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the naacp is staging facebook a boycott for black folk

December 17, 2018
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The NAACP wants its supporters to log off of Facebook and Instagram on Tuesday the 18th of December, 2018, because it’s time Facebook started taking its Black users seriously.

Severe neglect has turned social media from a revolutionary tool of community organizing to a bigoted cesspool with the literary appeal of a gas station bathroom wall. There are some great moments on these platforms — and that is in large part due to Black people, who are most active on social media and apparently also vulnerable to being manipulated by it.

“Over the last year, NAACP has expressed concerns about the numerous data breaches and privacy mishaps in which Facebook has been implicated,” said the statement released by NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson. “Recent revelations that Facebook hired an opposition research firm and worked with other deeply partisan strategy firms call into question the notion that Facebook operates with a non-partisan view.”

A leaked Senate report published by The Washington Post also revealed that Russia used Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google, Pinterest and Tumblr to orchestrate misinformation campaigns aimed at various groups and communities to get Trump elected. Russian trolls (who did little to hide the fact that were in fact trolls from Russia) used the labyrinth of social media to aggravate conservative fears over immigration whilst creating Black accounts and organizations to convince Black people to distrust the voting system while also sharing misleading information about how and where to vote. That is voter suppression.

A foreign power secured the election of this Fascist Toupe in the White House through mediums Black people elevate every damn day with our presence and what do companies like Facebook and Google do? They were all late to the party (if they even bothered to show up at all), to the extent that social media posts by Russian trolls increased in the six months after November 8th, 2016 according to the report. And they were successful as well because “the IRA created an expansive cross-platform media mirage targeting the Black community, which shared and cross-promoted authentic Black media to create an immersive influence ecosystem,” per the report.

The Russians created Black personas and leveraged a pro-Black message to raise money to fund more propaganda directed at dividing and misinforming — and Facebook was only interested in absolving itself from this invasion. White supremacists used Black people to raise money for their fascist cause. As if Black people haven’t endured enough of the violence this system has to offer, we’ve somehow managed to fund our own oppression once again.

The Black community contributes too much to the culture and allure of social media; it shouldn’t be taken for granted as well as being left vulnerable. Bravo to the NAACP for being about that life. It’s time we all square up too.

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