Tay's Racism

The internet and the people on it can be very crucial. Social media allows people to express themselves in ways they feel can’t in the actual world. They express their feelings, their open to their own opinions, and so forth. However, the internet also consists of people who give unnecessary, mean, and hateful opinions to other people for reasons that no one truly understands. The podcast “Act One. Ask Not For Whom The Bell Trolls; It Trolls for Thee” by Lindsey West, is about a female who was constantly getting backlashed over the internet by whom she referred to as “trolls.” The internet is usually where people go to voice their opinions over what they feel is right or wrong; with Lindsey West, she had voiced her opinion and what she felt was wrong about male comedians using the rape term too often and using carelessly. A result of West voicing her opinion

Social Media is a form of communication in which a person shares information, personal ideas, and thoughts online. The foundation of social media began in 1997 when the first social media site Six Degrees was developed. Since 1997, social media has become an iconic name and has become part of this generation's conversation. There are over 100 million people using social media to gain access to the digital world, with over 20 social media sites including Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram (Milanovic 1). Roughly 80 percent of teens and 20 percent of adults use social media daily and almost half of the users were bullied or criticized for a single comment. Comments that include discrimination, sexism, or political beliefs can be retweeted to thousands in a matter of hours. “Accusations go viral, globally, within hours, and instead of having dozens of angry voices baying for your blood, you have tens of thousands” (Haley 1). Although social media has made it easier to communicate these sites, make it easier to be critical or prejudiced to others online instead of face-to-face.

Having demonstrated how the use of technology can influence young generations, Stryker goes on to say that punishing those who make bad and or racist remarks only breeks further hatred. Stryker uses a hypothetical example to support his claim and explain why. He continues to go further and give real world examples of how a New York City EMT was fired because of his racist tweets on his online profile (Stryker 588). This strengthened Stryker’s position on how publicly shaming an individual only causes more harm and problems.

the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide...was itself a punishable offense” (Orwell, 65). In 1984, looking suspicious or emotional in front of a telescreen was dangerous and considered a punishable offense. In the present day, social media is the equivalent to the telescreens, it’s the means by which individuals display themselves publicly. Posting the wrong thing on social media can be dangerous because if it’s public, it’s exposed to open interpretation. Jon Ronson from the New York Times Magazine published an article giving a few instances of people sharing controversial postings on social media and receiving a major backlash for it. Specifically, Ronson talks about a woman named Justine Sacco who tweeted, “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!” Upon her arrival, she realized this tweet was trending. She was judged by her friends and family, and the tweet generated threats and harassment on the internet from the general public. As a result, Sacco lost her job and was scared to leave her own home. This incident is an example of the reasons why, in this day and age, we must be very careful with what we share publicly. Social media exemplifies of how our world is becoming like 1984. Any misstep in our words or actions can wind us

On February 12, 2015, journalist, Jon Ronson, published an article in New York Times Magazine containing information of thirty year old, Justine Sacco. For the time being, Sacco was the senior director of corporate communications at IAC and was bashed publicly on social media after interpreting racism on her Twitter account in 2014. In Ronson’s essay, “How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life,” he presents readers with his one-on-one interviews of Justine Sacco. In 2013, Justine Sacco was traveling during the holidays to visit her family when she began to post on Twitter. The first occasion of her racist tweets took place while she was leaving John F. Kennedy Airport in New York City. She took to twitter, “Weird German Dude: You’re in First Class. It’s 2014. Get some deodorant” (par. 3), in reference to a fellow passenger on her flight. The next episode took place in Heathrow, a London airport, where she tweeted, “Chilly- cucumber sandwiches- bad teeth. Back in London” (par. 5). Her last mishap was on her way to Cape Town, South Africa, as she cited, “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white” (par. 6). Amidst Ronson’s personal interviews with Justine Sacco, the two spoke in regards to what she tweeted onto her account. Sacco found her tweets humorous as she was posting them, but was quick to clarify that she was not being racist, when talking with Ronson. She was referred to as a racist person by tens of thousands of people and she believed she was being misread and wrongfully accused. There is a fine line between humor and seriousness when it comes to social media and Sacco lacked the knowledge of this philosophy.

In late 2014 the New England Patriots launched a campaign to thank fans for being the first football team to hit one million Twitter followers. (Molinet, 2014) Every time a Twitter user shared a post made by the Patriots they would create a customized online jersey for said user. The campaign was meant to spark social media users into following and supporting the four-time super bowl champions to be the number one Twitter team in the Nation Football League. However, this attempt to thank its faithful fans fell flat and the internet trolls came out of their caves and ruined the whole campaign. The original online jerseys had the twitter user’s name on the back of it. The patriots inherently plastered racial and hate slurs on the back of their

“Racism is taught in our society; it is not automatic. It is learned behaviour toward persons with dissimilar physical characteristics.” (Alex Haley) The quote shows that racism is not a thing that you are born with, it is something that comes to you through the language that is used around children. Harper Lee in her book To Kill a Mockingbird explores with exuberant humour the irrationality of adult attitudes to race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s. In this book you can see that racism is taught it is not inherited. Racism is a believe that inherent differences amongst the different racial human groups, which determine their respective cultures, usually involving the idea of that one’s race is more superior

A meme’s ability to reinforce norms within a group can also polarize the group’s ideas in dangerous ways. In the “It Gets Better” example, participants of the meme were seen to unintentionally replicate heteronormative ideas and hegemonic norms as they created their own versions of the original video (1700). However, in a social group that mostly consists of young White men who already benefit from hegemonic norms, memes may push their ideas to the extreme. The echoes meme is used in association with Trump not just because neo-Nazis support his xenophobic policies, but because they think that he can make their threats against the Jewish community a reality. This is seen in one tweet that states that angering Trump will cause him to “fire up the ovens” (Fleishman and Smith). Asserting the intellectual superiority of Nazis also insinuates that their targets, members of the Jewish community, are inherently less intelligent people and perhaps deserve to be destroyed for this reason. However, although memes are now used to spread dangerous ideologies, many still do not take the dangerous potential of memes seriously due to their innocuous origins. Although Fleishman and Smith do not undermine the danger of the echoes symbol, they still said that their staff “got off easy” when targeted by anti-Semites because all they received was “just a flood of memes”, indicating that they do not view memes as a dangerous form of harassment. The use of memes by

One could blame our ever-evolving social media and entertainment outlets like Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat for this process which all subjugate users to some implemented form of ranking/popularity system. But to understand the situation in order to change it, we first need tools that help us interpret how racism and discrimination are planted

The Chat bot, Tay was supposed to learn from young people on Twitter and post friendly emoji-filled tweets, however with only 16 hours in the real world turned her into a racist bigot. Allowing many people to draw lines between Tay's outburst in racist comments and artificial intelligence that is determined to overthrow humanity in sci-fi stories.

A reoccurring issue that has been detrimental in today’s society is racism. Today, many people have used social media to speak out against this troublesome topic. The article “Black Tweets Matter” tries to explain how social media has been used in the fight against racism. The text talks about multiple hashtags that have been used on social media to bring these racist events to light. “Black Tweets Matter” is a very short article that can be at times hard to read. However, Jenna Worthin was ineffective in parts of “Black Tweets Matter” by her unprofessional word choice, misused quotes, and inability to stay on topic.

The use of social media from the left and right are noticeably different. Brooker and Barnett (2017) observed that those who were drawn to social justice politics tended to use insults as opposed to engaging in a serious debate. This itself has created a stigma for socialists who don’t support and even oppose identity politics, but are associated with those using identity politics, similar to how the new and alt-right are often stated to be one of the same. And it is identity politics that’s arguably drawing the forgotten people to these alternative sources of information and humour. The ideology of political correctness is identified by young people as censorship and suppression, comparable to totalitarianism. It is for this reason why the new and alt-right have made significant inroads in the social media space. Traditional media repressed what those on the right call freedom of speech, thus forcing individuals to search other places, predominantly online where their voices, concerns and opinions can be

With the popularization and expansion of the internet in recent years, America and other Western countries have found themselves developing into media-dominated cultures. Social media platforms, forums, and other types of online interaction are becoming primary forms of communication between people with similar or differing views, bringing political topics into daily discussion. However, the implications of such a broad and unrestrained network lead to negative outcomes. Whether it be in the form of a direct slur used on Twitter or a slight jab in a discussion board, the ongoing presence of racism on the internet cannot be denied. Although some forms may appear more indirectly, the effects are not diminished; implicit forms of racism are just as impactful as direct attacks. This paper argues that the internet serves as a carrier of racism by allowing racism to thrive through forms of racial microaggressions and cloaked websites. Toward the end of the essay, possible solutions for this issue will be discussed as well.

For the past decade or so there has been a considerable shift in the way we communicate with each other; instead of speaking face-to-face, we prefer to stay in touch by way of a Facebook post or Tweet. Social media dominates our life whether we’re using it, or not. However, not all online dissonance has been healthy and civil. The internet has seen a rise in the number of trolls and predators that lurk the dark corners of the Internet. Threats, and heinous insults flood media networks like Reddit and Snapchat. Online predators who fling insults are enamored by the internet’s alluring anonymity and can’t give it up. Like Christine Rosen says in her article called, “In the Beginning Was the Word,” “technology has introduced new words, changed the meaning of others, and has even introduced new forms of language and communication” (230). The evolutionary trend and prevalence of people intentionally offending others online has led to a

Jackie Robinson, Joe Louis, and Hank Greenberg all faced some sort of racism during their lives and their professional careers. Racism was found in every sport between the 1930s and the 1950s. Some sports hid the racism better than the others did. The role of racism and ethnicity in American sport did not change significantly between the 1930s and the 1950s.