Twitter explores prize money for uncovering prejudices

Algorithms reflect the thoughts of their developers. This simple fact is responsible for the fact that we are increasingly struggling with one problem in the age of digitization: prejudices. Lines of code have the potential to discriminate against population groups; in the past, women and people of color were often disadvantaged in this way. Twitter would like to counteract this with a function of its own social network.

Because the company would like to have its algorithm for cropping images and previews examined for weak points. To this end, a competition was called through which specialists should take a closer look at the implementation. If you find prejudices in your own system, you can inform the social network by August 6th, the biggest vulnerability discovered will be selected on August 9th at the “Def Con AI Village” conference.

The winner (s) will receive a prize of $ 3,500, and participants can look forward to additional prizes worth $ 1,000. That doesn’t sound like a lot at first, but if you compare the amount of the prize money with Twitter’s program to uncover bugs and security gaps, the sum ranks in the middle of the field.

If a bug is discovered, the discoverer receives a bonus of 2,940 dollars, in the case of authentication errors it is 7,700 dollars. Of course, Twitter benefits from the input from the community, after all, their own study has already found weaknesses in the algorithm. So it’s no wonder that some users are asking ten times as much for the winner.

Own opinion:

It is commendable that Twitter is tackling such problems with the help of the community, but I also believe that the company should pay significantly higher premiums for uncovering errors. After all, putting your own users at a disadvantage or endangering them can quickly lead to a loss of image or to lawsuits, resulting in costly processes. And ultimately, in this way, the trust of your own users in the platform can be strengthened.

Via The Verge