Instagram will ask about race and ethnicity to improve its service

In a move that raises a lot of discussion, the Instagram development team will proceed. Through an official announcement, Meta says that it will start asking some users in the US about their race and ethnicity, with the aim of studying how different groups of people experience the experience of using the service.

The selection of users will be done completely randomly with a pop-up message within the Instagram application that will lead to a questionnaire. The survey is conducted by YouGov and participation is optional, and those who participate will see absolutely no changes or limitations to their Instagram experience.

In his message, the head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, emphasized that the collection of data will help the platform to look for new ways to improve in all areas.

If we want to ensure that Instagram gives everyone a fair and equal user experience, then we need to understand how it works for different groups of people, how our technologies affect them, and how we can promote equality. For example, with this data we may be able to better evaluate the content displayed on them.

Those participating in the survey should know that their data will remain anonymous and completely disconnected from their accounts, so that the research centers that will analyze them will not know to which user the answers of each questionnaire correspond.