FaceApp allows users to appear younger or look like a different gender. (Wireless Lab OOO)
A popular app allows people to transform their faces with various filters and one of them has led to accusations of whitewashing and racism.
FaceApp, available on iTunes and Google Play, uses artificial intelligence to change users’ faces to make them a different gender, age and have different facial expressions. One of the filters, originally titled, “Hot,” has come under fire for lightening users’ skin tones.
So I downloaded this app and decided to pick the "hot" filter not knowing that it would make me white. It's 2017, c'mon guys smh#FaceApp pic.twitter.com/9U9dv9JuCm
— Jamaal L. (@Corn_Curls) April 20, 2017
The #FaceApp idea of making me hot is making me white. That's racist as hell pic.twitter.com/6z3kcLn42V
— dco (@The_MiddleC) April 21, 2017
I was playing around on #faceapp with characters from The Walking Dead. Why does the 'hot' feature make them white? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/L62oVikG02
— Kieran 💀 (@kroo12_) April 18, 2017
https://www.instagram.com/p/BTB2xC7A32c/
Some showcased well-known Black figures to display the disparency in the filter.
@BardockObama is FaceApp racist fam? pic.twitter.com/2a86O4liaR
— Syn (@SynnnX) April 22, 2017
In response, users have taken to social media to criticize the app but also aired their grievances in the app reviews.
Developer Wireless Lab OOO responded to a customer who complained the app did not work well with dark skin tones.
CEO Yaroslav Goncharov issued a statement to BBC Newsbeat echoing remarks the company made to the dissatisfied customer and noting the filter name has been changed from “Hot” to “Spark.”
“We are deeply sorry for this unquestionably serious issue,” he said. “It is an unfortunate side effect of the underlying neural network caused by the training set bias, not intended behavior. To mitigate the issue, we have renamed the effect to exclude any positive connotation associated with it.”
Although the app’s controversial filter has changed, images of customers using it reveal it still has a lightening effect.
https://twitter.com/mo_hegs/status/856719438162403328
