Photography is an invention that many of us take for granted. Photographs and cameras provide greater visibility in most situations. But not all people have the same privileges when it comes to being recorded. Skin color can be underrepresented in some forms of recording, leading to less visibility for people of color. Conversely, races can be targeted using certain applications of picture technology that detect skin color, creating hyper-visibility for them. The degree of visibility and invisibility depends on exposure- something that darker races are more vulnerable to than lighter races. This paper will look at both forms of exposure to demonstrate how picture technology can lead to racial discrimination.
One way picture technology makes members of a minority group invisible are yearbook photos. After public schools in the U.S. desegrated, the photos of Black children were blurrier compared to the White children who were placed next to them (Benjamin, 2019:71). Being less visible denigrates a minority group that is already disadvantaged by social factors like income and education. The yearbook photos sent the message that while whites and blacks had desegrated in body, they were still segregated in physical representation. This made blacks vulnerable to prejudice in a new way, as the collective blurriness of their photos gave their appearance less meaning compared to other races. The new prejudice kept them alienated from whites through systematic techniques, such as picture technology, that made them less visible.
An example of how a technology makes members of a minority group visible is in the case of the Uighurs in China, who are thought to be the “first known example of a government intentionally using artificial intelligence for racial profiling” (Mozur, 2019). Uighars are a mostly Muslim minority living in eastern China. The Chinese technology uses facial recognition software to recognize Uighurs out of a group of people; it tracks their comings and goings in a surveillance network that has opened the door to automated racism. This can have dire consequences on a minority group living in a nation with minimal civil rights like China. The implication of this technology is that the minority group can be closely monitored in order to exert control over it. In China, the victims aren’t limited to the Uighurs; algorithms can legally be used to for social control over other groups. China has face-image databases for many groups they deem troublesome, including criminals, the mentally ill, drug users, and government petitioners (Mozur, 2019). This technology provides a framework for wide-range government surveillance, reminding me of the situation in Orwell’s dystopia novel 1984.
While I am not a person of color, I have felt invisible and more visible by some technologies that have nothing to do with picture technology. When I published a blog back in 2012, it was semi-successful at first, which took me by surprise because I had few credentials for publishing work. Then I faded from the public for a few years. In 2016 I started a new one, but there was hardly any traffic and no comments, even after four years of writing on it. This surprised me even more, because I’d been trained to write titles that would rank high on search engines, and I had already been successful at it. A few years after starting the second blog, I found out that Google had implemented more stringent search engine tools that would make it more advantageous for profit-seekers to rank higher. It appeared that my posts were no longer ranking high in their search results because there were no ads on my blog, making me feel less visible as a writer. When I appealed to have ads placed on my blog, either Google’s bots or someone working there judged my content inadequate for ads. Now I can only get hits from Bing, which doesn’t seem to discriminate against ad-free content. It made me feel less useful, like I had wasted time trying get hits, and like my thoughts were being oppressed, because I knew there were people who enjoyed what I had to write, but they were being deprived by Google’s penchant for profits. I can only imagine how many other writers have suffered similar fates in the blogosphere. This in no way is on the same level as technology that makes racial discriminations; it’s just that by being white, I think this is the only way I can relate.
A time I felt more visible because of technology was when I was cast as a vigilante by an online consortium of lawyers. Somebody in their group took the names of everyone in a Facebook group I had joined and accused us of trying to incite violence against a national bank. The truth is we were boycotting the bank (I had my account removed from it) and there was no violence whatsoever. They used our full names, which people could see by searching online. This was straight up libel, and because it was printed on an online forum, I wasn’t sure who or how to sue for defamation. When I found my name on the list, I was naturally enraged. What if a potential employer had searched for my name and found me involved in this fabrication? It might be the same outcome that a person of color would get from a job interview with a racist.
This is a good example of how technologies other than photography, like social media, can make people in social groups more visible. Because a crime like this was committed online, where it’s easier for the criminal to remain invisible, the visibility of the victim gives them exposure in ways they might not be aware. I certainly wasn’t aware my name would be published on a list like that, but that is the risk you run using social media, and I don’t think anyone is immune from it.
My examples may have nothing to do with picture technology, but they are fair analogies. Picture profiling is in the same ballpark as user profiling by sites like Google and Facebook because both involve people who are at the mercy of technology that makes them more or less visible (not to mention the way they target people for ads!). Add in the weak privacy settings of sites like Facebook and you have a recipe for Foucault’s panopticon- a symbol of social control in everyday life, where people are monitored by a structure of constant surveillance in society. Picture photography is but one aspect of this broader issue, that as we increase technology in society, the panopticon seems to balloon. The scariest thing about this is not that they we are always being watched, but that we are unaware of the ways in which it is happening. For instance, in my example of libel, it wasn’t even the government that was involved, but a group of citizens targeting a social group they disagreed with. There’s also the idea that corporations in big tech could potentially implement surveillance technology that is beyond the government’s awareness. The racial profiling of picture technology is part of a broader issue that affects the whole hierarchy of social organization, yet it is probably the most visible aspect of it.
Sources:
Benjamin, Ruha. 2019. Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code: Chapter 3, e-book, pp. 67-77. Polity Press. ProQuest eBook Central.
Mozur, Paul. April 14, 2019. One Month, 500,000 Face Scans: How China is Using A.I. to Profile a Minority. New York Times. New York: New York Times Company.
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