London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Wednesday, Oct 22, 2025

Twitter's photo crop algorithm is biased toward white faces and women

Twitter's photo crop algorithm is biased toward white faces and women

A team of researchers found the social media giant’s auto-cropping tool most strongly discriminated in favour of white women.

New analysis released by Twitter has confirmed that the firm's automatic photo cropping algorithm discriminates on the basis of ethnicity and gender.

If presented with an image featuring a black man and a white woman, the algorithm would choose to show the woman 64 per cent of the time and the man 36 per cent of the time, Twitter's researchers found.

In comparisons of men and women, there was an 8 per cent difference in favour of women. The algorithm also showed an overall 4 per cent bias toward showing images of white people instead of black people.

In response, the social network said it would remove the feature, replacing it with new tools that would allow users to see a "true preview" of images added to tweets.

"One of our conclusions is that not everything on Twitter is a good candidate for an algorithm, and in this case, how to crop an image is a decision best made by people," Twitter's Director of Software Engineering Rumman Chowdhury wrote in a blog announcing the findings.

A similar test for the "male gaze," which aimed to discover whether the algorithm tended to focus on different parts of male and female-presenting bodies, found no evidence of bias.

When applied to technologies like facial recognition, the consequences of biased algorithms could reach far beyond an unfairly-cropped photo, according to Nicholas Kayser-Bril from Berlin-based NGO Algorithmwatch.

"Computer vision algorithms are known to depict people with darker skin tones as more violent and closer to animals, building on old racist tropes. This is very likely to have a direct effect on racialised people when such systems are used to detect abnormal or dangerous situations, as is already the case in many places in Europe," he told Euronews.

How does Twitter's algorithm work?


Until recently, images posted to Twitter have been cropped automatically by an algorithm trained to focus on "saliency" – a measure of the likelihood that the human eye will be drawn to a particular part of an image.

High saliency areas of an image typically include people, text, numbers, objects and high-contrast backgrounds.

However, a Machine Learning (ML) algorithm like the one used by Twitter is only as unbiased as the information it’s trained with, explained Kayser-Bril.

"If a Machine Learning algorithm is trained on a data set that does not contain data about certain groups or certain attributes, it will output biased results," he told Euronews.

"Building a fair data set is impossible if it is to apply to a society that is not fair in the first place. Therefore, what a model optimises for is more important than the data set it was trained with.

"Artificial Intelligence communities use benchmarks for their algorithms; they are very rarely related to fairness".

Twitter's 2021 inclusion and diversity report showed that its employees worldwide were 55.5 per cent male, 43.6 per cent female and less than one per cent nonbinary.

Figures for Twitter employees in the United States – the only territory for which the company publishes ethnicity statistics – show that 7.8 per cent of staff are black, falling to 6.2 per cent when only employees working in technical roles are taken into account.

The issue with Twitter's cropping algorithm caught widespread attention last year, when Canadian PhD student Colin Madland noticed that it would consistently choose to show him rather than his colleague – a black man – when presented with pictures of the two men.

Madland's tweet about the discovery went viral, prompting other users to post very long images featuring multiple people in an effort to see which one the algorithm would choose to show.

At the time, Twitter spokesperson Liz Kelley said the company "tested for bias before shipping the model and didn't find evidence of racial or gender bias in our testing," adding it was clear that Twitter had "more analysis to do".


Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
White House Announces No Imminent Summit Between Trump and Putin
US and Qatar Warn EU of Trade and Energy Risks from Tough Climate Regulation
Apple Challenges EU Digital Markets Act Crackdown in Landmark Court Battle
Nicolas Sarkozy begins five-year prison term at La Santé in Paris
Japan stocks surge to record as Sanae Takaichi becomes Prime Minister
This Is How the 'Heist of the Century' Was Carried Out at the Louvre in Seven Minutes: France Humiliated as Crown with 2,000 Diamonds Vanishes
China Warns UK of ‘Consequences’ After Delay to London Embassy Approval
France’s Wealthy Shift Billions to Luxembourg and Switzerland Amid Tax and Political Turmoil
"Sniper Position": Observation Post Targeting 'Air Force One' Found Before Trump’s Arrival in Florida
Shouting Match at the White House: 'Trump Cursed, Threw Maps, and Told Zelensky – "Putin Will Destroy You"'
Windows’ Own ‘Siri’ Has Arrived: You Can Now Talk to Your Computer
Thailand and Singapore Investigate Cambodian-Based Prince Group as U.S. and U.K. Sanctions Unfold
‘No Kings’ Protests Inflate Numbers — But History Shows Nations Collapse Without Strong Executive Power
Chinese Tech Giants Halt Stablecoin Launches After Beijing’s Regulatory Intervention
Manhattan Jury Holds BNP Paribas Liable for Enabling Sudanese Government Abuses
Trump Orders Immediate Release of Former Congressman George Santos After Commuting Prison Sentence
S&P Downgrades France’s Credit Rating, Citing Soaring Debt and Political Instability
Ofcom Rules BBC’s Gaza Documentary ‘Materially Misleading’ Over Narrator’s Hamas Ties
Diane Keaton’s Cause of Death Revealed as Pneumonia, Family Confirms
Former Lostprophets Frontman Ian Watkins Stabbed to Death in British Prison
"The Tsunami Is Coming, and It’s Massive": The World’s Richest Man Unveils a New AI Vision
Outsider, Heroine, Trailblazer: Diane Keaton Was Always a Little Strange — and Forever One of a Kind
Dramatic Development in the Death of 'Mango' Founder: Billionaire's Son Suspected of Murder
Two Years of Darkness: The Harrowing Testimonies of Israeli Hostages Emerging From Gaza Captivity
EU Moves to Use Frozen Russian Assets to Buy U.S. Weapons for Ukraine
Europe Emerges as the Biggest Casualty in U.S.-China Rare Earth Rivalry
HSBC Confronts Strategic Crossroads as NAB Seeks Only Retail Arm in Australia Exit
U.S. Chamber Sues Trump Over $100,000 H-1B Visa Fee
Shenzhen Expo Spotlights China’s Quantum Step in Semiconductor Self-Reliance
China Accelerates to the Forefront in Global Nuclear Fusion Race
Yachts, Private Jets, and a Picasso Painting: Exposed as 'One of the Largest Frauds in History'
Australia’s Wedgetail Spies Aid NATO Response as Russian MiGs Breach Estonian Airspace
McGowan Urges Chalmers to Cut Spending Over Tax Hike to Close $20 Billion Budget Gap
Victoria Orders Review of Transgender Prison Placement Amid Safety Concerns for Female Inmates
U.S. Treasury Mobilises New $20 Billion Debt Facility to Stabilise Argentina
French Business Leaders Decry Budget as Macron’s Pro-Enterprise Promise Undermined
Trump Claims Modi Pledged India Would End Russian Oil Imports Amid U.S. Tariff Pressure
Surging AI Startup Valuations Fuel Bubble Concerns Among Top Investors
Australian Punter Archie Wilson Tears Up During Nebraska Press Conference, Sparking Conversation on Male Vulnerability
Australia Confirms U.S. Access to Upgraded Submarine Shipyard Under AUKUS Deal
“Firepower” Promised for Ukraine as NATO Ministers Meet — But U.S. Tomahawks Remain Undecided
Brands Confront New Dilemma as Extremists Adopt Fashion Labels
The Sydney Sweeney and Jeans Storm: “The Outcome Surpassed Our Wildest Dreams”
Erika Kirk Delivers Moving Tribute at White House as Trump Awards Charlie Presidential Medal of Freedom
British Food Influencer ‘Big John’ Detained in Australia After Visa Dispute
ScamBodia: The Chinese Fraud Empire Shielded by Cambodia’s Ruling Elite
French PM Suspends Macron’s Pension Reform Until After 2027 in Bid to Stabilize Government
Orange, Bouygues and Free Make €17 Billion Bid for Drahi’s Altice France Telecom Assets
Dutch Government Seizes Chipmaker After U.S. Presses for Removal of Chinese CEO
Bessent Accuses China of Dragging Down Global Economy Amid New Trade Curbs
×