How Wh*te Became a Bad Word on Facebook
By: Joe Duncan
Tags: Racism, Equality, Society, Culture, Tech

White, yes, the word is white, and it’s become a bad word on Facebook in the last several months, one that can get you locked in the unanimous “Facebook jail” as some users have come to call it, due to the bizarre and unpredictable nature of the algorithms which enforce the community standards on the site. Facebook is hands down the largest social media company in the world, followed by YouTube in second place, and WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger come in 3rd and 4th places, respectively, meaning that of the top 4 social media networks, Facebook and its subsidiaries account for three of those sites.

I feel like I should qualify, here, that this story has less to do with race and more to do with the technologies we keep and the lines which are blurring between truly hateful speech and benign speech, the difference between the two being something that machines can’t quite detect; but, the underlying racial discussion and questions should be implied, though none of this should be construed to mean that white people are somehow oppressed. Machines can’t decipher context as well as human beings can, meaning the system sometimes catches extremely innocuous statements or very valid social concerns, such as a discussion about white cultures that have oppressed native populations, as hate speech. It isn’t hate speech to discuss history, nor should it be. But Facebook’s algorithms don’t know the difference. This has been a problem with Facebook for a while, now, one that’s been discussed at length before, but never has it been so Draconian about the word ‘white’ as it has in the past several months.

This year was a major challenge for Facebook, as a platform, with the widespread and seemingly unstoppable sharing of the massacre in New Zealand, which was broadcasted live on Facebook. In response to this hideous tragedy, Facebook has had no choice but to turn their enforcement policy into a game of whack-a-mole, desperately swatting at whatever the algorithmic code purported might be hate speech, and sometimes swatting a few innocent bystanders, incidentally banning an account or two. It’s as if the police just waltzed onto a crime scene and aimed their weapons at anyone who looks like they might be up to no good, shooting first and investigating later — no questions asked.

In the wake of that shooting, I remember seeing a friend of mine, who’s former Supreme Court Judge at the state level, receive a temporary ban for criticizing the New Zealand shooter. His post, too, contained the word white. It was nearly impossible to discuss the shooting, at the time, without mentioning the white power motive behind it. Post bans were handed out like candy on Halloween.

Several weeks ago, I saw a friend of mine using the word ‘wh*te’ with the asterisk in place of the letter in a hopeful and, I dare say, bold attempt to trick the machines that have been employed to police him. The effects are still being felt. His speech was benign and was referencing a fabric, not human skin. But, this evidences to me that some damage has already been done, when people have already altered their behavior to account for an incessant, policing via machines that have intruded our lives and watch our every word. A little dystopian, isn’t it? A little creepy? A little Orwellian? What are we doing with our speech beyond just the word ‘white’ and how are we receiving such policies? What are the long-term effects? My friend is only 19-years-old, and I couldn’t imagine feeling like the word ‘white,’ in and of itself, would be something I should have taken pause before using, at that age. What about the kids who are on Facebook at, say, 12-years-old and onwards. Should they learn to be afraid to use the word ‘white’ in public? If so, how will people of color effectively express their fair criticisms of things like white privilege and white power movements? Are we raising a generation that can’t exercise their voice of free speech and rightful criticism in the most public of all places? Are the only places left to exercise such speech public libraries and parks, those last bastions of public space that haven’t been commodified into profiteering machines, all humanity be damned? I sure hope not.

My post on a company page I manage came tonight, as the machine sought out a post discussing cultural and mistook it for bona fide hate speech. Facebook must realize that they’re stifling these kinds of conversations.

By now, several of my friends have taken up to rewriting the word ‘white’ as ‘wh*te’ and while I find this loophole funny, I admit, it’s a little saddening. To think of what it might be like to feel a bit of anxiety to yourself, like young people did when I was a kid before taking drugs in public, before deciding that you’ll be brave and use the word, ‘white’ in public, on an open platform, is a little concerning to say the least. Though I haven’t seen it, yet, I’m sure the same thing has happened with other words which might denote someone’s race — or not. Facebook might be our very first taste of what life will be like under the reign of corporate police forces, ones which will turn to real police forces when they want to force compliance, at some point down the road. People have been arrested for Facebook posts, some of which have been truly criminal threats, others being more innocuous jokes and pranks.

Are these algorithms the first police forces which don’t have to abide by constitutional protocol? I’d honestly hate to think they are, but there is a possibility (a very good one) that this is just beginning. Facebook’s child company Instagram is also fighting the same battle, banning perfectly non-nude women under the pretense that they’re actually nude — even if they’re not. This has become a big problem for professional models and makeup artists who’ve had their accounts completely deleted over complaints of nudity which were baseless. An interesting piece here on Medium about this is Instagram Banned My Side Boob, by Yael Wolfe.

I think we ought to be worried about the future we’re creating. I must say, with the obvious problems and abuses of the company over several years, that haven’t ceased for a moment, when it comes down to the battle of Elizabeth Warren and her plans to break up big tech companies which hold too much power (even the power to police, no matter how subtly) at this point, and Facebook itself, I’m tempted to side with Warren. Institutions this powerful should be bound to operate within the framework of the Constitution; institutions that control how we communicate with one another. Imagine a world where if AT&T or Verizon didn’t like what you said to your significant other over the phone, something that went against their bottom line, for instance, they were able to shut off your phone service for week’s time. So, what makes Facebook any different? Very little, very little indeed.

If corporations want to pretend that it’s their job to police our speech, they need to play by the rules of our vast and beautiful legal structure we’ve set out thus far, otherwise, all is folly. An excellent suggested reading for more on this subject is The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power, and it can be found on Amazon here.

Disclosure: Thank you for reading. This article contains affiliate links as well as references, the former of which I may make a small commission from.

© 2019; Joe Duncan. All Rights Reserved