Words Matter: Twitter To Remove ‘Blacklist’, ‘Master’, ‘Slave’ For More Inclusive Language
Following a push from software engineers at Twitter, the social media platform have decided to remove racist terms from its computer code to promote more inclusive programming language.
Since the kick off the ‘Black lives matter’ movement all over the world, many organizations have been forced to reckon with the move.
Many have reviewed and updated their policies as it affects the black community, remove offensive racial terms, some have gone as far as firing employees who exhibit some form of racism online or physically.
Following suit, Twitter has decided to remove words such as ‘master,’ ‘slave’ and ‘blacklist’ from its code after two engineers lobbied for the use of more inclusive programming language.
This was officially announced on Thursday via Twitter Engineering official handle.
It stated;
Inclusive language plays a critical role in fostering an environment where everyone belongs. At Twitter, the language we have been using in our code does not reflect our values as a company or represent the people we serve. We want to change that. #WordsMatter https://t.co/JVO8968B7K
— Twitter Engineering (@TwitterEng) July 2, 2020
We’re starting with a set of words we want to move away from using in favor of more inclusive language, such as: pic.twitter.com/6SMGd9celn
— Twitter Engineering (@TwitterEng) July 2, 2020
According to Michael Montano, the head of Twitter’s engineering team, the company will be removing all such words to show solidarity towards the African-American community, and stand against slavery.
He tweeted;
We are committed to adopting inclusive language in our code, configuration, documentation and beyond.
Words matter. We want @TwitterEng to reflect our values & support our journey to become more inclusive. We are committed to adopting inclusive language in our code, configuration, documentation and beyond thanks to the principles & framework @negroprogrammer @kevino put together. https://t.co/oiJmmlRoKd
— Michael Montano (@michaelmontano) July 2, 2020
One of the engineers who spearheaded the move, Regynald Augustin, said was inspired to push for changes after an email was sent to the engineering team with the line ‘automatic slave rekick.’
He said;
Seeing it was infuriating. I have been used to seeing the word ‘slave’ throughout my computer science education but this was different.
I was inspired to start this work when I saw an email come through to our eng org with the line “automatic slave rekick.” Seeing it was infuriating. I’ve been used to seeing the word “slave” throughout my CS education but this was different.
— Regynald (@negroprogrammer) July 2, 2020
The other engineer involved in the campaign is named Kevin Oliver.
‘Master’ and ‘slave’ refer to one process in the code that controls another, while ‘blacklist’ describes a list of items that are automatically blocked, such as forbidden IP addresses.
The words will now become ‘leader’ and ‘follower’ or ‘primary’ and ‘replica,’ while ‘blacklist’ will become ‘denylist.’
The list also includes ‘grandfathered’ which will become ‘legacy status,’ and ‘dummy value,’ which will become ‘placeholder value’ or ‘sample value.’
American companies, JPMorgan Chase & Co and GitHub Inc have also decided to remove these words from the coded languages.
