Dating apps that allow users to filter their searches by race – or rely on algorithms that pair up people of the same race – reinforce racial divisions and biases, according to a new paper by Cornell University researchers.
Researchers called for the apps to be redesigned, and for ‘racist’ algorithms should be reprogrammed.
Experts say that amid the huge rise in the usage of dating apps are meaning people are failing to meet diverse potential partners.
Cornell researchers called for the apps to be redesigned, and for ‘racist’ algorithms should be reprogrammed. The paper revealed how simple design decisions could decrease bias against people of all marginalized groups.
‘Serendipity is lost when people are able to filter other people out,’ said Jevan Hutson of Cornell, the paper’s lead author.
‘Dating platforms have the opportunity to disrupt particular social structures, but you lose those benefits when you have design features that allow you to remove people who are different than you.’
The paper revealed how simple design decisions could decrease bias against people of all marginalized groups.
For instance, the Japan-based gay hookup app 9Monsters groups users into nine categories of fictional monsters, ‘which may help users look past other forms of difference, such as race, ethnicity and ability,’ the paper says.
Other apps use filters based on characteristics like political views, relationship history and education, rather than race.
Posting policies or messages encouraging a more inclusive environment, or explicitly prohibiting certain language, could also decrease bias against users from any marginalized group, including disabled or transgender people.
‘Given that these platforms are becoming increasingly aware of the impact they have on racial discrimination, we think it’s not a big stretch for them to take a more justice-oriented approach in their own design,’ Jessie G. Taft, a research coordinator at Cornell Tech who worked on the paper, said.
‘We’re trying to raise awareness that this is something designers, and people in general, should be thinking more about.’
Previous research has shown racial inequities in online dating are widespread.
For example, black men and women are 10 times more likely to message white people than white people are to message black people.
Letting users search, sort and filter potential partners by race not only allows people to easily act on discriminatory preferences, it stops them from connecting with partners they may not have realized they’d like.
Users who get messages from people of other races are more likely to engage in interracial exchanges than they would have otherwise.
This suggests that designing platforms to make it easier for people of different races to meet could overcome biases, the authors said.