#Thatsafrican -- When Twitter Went Racist?

UPDATE, 9:30pm EST: #Thatsafrican is no longer a trend. Was it taken down by Twitter?

***

Oh man, this won't end well at all. Just as Twitter began to show the world how important the new medium can be, beating back claims that the tiny technology had already jumped the shark, somebody's got to go rain on their parade.

For those of you who closely monitor Twitter trends, you already know what I'm talking about, but for the other 99.99% of the population, here's the deal:

In recent days there've been a spate of user-participatory hashtag memes popping up on Twitter such as #nicerfilmtitles, in which thousands of people attempted to rewrite movie titles in a, well, nicer way. These were fun exercises in brainpower and cleverness and played up the lighter-side of a technology that has, as of late, been stuck in the deep, dark bowels of Iran.

How is this a problem? It's not. Or wasn't, until sometime today when the term #thatsafrican became a trending topic on Twitter.

The debate is already raging over the appropriateness of the trend. Is it self-deprecating humor? A cover for racists? Something only Africans and African-Americans can joke about? Something no one should be talking about?

What's more, it brings into question the role of free speech on Twitter and the company's role as moderator, or lack thereof. If a popular trend on Twitter is deemed racist, what action is required on the part of the company?

With the situation in Iran showing the extreme positives of Twitter and free speech, it will be interesting to see if #thatsafrican or another controversial trend will end up exemplifying the negatives.

Follow David Weiner on Twitter: www.twitter.com/daweiner

Comments

[SethBLiNK]

I think I have finally figured out what this incredibly poorly researched and written story is about.

The problem with Twitter (okay, one of the problems) is that it's hard to get to the beginning of a thread. You go to a thread like this one and half of the tweets are about the very story that sent you there and you have to page back continually to see what the thread started as before it morphed into something else.

So, what I gather is that somebody started this Trend Topic where they were sharing humorous things about African life. What I also gather was that these were the kinds of things that Africans do, not African-Americans. Or if they were talking about African-Americans they were talking about first generation AA's, people who had emigrated from Africa.

Somewhere along the way, it morphed into people talking about African Americans, but still affectionately, and then somewhere still later, some people started making racist comments. By the time I got there, most of the comments were about this article, but when I paged back, it still seemed like most of what I was seeing were affectionate and sentimental comments about things that Africans say and do.

If somebody who actually is familiar with this Trend Topic wants to tell me if I've reconstructed this accurately or not, please do. And if somebody from Huffpo wants to tell Mr. Weiner that posts are better with information, that would be appreciated too.

[damilitantone]

I though Twitter was a waste of time, but situations like that in Iran may show that it has some usefulness. I still don't see why it's any different than a text message from a cell phone, but what do I know I used to be a computer programmer when punch cards ruled the day and COBOL was king.

[bunnylogic]

Twitter is disposable. I give it six more months.

[kyraocity]

16 hours ago you posted: RT@daweiner "Read and RT my hastily put together piece on #thatsafrican: http://bit.ly/EYUDM Gracias."

Good journalism requires opening up topics not ending them. Your title "When Twitter Went Racist?" is anything but a question. "Was Twitter Trend Racist?" and some background research in the Trending Topic was needed.

I followed the thread of the Trending Topic for over 2 hours fascinated by its complexity perhaps because I understood that it was started by Africans from the continent sharing their experiences, their stories, their view of being African. What made things compicated was when whites and some blacks got offended by what they THOUGHT was racist.

Some were bad jokes but jokes are often abt things we don't dare talk about (sex, religion, race, gender, etc.). .

The Trending Topic #thatsafrican was probably the first moment, or one of the first moments that an African experience was broadcast and reached above the regular fray to hit the top of Trending Topics.

So the trending topic was removed from the Topics list at 9:35pm by my observation (I tweeted about it when it happened. See @kyraocity).

#Thatsafrican was standing firm at the sixth slot for about an hour from 8pm to 9pm and then for about 30 mins it was at #3. Do some followup work on your "hastily put together piece" because readers of the Huffington Post deserve better. Read the longer response @ http://afromusicology.wordpress.com/

[SethBLiNK]

Thanks Kyraocity. I posted my assumption as to what happened on this Trend Topic, but before I read your much more informed one.

I had gone to the Topic after the fact and tried to disseminate what it was about, but instead mostly found links back to this poorly written article.

I assumed that somewhere along the way, racists had hi-jacked what seemed to be a mostly affectionate celebration of African life and started to make racist comments. If instead the powers that be have started to criticize members of an ethnic group for having fun with their own culture, then that is the kind racism-mas­querading-­as-paterna­lism that I thought we had outgrown.

This incident has pointed out some glaring weaknesses in both twitter and Huffpo.

[ukulelebailey]

I read this article twice and I still don't know what he's writing about.

[Horus45]

Spam is going to kill Twitter just like it killed MySpace.
I could care less, Twitter is stupid and I don't understand it's appeal to so many.

[3fingerbrown]

I don't understand why this is a story. Every method of communication since humans first stood upright has been used to convey not only noble and useful thoughts, but also ignorant bonehead opinions. Did the author assume this one would be any different?

[GrainOSand]

That's my take. It has nothing to do with the new tech but it has everything to do with the old peeps.

[SethBLiNK]

Jeez, would it kill you to provide some information beyond the name of the thing and the fact that some people find it racist? This is the first I've heard of it and this post offers nothing that would allow me to form any kind of informed opinion.

