If you’re a film fan, especially one that likes to voice their opinion about projects, you’re probably familiar with Letterboxd. The website allows users to write reviews for films and then share them with the world. Sounds fairly harmless, right? Well, recently the site found itself in hot water due to a deleted review of Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds.”
It all started with a tweet from a user attempting to find out why his review for the film was removed.
The user brought the issue to light when he tweeted a screenshot of his review, with the note that it was “removed by admins.” He said, “so my INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS review was removed because I said I wanted the Basterds to come back and take care of all the nazis in America right now. I don’t see how this is a problem?”
READ MORE: Quentin Tarantino: The Essential Films Retrospective
Well, according to a now-deleted tweet (via IndieWire), Letterboxd replied, “We don’t wish to promote any form of violent hatred on our platform, no matter which side you come down on.”
As you might imagine, this response drew some backlash, with social media users wondering why the website was seemingly defending Nazis. Of course, no matter what company you are, especially if you are a website that is driven by the interaction with users, you don’t want to come down on the side of being pro-Nazi or seen as Nazi sympathizers.
Letterboxd deleted that initial tweet and provided a whole different response, saying, “We’re not nazi sympathizers. Not a single one of us. We’re not even neutral on the issue. Nazism sucks.”
Of course, the website then posted a more detailed response to the whole situation. In the apology, Letterboxd wrote, “We fucked up and we’re genuinely sorry. We’re especially sorry that our reply caused some of you to feel unsafe on Letterboxd.”
It continued, “Yesterday, we replied with stupidly chosen words to a Twitter query, without stopping to consider the wider social context, or the similarity between the tweet’s wording and an egregious and harmful statement from a political figurehead. It was wrong and we’re sorry.”
The apology goes into more detail about the situation and can be read, in full, below:
An apology to our community.
Yesterday, our moderators removed a member’s review of the film Inglourious Basterds. When asked why on Twitter, we responded badly.
We fucked up and we’re genuinely sorry. We’re especially sorry that our reply caused some of you to feel unsafe on Letterboxd.
How did it happen?
The tweet: We’re a small team. The same small team that built the service also looks after the servers, does the PR, washes the dishes and takes out the trash. Yesterday, we replied with stupidly chosen words to a Twitter query, without stopping to consider the wider social context, or the similarity between the tweet’s wording and an egregious and harmful statement from a political figurehead. It was wrong and we’re sorry.
The review: Our community policy has long been clear as to how we feel about content that promotes, engages in or incites hate, violence or intolerance. The underlying intent of the original review—a wish for a swift end to fascism—is a conversation we welcome. It was the use of specific language around violence that led one of our moderators to remove the review text, after it was reported to us.
Where to now?
We don’t want to dwell further on the review in question, because that would put the onus back on the reviewer in this discussion. We want to focus on the bigger questions that you have raised around how we moderate content.
Firstly: dangerous fascist and white supremacist ideologies can go to hell. We remove such content from our service regularly. We want to catch it all. We’ve changed our community policy as of today to reflect this, adding in an explicit line rejecting content that “expressly praises, supports, promotes or represents white nationalist ideology”.
Secondly: what we’ve heard most loudly from you over the past 24 hours is: “Why delete this review, while allowing other harassing comments towards women, people of color, LGBTQIA+ people, disabled people…?”
We read everything that’s reported to us, and a lot besides, and we remove or hide everything that violates our community policy. When we get it wrong, you, our community lets us know and we take a closer look. We also take the opportunity to review our internal processes, to ensure we’re doing our best.
Often we hide content, rather than removing it. Hiding means the content isn’t visible anywhere except on the member’s profile, or if you already have a link to it. We’ve realized that the content is still searchable, so we are removing moderated content from search results as well. Hiding is effective but we don’t want this stuff, period—hidden or not—so we are also broadening what we consider removable to include more of what we all find objectionable.
If you’d like more insight on how our moderation process works and what improvements we have planned around it, read on below.
We’re committed to Letterboxd being a safe, creative space for you to share your love of film.
Sincerely,
The Letterboxd crew
so my INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS review was removed because I said I wanted the Basterds to come back and take care of all the nazis in America right now. I don't see how this is a problem? https://t.co/gbAuSunn7i
— Will (@SilentDawnLB) July 30, 2019
We're not nazi sympathizers. Not a single one of us. We're not even neutral on the issue. Nazism sucks.
— Letterboxd (@letterboxd) July 30, 2019
