Twitter's anti-abuse algorithms unfairly target #BlackTwitter

Surprise! The Root shares a well documented case of anti-abuse algorithms gone wrong, and then Twitter mercilessly stripping a user of their account. A decade of tweets gone without a chirp!

Genie Lauren did nothing but poke back at a few well deserving Twitter trolls, and Twitter's automated systems victimized her in return. This entire story is well worth reading.

Twitter's algorithm decided that my tweet was racist, and since tweeting hate speech is against Twitter's rules, I apparently violated their conduct by calling an actual white lady a "typical white lady." At no point in the process did Twitter present me with a way to dispute these findings—because algorithms are perfect, right? We've never found instances of algorithms actually protecting hate speech, right? There's no way a company that possibly fudges its numbers to obscure the fact that it's still overwhelmingly white would be capable of creating an algorithm that targets black people while allowing overt hate speech from white people to remain on their platform days after being reported multiple times, right?


Screenshot: @FrancesFrancine (Twitter)

Right?

(I know for a fact that the above tweet has been reported for hate speech at least twice, yet at the time of this post, it's still up over a week later.)

There was no point being salty, since there was no way to actually right the wrong, so I moved on.

It progressed with another diss.

Twitter Stole From Me and They Can Steal From You, Too by Genie Lauren via The Root