Researchers Want 60 Minutes' To #CiteBlackWomen After Algorithm Bias Episode - The Lily

6/15/2021 Researchers want ‘60 Minutes’ to #CiteBlackWomen after algorithm bias episode - The Lily
WORK
‘60 Minutes’ ran an episode

about algorithm bias. Only
White experts were given
airtime.
The episode renewed calls to #CiteBlackWomen,
many of whom have been leading research on AI
bias
  
(iStock; Washington Post Illustration)
Julianne McShane 
June 11, 2021

https://www.thelily.com/60-minutes-ran-an-episode-about-algorithm-bias-only-white-experts-were-given-airtime/ 1/9
A recent “60 Minutes” episode on the use of facial recognition in

policing has drummed up controversy in the form of a roughly
6,000-strong petition, an editor’s note from CBS — and a renewed
call to #CiteBlackWomen.
The 13-minute-long segment, which aired May 16, reported on how

facial recognition technologies have led to the wrongful arrests of
Black men. It featured interviews with two White experts in facial
recognition technologies as well as two Black men who were
wrongfully arrested based on faulty facial recognition.
Joy Buolamwini, an artificial intelligence bias researcher at

Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Black woman, was not
featured in the episode after spending what she said were between
eight and 10 hours working with “60 Minutes” producers over the
course of a few months, recommending research to incorporate and
even building a custom demo program showing how facial
recognition technologies analyze faces, she said.
[ It’s not just Sarah Milov. Female academics aren’t credited in

media ‘all the time.’]
Two days after the segment aired, CBS News released an editor’s
note naming Buolamwini and her organization, Algorithmic Justice
League — a digital advocacy organization that aims to raise
awareness of the social implications of artificial intelligence —
acknowledging her contributions to the research process, and
noting that they faced time constraints that left them unable to

mention the “dozens of sources — off and on camera — who helped

us develop and focus this segment.” A CBS spokesperson directed
The Lily to the editor’s note.
Now, Buolamwini is one of the Black women scholars leading the

charge calling for change: A creator of the petition, Buolamwini
characterizes the incident as part of a pervasive pattern of Black
women not being credited for their research — both within artificial
intelligence and beyond.
“In almost every facet of our lives, from technology to government

and social movements, Black women are often assumed to be
available and best equipped to do the hard work of moving an issue
forward, and at the same time are not given the recognition for
doing so,” said Buolamwini, whose TED Talk on algorithmic bias
has 1.4 million views and whose research was featured in the Netflix
documentary “Coded Bias.” “People act surprised when this
happens, but exclusion, discrimination and bias in technology are
the consequences of decisions like this being made every day. The
result is AI and other technologies don’t work for Black women,
people of color and other underrepresented communities.”
Buolamwini’s petition quickly gained traction on social media. It

demands CBS News publicly apologize for the omission, institute a
policy of formally crediting all sources who inform their productions
and produce a segment by the end of this year focused on the Black
women leading research to expose algorithmic harms — including
 Deborah Raji, who contributed to Buolamwini’s graduate research;
Timnit Gebru, a former co-leader of Google’s Ethical Artificial

Intelligence Team who said she was abruptly fired from Google last
December for sending an email criticizing the company’s treatment
of minority employees; and Tawana Petty, national organizing
director for Data for Black Lives. The Lily could not reach Gebru
and Petty by publication time.
[ A White city official refused to address this Black professor as

