Language models may miss signs of depression in Black people’s Facebook posts

New findings raise questions about how mental health is measured

Language model misses depression in Black people's social media posts.

Researchers have been testing to see if computer programs can use social media posts to identify when depression is ticking upward in a population. Such programs seem to miss depression in Black people, a new study finds.

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People with depression tend to write and speak about how bad they feel, years of research has shown.