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After losing her job during the pandemic, self-described Digital Content Specialist and Social Media Strategist Charné Graham was happy to get a lead from a recruiter on LinkedIn for a job at Australian tech firm Appen.
As she was filling out their online job application, after she entered her ethnicity as Black, the application then asked her to describe her complexion, from "pale white" to "very dark brown to black."
Needless to say, Graham did not end up applying for that job, but did make a point of posting screenshots on Twitter and calling out the company for what she called an online "paper bag test."
Has anyone ever seen this on a job application?pic.twitter.com/OVqwNbTioR— Charn\u00e9 Graham (@Charn\u00e9 Graham) 1620608407
This is the company guys, a recruiter reached out to me on LinkedIn to apply for a role. I did not continue with the app after seeing the paper bag test.pic.twitter.com/P6xmv1ngPH— Charn\u00e9 Graham (@Charn\u00e9 Graham) 1620609579
Folks on Twitter did not hold back their shade.
What in the online paper bag test is thispic.twitter.com/wwKI1j89kC— Mia (@Mia) 1620617114
I thought you were picking out foundation. Why tf is this on a job application?— Kari07Tacoma (@Kari07Tacoma) 1620610689
Issa no for me & I\u2019d report them cause what is that aboutpic.twitter.com/kV4vpV0Dvp— Bitch I\u2019m a (plant) Mother \ud83e\udeb4\ud83c\udf3f (@Bitch I\u2019m a (plant) Mother \ud83e\udeb4\ud83c\udf3f) 1620624622
I dont even work there but I'm calling hrpic.twitter.com/HGuvkMKGDi— Bri The Best \ud83d\udc9c\ud83d\udc9c\ud83d\udc3c (@Bri The Best \ud83d\udc9c\ud83d\udc9c\ud83d\udc3c) 1620662804
But others had another theory.
There actually is an explanation.. the company is an AI learning& they need people of all complexions, because as of right now they have only mostly YT people with AI &AI hasn\u2019t been able to recognize other skin tones as much,so they need that, so AI can not leave other times out— jay (@jay) 1620659487
y\u2019all mfs overreacting if they are a machine learning company it\u2019s a high chance they could be doing facial recognition training, for the software to be trained correctly it needs to have all types of faces and ethnicities. There\u2019s a ted talk by Joy Boulamwini about it— Synite (@Synite) 1620743343
Appen is in fact a company that specializes in machine learning and artificial intelligence, but Graham still expressed concerns, telling The Sydney Press Herald:.
"I'm aware that Appen is an artificial intelligence company but as a Black woman the question is very off putting and triggering with no clear explanation as to why you would need that information."
In a subsequent statement, Appen acknowledged their mistake.
"Our goal is to help eliminate bias and make AI that works for everyone. The optional question on skin tone is used to ensure diverse datasets are included in the collection and annotation used to train computer vision algorithms."
"We acknowledge that without an explanation up front as to why it is so important to ask some of these questions, and the way the question was presented, it missed the mark and that's on us to fix."
Good to see them at least acknowledge that even with the best of intentions, this weird drop down menu was not a good look.
At all.