Yes there is a link to the trending topic, but when I went there, guess what I found? About 20 tweets from people linking to this story.

[Horus45]

Exactly what I was thinking.

[2morrowKnight]

Thanks David.

Reading your post, I couldn't help thinking back to the article on HUFFPOST's Living Section last month entitled "What Kind of Hammer is Twitter". Here is the link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/27/what-kind-of-hammer-is-tw_n_208383.html. The article, which also has a video discussion, "raises the specter of Twitter as a tool that can be used for evil purposes, perhaps even as a tool for terrorism." I didn't think much of it at the time, but when I saw the #thatsafrican as a trending topic, it came to mind.

Like any social networking site, Twitter needs to be monitored. I personally love Twitter. My page (Twitter.c­om/2morrow­knight) is a reflection of the happiness and positivity I exhibit. Have I encountered racism and trulyterrible people on Twitter? Yes. But also on Myspace, Facebook, and other sites. There is nothing especially unsavory about Twitter. But being the social networking "Flavor of the Month", something like the "#thatsafrican" meme on Twitter is going to get people talking.

The best that we can do is to combat the crap, and push Twitter, and its legion of Tweeters, to be vigilant.

Thanks for your piece Mr. Weiner.

Check me out at Twitter.co­m/2morrowk­night

[Hartmut Rast]

In my view twitter has started as a good idea but has been overtaken by the nerds meanwhile. It is not only for all these annoying followers who try to lure you on their sex sites and showing their disgusting profile pictures but also these maniacs who are trying to get attention with the weird messages.

If I give these racists remarks a deeper thought so I am convinced it is only a valve for aggressiveness about own failures or personal restrictions during the economical slump down - one has to be a scapegoat to make one feel better !

I am living in Europe and handicapped through polio since childhood - you will not believe me how often I got called a cripple by Turkish or whatsoever people. A Russian lady pushed me off the pavement for being to slow in her opinion - is such a behaviour racist too or how do you call such rude manners. We ought to be careful with such developments and should spend a second look at the person who is calling others a racist - it is a worldwide phenomenon and arises mostly during difficult times. Hartmut Rast, London

[Craftycorner]

For pity's sake, #Thatsafrican is not racist. Africa is a continent full of countries with a lot of different people of all kinds and a multitude of cultures as well as animals of exquisite beauty.

[DannyDanson]

Depends on the context of the "twit", Africa is a beautiful country, with an unmatched level of cultural plurality in general, but it is also a continent that currently suffers terribly in many ways due to it's population having been disenfranchised and exploited economically by many different cultures since the rise of western civilization. Africa is a continent rich with natural resources, however the remnants of imperialism and foriegn domination has left the country fractured and it many areas ruled by a system of warlords and paramilitary groups which developed initially as the rebellious opposition to foriegn rulers, under such circumstances many areas of modern Africa do not have the economic, financial, and or social structures, access, and infrastructure to utilize those vast resources to enpower and advance the lives of it's citizens, people often feel sorry for Africans and African because of the conditions of those in the homeland, but rarely does the conversation visit the historical realities of the greed, warfare, theft, and occupation of Africa which still in ways facilitates the hardships of that continent.

Racism is involves power, policy, and the will of people as it relates to themselves and others of different races.

[DannyDanson]

Conclusion to my earlier post:

So, Debeers Diamonds mines in Sierra Lione and similar situations where extremely wealthy foriegners on African soil, export wealth and normalize poverty to maintain cheap labor under the rule of law is racism, so therefore if the context of a"ThatsAfrican" twit was pejoritive as it related to the economic state, or deprevation of the subject while suggesting the the subject was of it's own endeavors or lack thereof in said pejoritive state, then that twit would be racist, in misrepresenting culpibility for the deprevation of Africans and placing it anywhere but within the historical context of the imperialism and continental explotation of Africa by foriegners you would be passively validating the inequitable conditions that companies like Debeers have forced onto Africans as it relate to "Their" ancestral lands, which just happen to hold diamonds, precious gems, oil, coal etc, as the building blocks of continental wealth in a free market society.

Strife must be maintianed amongst the Africans in order for them not to unite like Iranians and Oust the foriegners. Poverty, suffering , and violence are all useful tools in maintianing the status quo in Africa.

You can't say that "thatafrican" is racist, but without a context you can't say it's not either, you need to state how it's been used.

[listeningpost]

Well thanks, I guess, for not telling us what was on it. You self censored the story to the point of meaninglessness. Not having an account, I still have no idea what you are talking about.

One thing I learned about social media early on in chat rooms is that it tends to be an equalizer in that we are unable to formulate biases based upon looks, age, race, or gender. For example, one was likely to hear discourse that often normally only occurs between those of the same gender and which was sometimes very enlightening.

For good or ill, we are likely to witness speech that was previously kept "in the family".

Not sure if this occurrence you refer to is any reflection on Twitter as a medium at all. It's just a tool.

[mergina]

Can't control all of the nutcases that surface on sites such as this and after this week, all of the info on Iran renders your complaint sadly miniscule and insignificant and one that 99.99% of people on twitter did not know even existed unless they see this post.

[the-lexicon]

"serial re-tweeting".

wow.

are you making fun of the french, with a speech impediment?

[LMPE]

Would they have used that name were John McCain president?