Who do you follow?

By Jordan D. Dworkin

July 1, 2020

Description

Many people in science, tech, and journalism follow mostly white men. While other tools have been created to provide users with gender breakdowns of who they follow on Twitter (e.g., proporti.onl), we wanted to incorporate information on race, as well as the intersection of race and gender. Algorithms are highly flawed in these contexts, so this tool supplements name-based gender/race estimates with self-descriptions drawn directly from Twitter bios. It also gives you the option to improve the initial automatic estimates by manually entering demographic information for a sample of the people you follow. Though algorithmic, bio-based, and second-hand assessments of gender and race are limited at the level of individuals, our hope is that this tool can give people a better understanding of the perspectives they’ve surrounded themselves with, and motivate them to diversify the voices they seek out moving forward.

Posted on:
July 1, 2020
Length:
1 minute read, 142 words
See Also: