Tumblr and Twitter Users Expose Racists

Keyboard Warriors Are Feeling The Heat As Tumblr And Twitter Seek To Get Them Fired

It’s never easy knowing that you have a prejudiced colleague; perhaps they seemed fine between 9 and 5 but the moment they get out of the front door political correctness flies out of the window. Perhaps it was just one drunken outburst or the slightly disconcerting EDL mug lurking on their desk. Whatever the case, it can make the working environment a lot tenser. 

ifonlyyounews.com

The internet is ever a reliable source for bands of keyboard crusaders and now a new one has arisen to combat this very issue. Across various social networks, people have been taking it upon themselves to expose racists online. The flagship example of this is probably ‘Racists Getting Fired’, a Tumblr blog that allows people to anonymously submit examples of people being racist on social media, so that their employers can be contacted and convinced to fire them for it. 


Usually this amounts to a post including a screenshot of the unfortunate comment in question (be it on Twitter, Facebook or wherever else), followed by a screengrab of their work information, up to and including emails, phone numbers and postal addresses. If the person does indeed get the sack, you’ll often see a post on the blog in celebration of having ‘Gotten’ them. This ventures into some murky moral territory. While there can be no denying that racism and indeed prejudice of all kinds is wrong, should someone really lose their job, their livelihood, because of something they said out of work? Freedom of speech is a right that all of us have, but sadly that doesn't preclude the kind of unpleasantness that bubbled to the surface during such pitched battles as Gamergate and other similar disputes. 

forbes.com

Elsewhere online, other endeavours to combat the racists hiding in plain sight have emerged that are perhaps a little less extreme. Yes, You’re Racist is a Twitter account that, rather than encouraging punishment of the people in question, merely exposes them to a wider forum. It’s a simple strategy: the owner of the account simply searches for tweets containing ‘I’m not racist, but…’ and retweets the ones he finds to be particularly unsavoury. The page has more than 57,000 followers, so I think it’s safe to say that anyone who ends up on the feed is in for a pretty brutal backlash. 

RT @JonaLisa: I’m not racist but why can’t Asian people drive?
— Yes, You're Racist (@YesYoureRacist) January 20, 2015

There are similar accounts geared towards homophobia and sexism, but Yes, You’re Racist is by far the most well-known. While this is far less extreme than Racists Getting Fired, it could be claimed that by publicly exposing these people in such a way, you’re leaving them open for disproportionally vicious abuse. Targeted abuse, however, is something that’s strictly prohibited in the Twitter policy guidelines, so ironically it’s far more likely to get slapped with a ban for abusing a racist than for making a racist remark. It’s difficult to know what the most effective response to prejudice really is, and where the divide falls between a troll and someone trying to incite genuine hate, but in either case it’s arguably better to ignore it than to broadcast it.

Callum Davies

Callum is a film school graduate who is now making a name for himself as a journalist and content writer. His vices include flat whites and 90s hip-hop. Follow him @CallumAtSMF

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