AI Incident: FaceApp's Temporary Use of Controversial Ethnicity-Based Filters

FaceApp, a popular photo editing app, introduced selfie filters that simulated blackface and yellowface, sparking immediate backlash. The filters, which distorted images to exaggerate ethnic features, were swiftly removed from the platform following public outcry. This incident underscores the importance of responsible AI governance, as such actions can perpetuate harmful stereotypes.

Matched TAIM controls

Suggested mapping from embedding similarity (not a formal assessment). Browse all TAIM controls

MEASURE 2.10 — similarity 0.473, rank 1. TAIM detail and related incidents →
MAP 1.6 — similarity 0.471, rank 2. TAIM detail and related incidents →
MEASURE 3.3 — similarity 0.461, rank 3. TAIM detail and related incidents →

Source

Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/60

Data source

Incident data is from the AI Incident Database (AIID).

When citing the database as a whole, please use:

McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-21). Virtual Conference.

Pre-print on arXiv · Database snapshots & citation guide

We use weekly snapshots of the AIID for stable reference. For the official suggested citation of a specific incident, use the “Cite this incident” link on each incident page.