, as an adult, most people assume he's black, Middle Eastern or Hispanic, while others squint and ask, "Where are you from?" Diana, his wife, is Puerto Rican, and their friend, Manny, is Sicilian and chief of his Taino tribe. Together, they're aiming to bust down the barriers to video game diversity with a retro-styled brawler, Treachery in Beatdown City. It features RPG elements and a turn-based combat system, and it features a cast of minority characters. The star of Beatdown City is Lisa, a Puerto Rican woman designed by Diana to counteract the "spicy Latina" stereotype in popular media, Allen tells me. "Lisa was made to be a strong character first, who can also be a positive Latin woman in games," he says. "She is, if not the only, one of the few leading Puerto Rican women in games." Beatdown City isn't an activist game – it spawns from the team's love of brawlers, and they've worked to make it different (turn-based combat will do that) while still recalling classics such as Double Dragon and Streets of Rage. But if Allen and his friends are going to make a game with human characters, they're going to be as diverse as the developers themselves, Allen says: "When Manny and I started making the game, we wanted to make iconic, memorable characters like brawlers of old did. But we infused them with backgrounds based on our culture, the culture around us and of people that we know. The more we thought about it, the details flowed very easily."
Raven's Manveer Heir urges industry to address ethnic misrepresentation
If there's one thing that Commander Shepard, Nathan Drake, Agent 47, Marcus Fenix, and ... uhh ... Mega Man all have in common, it's not just that they're all video game characters -- they're also all white dudes. And Raven Software's Manveer Heir takes umbrage with that fact (and, more importantly, the fact that being caucasian is a rather pervasive theme across game characters), telling Develop in a recent interview that "There are a large number of hispanic and black children playing games, percentage-wise more so than white children, but these guys aren't getting into the industry because they are not seeing themselves in the games." Moreover, Heir says it's not just a question of equality, but rather a question of missed market opportunity. "It's not about being fair. It's about bringing something new to the art." The Wolverine/Singularity dev also makes a point of sending out a rally call to the rest of the industry, saying, "I'm sure many people in the game industry are starting work on new IP. If we can ask people to think about it, then they are more apt to say 'hey let's try this.' You just need one game to succeed. The first developer or publisher to do this will enjoy a lot of success." For a much more thorough discussion on the subject, we've embedded a video after the break of a panel from DICE 2010, titled "Games of Color," in which Manveer speaks in far more detail on the subject.
With persistent worlds comes persistent racism
The promise of what virtual spaces can bring us is significant -- erasing geographic limitations on interaction with others while fostering an exchange of cultures, beliefs, and languages. To this high-minded end, millions of dollars have been spent and many thousands of hours of work have been invested into creating rich graphical settings coupled with immersive environmental soundscapes. Crisp digital communication at its finest, right?Much like the promise of the the eradication of artificial barriers to meaningful communication through the Internet, virtual worlds and online spaces in general have fallen short of expectations. It's generally not the fault of the companies or the service providers though. The fault lies with us, the users.
