New York Council Member Blasts Facebook For Labeling Her as a ‘Chinese Restaurant Owner’
“This Facebook notification sends a disappointing message to users of diverse backgrounds that as long as your name sounds ‘foreign’ or ‘different,’ you will never truly belong.
While making this correction presented only a minor inconvenience, I have to wonder how many other Asian Americans and communities of color have felt marginalized, misrepresented or stereotyped – either directly or indirectly – by this technology.
Facebook holds enormous power to connect and educate people from all corners of the world. Instead of pulling us apart by enforcing dangerous biases that marginalize certain groups, Facebook’s technology should be bringing us closer together.
Asian American Pacific Heritage Month presents a special opportunity for us to recognize the struggles that Asian Americans have overcome – and continue to face – in the fight for equality and representation. I hope that Facebook can see this unfortunate alert as an opportunity to fix this problem, and rectify any other systemic gaps that reinforce harmful stereotypes.”
