White supremacy rally has turned out to be one of the worst nightmares for the US President, Donald Trump. Well, we can all say he should have been cautious with his words. His failure to condemn the white supremacists in his first response has led to all sorts of problems.
Tech industry, on the contrary, is struggling to find the tools or may be the motivation to fight white supremacy. The companies have had a strong agenda against Jihadis and Terrorist organizations. However, it seems they are not able to follow the same approach when it comes to curbing white supremacy.
Tech Industry’s Lukewarm Response to White Supremacy
Let us have a look at how each company is responding to the white supremacy in its way.
Although, the social media site takes every action necessary to remove violent, offensive or inappropriate content. However, people are still allowed to use white supremacist memes and make comments. They are getting away with an apparent bigotry and racism. It seems Facebook is not able to do enough.
Facebook did try to initiate a crackdown following the rally in Charlottesville Virginia. A lot of the groups and users remain active, supporting the ideology of white supremacists. In his statement, Mark Zuckerberg did want to remove hateful content. However, he failed to give a clear strategy to deal with this problem.
YouTube
YouTube started by making it hard to find content relating to the whole white supremacist agenda. It has helped the company bury some of the content by making it hard to find. However, the users can still access it.
A few repeated searches will still enable users to find something on the subject. YouTube is also working on demonetizing objectionable content. However, this feature is still either unavailable or not rolled out to a lot of users. Therefore, YouTube will also have to do better to fight the white supremacists.
Twitter is also not taking the job of removing content on this particular subject seriously. Similarly, supporters of offensive concepts like Neo-Nazism can quickly look for whatever they want. They can get their hands onto objectionable content like a picture of Hitler.
Twitter also needs to do something about this problem. It is not playing its role in doing the right thing for the other community. This kind of stereotypical approach will only add fuel to the fire instead of helping overcome the menace of racism.
White Supremacy is also prevalent in vibrant online communities like Reddit. The comments are just overlooked as self-parody or a rant about something. The moderators do not proactively block objectionable material on this subject.
Reddit did try to get rid of white supremacists in 2015. It failed to cleanse every other group or community that still flourishes without any rebuke. However, media reports do suggest that Reddit also quarantines some of the objectionable content and makes it difficult to earn ad revenues from it.
PayPal
PayPal has come out as a winner when it comes to winning the so-called war against white supremacists. The company just announced that it would not allow payments for promoting hatred, intolerance, and violence.
Unlike Donald Trump’s whimsical first response to the Virginia rally, PayPal did not shy away from calling a spade a spade. It mentioned the name of Ku Klux Klan and Nazi Groups, pointing their involvement in the weekend’s rally.
White Supremacy and CEOs Leaving American Manufacturing Council
As already covered on HoursTV, around 6 top leaders of the business world have left American Manufacturing Council. All of them were unhappy with Trump for his lack of a targeted response. The business community has been more vocal about its reply, unlike the tech industry still not clear about its stance on this issue.
