OpenTag: Understanding Human Perceptions of Image Tagging Algorithms

Image Tagging Algorithms (ITAs) are extensively used in our information ecosystem, from facilitating the retrieval of images in social platforms to learning about users and their preferences. However, audits performed on ITAs have demonstrated that their behaviors often exhibit social biases, especially when analyzing images depicting people. We present OpenTag, a platform that fuses the auditing process with a crowdsourcing approach. Users can upload an image, which is then analyzed by various ITAs, resulting in multiple sets of descriptive tags. With OpenTag, the user can observe and compare the output of multiple ITAs simultaneously, while researchers can study the manner in which users perceive this output. Finally, using the collected data, further audits can be performed on ITAs.