Throughout my career of working at the intersection of pr, digital marketing, and social media strategy, I have watched tech platforms transform how we all connect, exchange ideas, and connect with community. That said, I’ve also watched something way less inspiring: the persistent and frequent invisible ways that coded bias controls who exactly gets viewed, heard, and/or supported on mainstream social media platforms.
Presently, as AI-driven algorithms control everything from social media content to user verifications, transgender people such as myself, in addition to others in marginalized communities, incur systemic barriers of oppression through suppression embedded not just within culture, but within code. The implications of which are impactful.
How Transgender Users Are Disadvantaged by Coded Bias
The term “coded bias” isn’t just a trending Internet topic in the online discourse of ethics in AI; it’s a very real force negatively impacting the public daily. When social media networks implement algorithms that have been trained on exclusionary and/or incomplete datasets, it will be that those operating systems will frequently default to “normative” coded assumptions about identity, gender, and language.
For transgender users, this frequently may result in the following:
- Incorrect gendering through automated tools of moderation
- Removed and/or flagged content that discusses factual information regarding gender affirming healthcare (even when for educational purposes).
- Reduction in platform visibility, better known as “shadowbanning”, not registering in search/discovery platform sections.
- Inaccurate facial recognition data outputs, especially in instances involving transgender people of color.
- Account suspensions that are automatically enacted, happening as a direct result of identity verifications processes constructed surrounding binary coding structures.
None of the aforementioned topics here happen at random; it is by biased design that foreseeable results of systems developed especially without diversity, equity, or inclusion at the heart of it. If an algorithm doesn’t recognize a user, it doesn’t promote that user, it won’t protect that user, and it certainly will not validate that user’s experience.
The Consequences Faced by Marginalized Communities (Safety to Self-Expression)
For lots of transgender people, our social platforms act as connectors; it’s where we can hold space to build community, advocate for each other, express ourselves, and feel a sense of safety. However, if we’re up against an exclusionary algorithm, it can work against us in amplifying our real-world points of vulnerability:
- Reduction in access to support networks when our visibility is being suppressed.
- Increase in exposure to online harassment when social networks avoid identifying hate speech targeting users with trans identities.
- Economic hardships for creators and/or entrepreneurs whose reach has been halted algorithmically.
- Negative mental health repercussions as a direct result of bias in online moderation, misclassification, and flat-out erasure.
It’s clear to see this as an online civil rights issue. It is about inclusion and safety in the digital age and the foundational right that we all have to participate in digital spaces without being silenced on a systemic level.
This is Why Allied Amplification is Crucial Now
In an ecosystem where viability is influenced by algorithms, allyship can not be passive. It must be strategic and proactive as it is a vital intervention that must take place, not as a one-off but as a function of daily practice.
When transgender allies elevate trans people’s voices, amazing things occur:
- We retrain the algorithms. With increased engagement comes increased visibility.
- Proof of social concept strengthens. With more people’s attention on trans issues, we are able to increase advancements in the areas of support and safety.
- Narratives shift. The public begins to see transgender people in a more humane light, and understanding deepens through increased exposure.
- Tech corporations pivot. When policies change, it’s normally because the public demanded it to do so.
By amplifying the trans community’s visibility, allies are not speaking for us; they are, however, making sure that digital systems cannot ignore us, and that is major.
The Crossroad of Public Relations Strategy & AI Ethics
As professionals operating in the spaces of brand leadership, digital communications, and social media marketing, we shoulder the responsibility for transforming and guiding the future of digital spaces.
This means advocating for the following:
- Human-focused AI R&D.
- Inclusive dataset designs.
- Audits for system bias partnered with transparency reports.
- Proactive DEI strategies and implementation across the board included content moderation.
- Develop partnerships with LGBTQIA+ orgs and advocates.
Ethical leadership isn’t optional; it is necessary.
A Future where Transgender People Can Thrive Will Exist When Platforms Are Designed for All.
This will happen with concentrated effort, inclusive designs, and consistent pressure from platform users, trans allies, and expert industry innovators.
Our future as transgender people in digital spaces regarding community building, accessibility, visibility, and digital human rights hinges on our community and our allies’ staunch commitment to amplifying those who have been historically thrust to the fringes.
Power is visibility.
Inclusion is a strategy.
Know this, at this very time in history, your inaction to amplify trans voices perpetuates the problem and is reinforcing inequitable suppressive algorithms that we as transgender people already face.
Now’s the time, so I ask every digital communications professional, marketer, engineer, UX designer, and strategist to ask yourselves one simple question:
Whose voices do your systems showcase and whose do they silence?
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About Rev. Dylan Thomas Cotter: With over fifteen years of expertise in PR and strategy, Rev. Dylan Thomas Cotter stands out as a strategic advisor for elite clients across entertainment, technology, fitness, fashion and beauty. His dynamic life experience enhances his ability to elevate brand messages and drive impactful engagement.
Dylan Thomas is proud gay transgender activist and author that has appeared in Vice, Rolling Stone, Out Magazine, The Advocate, Yahoo! News, Pride.com, Mashable, Inked Magazine, Truthout, Well Beings News and Newsweek that happily resides in the Hollywood Hills with his partner.
His memoir Transgender & Triggering The Life of Dylan Thomas Cotter is available now at Barnes & Noble, Harvard Book Store, Book Soup and Skylight Books amongst other fine retailers and is distributed worldwide through Ingramspark.