This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

On April 9th, 2017, United Airlines Flight 3411 was about to fly from Chicago to Louisville,

when flight attendants discovered the plane was over-booked.

They tried to get volunteers to give up their seats with promises of travel vouchers and hotel accommodations,

but not enough people were willing to get off.

United ended up calling some airport security officers. They boarded the plane, and forcibly removed a passenger named Dr. David Dow.

The officers ripped Dow out of his seat and carried him down the aisle of the airplane, nose bleeding,

while horrified onmogor shot video with their phones.

You probably remember this incident and the outrage it generated.

The international uproar continued over the force removal of a passenger from a United Airlines flight.

Today, the airline's CEO Oscar Munoz issued an apology saying,

quote, no one should ever be mistreated this way.

I want you to know that we take full responsibility.

But why Dr. Dow?

How did he end up being the unlucky passenger that United decided to remove?

Immediately following the incident, some people thought racial discrimination may have played a part,

and it's possible that this played a role in how he was treated,

but the answer to how he was chosen was actually, in algorithm, a computer program.

It crunched through a bunch of data, looking at stuff like how much each passenger had paid for their ticket,

what time they checked in, how often they flew ununited, and whether they were part of a rewards program.

The algorithm likely determined that Dr. Dow was one of the least valuable customers on the flight at the time.

Algorithms shape our world in profound and mostly invisible ways.

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