LinkedIn details how it keeps new features from promoting inequality

In a newly published paper, LinkedIn describes the internal approach it’s taken to pairing product testing with economic metrics to lower users’ barriers to networking opportunities. The company claims that across thousands of A/B tests it analyzed, the approach reshaped research and design practices across teams, increasing understanding of the underlying causes of inequality.
As the coauthors of the paper point out, even products that appear to have been designed in a “responsible” or “fair” way, based on assumptions of parity, can drive a wedge between users. For instance, an app update that improves overall engagement but runs slowly on older devices might affect members across demographic categories in a manner that doesn’t appear in a typical A/B test, because traditional A/B testing looks at averages focused on an idealized “average user.”