Derogatory or Racist Language Is Common on Facebook Walls, Reppler Uncovers

Article by George Norman (Cybersecurity Editor)

on 23 Jul 2011

Reppler (social media monitoring service founded by Vlad Forelik, former Vice President of cloud services with AVG, service that helps customers keep their social reputation clean and safe) recently announced that it uncovered that derogatory /racist language is quite at home on Facebook walls. After analyzing the Facebook profiles of about 20,000 users, Repler provided the following figures.

- There is derogatory/racist language on the walls of 12% of users.
- There is derogatory/racist language on the walls of 17% of users under 35-years-old.
- There is derogatory/racist language on the walls of 5% of users over 35-years-old.
- 38% of the derogatory language uncovered on the walls belongs to the users themselves.
- 81% of the derogatory language uncovered on the walls belongs to the user's friends.

“So what does this all mean?” said Reppler. “As we have said in the past, more and more employers are screening job candidates by checking out social networking sites. This trend places the burden on individuals to monitor their online presence more closely, as inappropriate content on social networking sites, like Facebook, could damage their reputation and limit their chances of getting a job.”

Back in May we were reporting that that profanity is quite common on Facebook walls. After scanning the profiles of more than 30,000 Facebook users, Reppler uncovered that 47% of users have profanity on their walls. The company explained that the most common swearword is the F word and variations of it. The second most common swearword is “sh*t”. The third most common swearword is “b*tch.”

Reppler also uncovered that:
- There is at least one comment that contains profanity on 80% of Walls that already contain profanity.
- Friends are responsible for 56% of posts and/or comments that contain profanity.
- Users are twice as likely to use profanity in a post on their Facebook Wall, versus a comment. Friends are twice as likely to use profanity in a comment on a user’s Facebook Wall instead of a post.


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