Triggered! Facebook Uses ‘Micro-Phone’ Tool for Workers to Report ‘Microaggressions’

July 15th, 2020 12:37 PM

Facebook, and Silicon Valley, are both “extremely left-leaning,” according to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. So it should come as no surprise that while progressive employees are given the chance to succeed, those who disagree with them are set up for failure in ways that would make Orwell proud.

The July 8 civil rights audit of Facebook, released by former ACLU director Laura Murphy and “civil rights” law firm Relman Colfax, discussed Facebook’s latest tool for employees. The tool, called “Micro-Phone,” was built to allow employees to anonymously report “microaggressions.” 

The tool is also used to report “positive examples of allyship or supportive behaviors that have an impact on day-to-day life at Facebook.” These reports shape Facebook’s training sessions.

According to a 2015 piece from Vox, microaggressions can include “the kinds of remarks, questions, or actions that are painful because they have to do with a person's membership in a group that's discriminated against or subject to stereotypes.” A psychologist, Derald W. Sue, was quoted in the piece as saying that microaggressions are "The everyday slights, indignities, put downs and insults that people of color, women, LGBT populations or those who are marginalized experiences in their day-to-day interactions with people." The piece itself even admitted that these statements don’t necessarily have any aggressive or ill-intent behind them. Almost anything could be a microaggression.

Sue was later quoted in the American Psychological Association blog as saying that “Because people of color, for example, don't wield power and privilege, the insults and invalidations they deliver to others are technically not considered microaggressions but expressions of implicit bias.”

Other tech companies have created similar tools for their employees. A report from The Daily Caller found that Google released monthly newsletters with “anonymized incidents of micro-aggressions & micro-corrections.” Some of these included a female Google employee who complained that she was often tasked with getting cakes and flowers for others’ birthdays. She felt that this was a microaggression, because she was “ABP (female, latinx).”

Twitter has approached the issue of microaggressions in a similar fashion. According to the company’s 2019 Inclusion and Diversity report, “In August, we rolled out a new e-learning module to help Tweeps better understand what micro-aggressions are, how to avoid them, and what to do when they occur. As a complement, we’ve taken the show on the road and hosted in-person trainings for teams that want to dive deeper.”

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki has taken a personal approach to dealing with microaggressions, according to Business Insider. “Wojcicki said she's learned throughout the course of her career to call people out on sexism and microaggressions,” according to the piece.

Of course, the progressive structure of these companies is reflected in their political donations. Google, Facebook, and Twitter gave 12 times more to Democrats than Republicans before the 2018 midterm elections. 

Conservatives are under attack. Contact Facebook headquarters at 1-650-308-7300 or 1-650-543-4800 and demand that Facebook mirror the First Amendment while providing equal footing for conservatives on the platform. If you have been censored, contact us at the Media Research Center contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.