‘doctor.’ He got fired.]
Black women have been at the forefront of leading research on the

social and ethical implications of artificial intelligence — including
University of California at Los Angeles professor Safiya Noble,
author of “Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines
Reinforce Racism” and Princeton University professor Ruha
Benjamin, author of “Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for
the New Jim Code.” But their research has repeatedly been
overlooked and diminished by others in the tech industry, according
to Buolamwini and Raji.
For Raji, her own identity as a Black woman has been crucial to her
pursuit of research on gender- and race-based algorithmic biases —
something she wishes others in the field took more seriously.
“It’s very frustrating to see a problem, vocalize a problem, and not be

taken seriously,” she said. “The less we respect and pay attention to
those impacted communities, the more likely these problems will
 continue to fester.”
But exclusion and lack of recognition of Black women scholars are

not limited to the field of artificial intelligence, according to
Christen Smith, an associate professor of anthropology and African
and African diaspora studies at the University of Texas at Austin.
In 2017, Smith was sitting through a presentation at an academic

conference when she noticed some of her own work paraphrased on
a screen without any citation, she said.
She soon sprung into action, printing a T-shirt emblazoned with the
sentence “Cite Black Women,” which she wore to a November 2017
national women’s studies conference. The incident was meant to
“dare people not to cite me when they see me with that shirt on,”
she said.
More than three years later, Cite Black Women has evolved into a
movement that encourages professors, students and those outside
university walls alike to acknowledge, amplify and read Black
women’s work. Boulamwini included the hashtag
#CiteBlackWomen in her petition, too.
Smith’s own research also looks at this phenomenon: A study she

co-led whose results were published in the May issue of the journal
Feminist Anthropology found that Black women anthropologists are
severely underrepresented in top-tier journals, constituting only
0.87 percent of cited scholars — or 46 out of 5,445 — even though
they make up 2.6 percent of American anthropologists overall. And

most of those citations of Black women anthropologists’ work came

from other Black authors, the study found.
For scholars, the amount of times their papers and books are cited
are used to determine things like promotion, tenure and “deciding
how much people are worth on the academic market,” Smith said.
But citation is also a practice grounded in respect and recognition,

she added: “Citation is basically our way of acknowledging our
genealogies of thought, and specifically it’s our way of
acknowledging the intellectual labor that people put into their ideas,
and the ways that those ideas reverberate beyond their immediate
context.”
Recognizing Black women’s intellectual labor and giving them credit

for their own ideas is also crucial outside of academia, considering
the history of slavery and its contemporary reverberations, Smith
said.
“Part of what’s really difficult and insidious is that there’s a whole

tradition of Black people doing work and then White people taking
the credit for it,” she said.
To Buolamwini, the Black women leading research on artificial

intelligence deserve nothing less than full citations, a seat at the
table and time on TV.
“AI continues to develop at a rapid pace, and centering the voices of
 Black women who are doing the work is key to understanding and
addressing the ways AI fails marginalized identities,” she said.
Julianne McShane

Julianne McShane is a freelance journalist
writing about gender and other things.
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6/15/2021 Researchers want ‘60 Minutes’ to #CiteBlackWomen after algorithm bias episode - The Lily

‘60 Minutes’ ran an episode

(iStock; Washington Post Illustration)

A recent “60 Minutes” episode on the use of facial recognition in

The 13-minute-long segment, which aired May 16, reported on how

Joy Buolamwini, an artificial intelligence bias researcher at

[ It’s not just Sarah Milov. Female academics aren’t credited in

mention the “dozens of sources — off and on camera — who helped

Now, Buolamwini is one of the Black women scholars leading the

“In almost every facet of our lives, from technology to government

Buolamwini’s petition quickly gained traction on social media. It

Timnit Gebru, a former co-leader of Google’s Ethical Artificial

[ A White city official refused to address this Black professor as

Black women have been at the forefront of leading research on the

“It’s very frustrating to see a problem, vocalize a problem, and not be

But exclusion and lack of recognition of Black women scholars are

In 2017, Smith was sitting through a presentation at an academic

Smith’s own research also looks at this phenomenon: A study she

most of those citations of Black women anthropologists’ work came

But citation is also a practice grounded in respect and recognition,

Recognizing Black women’s intellectual labor and giving them credit

“Part of what’s really difficult and insidious is that there’s a whole

To Buolamwini, the Black women leading research on artificial

“AI continues to develop at a rapid pace, and centering the voices of

addressing the ways AI fails marginalized identities,” she said.

Recommended by The Lily

Black women have

SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER

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