Social media giant Facebook is reportedly building an app for people who are re-entering society following time in prison as part of an effort within the company to create more products for “marginalized communities.”
Bloomberg reports that tech giant Facebook is developing a new service for people re-entering society after spending time in prison. The software is called The Re-Entry App and was shared at the top of some users’ Instagram feeds on Wednesday.
The notification claimed that the app would help with “preparing for life after prison with community support,” and asked users to opt-in for early access to try the app and provide feedback.
A Facebook spokesperson said in a statement:
We’ve been exploring different ways to help close gaps faced by those in marginalized communities across our apps
This was only intended to be an internal test and we took down the notice as soon as we learned it briefly ran externally.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated last June that he wanted Facebook to start “building products to advance racial justice” and Instagram now has an “equity team” that develops “new features that respond to the needs of underserved communities.”
In a post in September, Instagram head Adam Mosseri wrote about the company’s work on equity, stating:
To ensure this work is fully supported, we’ve created a dedicated product group – the Instagram Equity team – that will focus on better understanding and addressing bias in our product development and people’s experiences on Instagram. The Equity team will focus on creating fair and equitable products. This includes working with Facebook’s Responsible AI team to ensure algorithmic fairness. In addition, they’ll create new features that respond to the needs of underserved communities.
It is currently unclear when the Re-Entry app will be launched publicly.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com