Flagged for posting about walrus meat? Social media 'violations' discriminatory, says former Nunavut MLA
CBC
"My favourite food! Walrus! I would pay anyone to get me some!"
Former Nunavut MLA Manitok Thompson was expressing her excitement on Twitter when the 12-word tweet was flagged for violating the rules.
It was called "excessively graphic media" and Twitter issued a notice saying exposure to gratuitous gore can be harmful, "especially if the content is posted with intent to delight in cruelty or for sadistic pleasure."
Thompson was in shock. She had to delete her post to remain on the platform.
"I was not selling walrus meat, I was just posting about it to ask if someone can go and pick me some meat and send it to me … it's a very big discrimination to our culture not to be allowed to post our food or our way of living," Thompson said in an interview with CBC.
This is not the first time Indigenous culture has been flagged as a violation on social media. Award-winning Inuk singer Tanya Tagaq had her Facebook account suspended after posting a photo featuring seal fur. Inuk crafter Kenneth Mackay had a Facebook ad rejected as his traditional Inuit knives were labelled as "weapons. And Facebook has apologized previously for removing posts selling sealskin products — once in 2017, and again in 2019.
Social media content moderation is not unique to Facebook and Twitter.
Popular northern TikToker Hovak Johnston recently mused publicly about getting rid of her TikTok account due to the high violation reports.
"Twitter and Facebook need to look at their policies and stop discriminating against Inuit," said Thompson, whose post was removed Oct. 19 — one week before Elon Musk officially took over the social networking site.
All social media platforms have their own version of community guidelines outlining what could be a violation, such as bullying, nudity or violent content.
But just sharing your life as an Indigenous person should not be so controversial, said Kim TallBear, a professor with the Faculty of Native Studies at the University of Alberta.
"We've known ever since settlers got [to North America], they've been offended by Indigenous ways of life and have sought to extinguish them — whether they extinguish them in real life or whether they can extinguish representations of them on social media," TallBear said in an interview with CBC.
Part of the solution would be getting more Indigenous people into tech fields, TallBear said.
"It's too bad the burden is always on us, but ... you know, we tend to understand these things better and I think if you have Indigenous people in tech within those companies, they're going to be better able to flag what is actually inappropriate content," TallBear said.
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