There has been a huge uproar on social media platforms after a video of a 'racist' soap dispenser went viral. The video shows a soap machine squirting a blob of foamy froth when a light-skinned person waves their hand underneath, however, the machine does not seem to function when a dark-skinned person puts their hand underneath. To check if it was really a glitch or there was a serious problem related to melanin, a person put a white paper towel underneath and the dispenser worked again! Shocked and irked by the discriminatory machine, he filmed the entire episode and posted a video on Twitter. Sharing the post, the user from Nigeria, Chukwuemeka Afigbo, wrote, "If you have ever had a problem grasping the importance of diversity in tech and its impact on society, watch this video". The video has gone viral with over 150,000 retweets and close to 3,000 comments, at the time of writing. Watch the video here: If you have ever had a problem grasping the importance of diversity in tech and its impact on society, watch this video pic.twitter.com/ZJ1Je1C4NW — Chukwuemeka Afigbo (@nke_ise) August 16, 2017 While some argued it must be a "technical" glitch and something to do with "poorly lit bathroom", others pulled up the company saying only if they had "employed a single dark skinned person they'd have found this problem earlier." Maybe if the company that designed this employed a single dark skinned person they'd have found this problem earlier. — kaitlmoo (@kaitlinsm) August 16, 2017 Looks like a lighting issue to me. An IR scanner doesnt "see" skin color. poorly lit bathroom fixtures dont work for me either sometimes — Iunno N Emoore (@noticeofpoop) August 16, 2017 Doesn't detect infrared emitted from the hand, it'll have a bulb and expects a certain amount to bounce back. Dark hands reflect less back — Glitcher (@G1itcher) August 16, 2017 So many people justifying this and showcasing just how deeply embedded racism is. Y'all think it's a *just* a tech prob. PEOPLE CREATE TECH. — Marlo (@coldgirlfeverr) August 16, 2017 Of course they didn't - and that's precisely the issue. Believing that "flesh tone" only means light skin -> domino effect of bad results. — Smitha Prasadh (@holasmitha) August 16, 2017 Yes, poor design, but it does say that they didn't test with anyone other than people with white hands, or they would have found this issue — Paul Hayday (@Mirrorlessview) August 16, 2017 So the white hand was magically cleaner then the dark skin hand? pic.twitter.com/BOWqE00yEe — Loud-Minority (@L0udMin0rity) August 16, 2017 That's why this video is a very good example of why there should be more diversity being used in the tech industry — satanáries (@hannarchyst) August 16, 2017 Clearly the soap dispenser needs to come clean about its racist outlook in life. — Boyce Franks (@TheCelticBongo) August 16, 2017 And physics isn't the issue. it's the reality that we work with and around. The issue is the lack of thorough thinking — T-Bars (@tTrRoIoPpPeYr) August 17, 2017 Wow, I never factored this as a reason these machines often don't register me, but I'll admit to feeling less like a person when they don't. — MsGucciSu (@MsGucciSu) August 17, 2017 Not racist at all. Soap dispenser company thinks black people are so clean they don't need soap. — Mr. Seaborn (@m_seaborn) August 21, 2017 While many Twitterati seemed irked by, few have tried to defend the company. But this is not the first time a soap dispenser has been called 'racist'. In 2015, a similar video led to a debate. The soap dispensers at a Marriott hotel in Atlanta failed to identify the hands of a dark-skinned man and back then also it was blamed on sensors and how some objects reflect less light thus it fails to trigger the sensor.
