Are Twitter's sensitive material alerts homophobic?

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      On May 25, we tweeted out the image below from the @georgiastraight and @straightLGBT accounts with a link to an article about a prostate cancer study for men who have sex with men.

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      The image, of two shirtless men, one lying on top of the other but shown from the torso up, kissing was flagged as "may contain sensitive material".

      As a test on May 26, we sent out a picture (below) of two men making out and lying on top of each other but with shirts on. This image was not flagged.

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      We then tweeted out an image (below) of a man lying on top of a woman, both shirtless and kissing. This was almost the same type of photo as the first one we tweeted out, except that it was a man and a woman. This was not flagged.

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      So once again, we tweeted out a different image of two men in bed and shirtless (only their upper bodies shown). This was flagged as sensitive.

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      The most sexually suggestive photo was an image of a woman embracing a man's naked back, with her naked legs wrapped around his torso. This image was not flagged as sensitive.

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      The first heterosexual images we were able to get flagged were of heterosexuals naked in a shower together.

      These images below of an interracial and a non-interracial heterosexual couple were both flagged as sensitive.

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      But the image below was not.

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      We've sent tweets and an email to Twitter Canada for an explanation of why this was the case and how their sensitivity detection system works. When we receive a response, we'll post an update.

      Comments

      1 Comments

      Willing to bet...

      May 26, 2015 at 4:47pm

      ... it was someone who's at least a little homophobic reporting the one image - and then not reporting the rest for whatever reason.