Twitter said Wednesday it was launching an initiative on "responsible machine learning" that will include reviews of algorithmic fairness on the social media platform.

The California messaging service said the plan aims to offer more transparency in its artificial intelligence and tackle "the potential harmful effects of algorithmic decisions."

The move comes amid heightened concerns over algorithms used by online services, which some say can promote violence or extremist content or reinforce racial or gender bias.

"Responsible technological use includes studying the effects it can have over time," said a blog post by Jutta Williams and Rumman Chowdhury of Twitter's ethics and transparency team.

"When Twitter uses (machine learning), it can impact hundreds of millions of tweets per day and sometimes, the way a system was designed to help could start to behave differently than was intended."

The initiative calls for "taking responsibility for our algorithmic decisions" with the aim of "equity and fairness of outcomes," according to the researchers.

"We're also building explainable ML solutions so you can better understand our algorithms, what informs them, and how they impact what you see on Twitter."

Williams and Chowdhury said the team would be sharing what it learns with outside researchers "to improve the industry's collective understanding of this topic, help us improve our approach, and hold us accountable."

The Twitter move follows a series of controversies at Google's AI ethics team which resulted in the firing of two top researchers and the resignation of a high-ranking scientist.

Instagram dabbles with letting people hide 'likes'
San Francisco (AFP) April 14, 2021 - Instagram on Wednesday said it is dabbling with letting users hide "like" counts in an effort to ease the pressure of seeking approval from others.

If an experiment at Instagram shows the option is a hit, it could be made permanent and even extended to Facebook, which owns the image-centric social network.

"In 2019, we started hiding like counts for a small group of people to understand if it lessens some pressure when posting to Instagram," a Facebook spokesperson told AFP.

"Some people found this beneficial but some still wanted to see like counts so they could track what's popular."

Running tallies of how many people signal they like posts at social networks can be seen as status symbols or indicators of worth, raising mental health concerns

Some experts say the insatiable quest for "likes" can be addictive and have devastating effects, particularly for younger people.

Instagram is letting a small number of users around the world decide whether to show "like" counts on their posts or see them on content shared by other people.

"We're testing this on Instagram to start, but we're also exploring a similar experience for Facebook," the spokesperson said.

Facebook said that it has been working with experts to understand how design tweaks such as the one being tested at Instagram can support well-being of users while providing control over how they engage with the service.

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