To: Kevin Systrom, CEO of Instagram and Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO
Make Instagram Safe for People of Color
Many people of color are having their posts reported and taken down even if their content does not violate the community guidelines. It should not be possible for another user to use racism to silence black and brown Instagram users by successfully reporting their content.
Why is this important?
The Community Guidelines on Instagram do not serve people of color. As a group of white Instagram users who are able to post freely without being censored by Instagram, we are creating this petition to put a stop to this unfair silencing of our black and brown siblings. Queer people of color, people of color who speak about the racism they experience and women of color in particular experience the effects of this silencing but all people of color are affected.
We want to see
1. Effective training of employees who handle reported posts to recognize racial bias and to disengage from enabling the silencing of black and brown Instagram users when they are reported. A person or people of color who do this work should be hired by Instagram to train employees. We want to see this acknowledged in a statement by Instagram.
2. A strict policy of uplifting voices of color as opposed to silencing them, reflected concretely in employee training.
3. Regular employee oversight by a manager over these reports with reviews on a regular basis.
4. Action taken against employees who silence Instagram users of color, perhaps with a three-strike policy resulting in termination.
5. The ability for users and followers of users to contest a report before posts are taken down which will be routed to a manager to assess the situation before people of color lose time, money, engagement and equal right to free speech by having their posts taken down.
We want to see
1. Effective training of employees who handle reported posts to recognize racial bias and to disengage from enabling the silencing of black and brown Instagram users when they are reported. A person or people of color who do this work should be hired by Instagram to train employees. We want to see this acknowledged in a statement by Instagram.
2. A strict policy of uplifting voices of color as opposed to silencing them, reflected concretely in employee training.
3. Regular employee oversight by a manager over these reports with reviews on a regular basis.
4. Action taken against employees who silence Instagram users of color, perhaps with a three-strike policy resulting in termination.
5. The ability for users and followers of users to contest a report before posts are taken down which will be routed to a manager to assess the situation before people of color lose time, money, engagement and equal right to free speech by having their posts taken down.