When we talk about discrimination in technology companies, we often mean sexual or ethnic discrimination, but the focus is rarely on ideological and political discrimination .
An analysis by the Stanford Graduate School of Business, for example, interviewed 600 leaders and founders in the field of technology in the United States, showing that most of them identified as progressive Democrats. Would this incline them to bias against conservative Republicans?
Ideological and political bias
In 2018, the Republican National Committee (RNC) sent a letter to Mark Zuckerberg, in which he accused Facebook of having a bias against conservative Americans. It is not the only technology company to do so. It is joined by Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and IBM, as Amy Webb explains in her book The Nine Giants :
The difference is that those particular companies are creating autonomous decision-making systems that are supposed to represent all of our interests. The criticism comes not only from women and black people, but also from an unlikely group: conservatives and loyal members of the Republican Party.
In other words: If you bet on diversity, you have to do it in every way. Especially when it comes to what you dislike the most. Betting on the diversity of what you like is only a sophisticated form of homogeneity :
In August 2018, more than 100 Facebook employees used an internal message board to complain about "a monotonous political culture, intolerant of other opinions." Brian Amerige, Senior Engineer at Facebook, wrote: "We claim to be open to all perspectives, but we often attack (even en masse) anyone who presents a different opinion to the left-leaning ideology.
Although it is unconsciously, we are all crossed by racist, class, sexist, tribalist biases … it is inevitable, to a greater or lesser extent . All discriminated against. Also companies that claim to represent the best values for all.
Fortunately, it seems that we are less and less so, although social networks are amplifying some of these biases through their algorithms and the media are exaggerating others: