Element-android: Please replace "blacklist" with something more emotionally and psychologically safe

[ghost]

Seeing as how this application is likely to become something of a public good, I'm really appreciative of the recent name change. Encrypted communication platforms are built in a tradition that holds confidentiality and privacy as a human right. Using more inviting and accessible language is wonderful not only from a marketing standpoint, but from a social and ethical perspective too.

I request that "blacklist" be replaced with something less charged. I realize that there's a tech tradition of using this language, but as more and more people start to depend on Element for personal and political safety, I believe it's urgently important for the interface of a security focused application to use mentally and emotionally safe language as well, and to do so in as inclusive a manner as possible.

Gitlab decided to go with "allowlist" and "denylist".

This software is supposed to keep peoples' communications secure, to keep people safe. _It ought to feel safe_ for as wide a variety of people to use it as possible, and that means using language that is more likely to make people feel welcome. I'll tell you that a lot of people won't feel welcome if the deny list is called a "blacklist". I'm not trying to police anyones' language. I'm not trying to revise the etymological history of the language. This is about making good design decisions that help people feel welcome, so that people with racial trauma don't have to jump through mental and emotional hoops in situations that are already difficult enough as is.

It's totally fine and okay that _you_ feel no qualms about adding somebody to a "blacklist". I'm not mad at you for that. I recognize that etymologically, "blacklist" has a history much older than Jim Crow.

But this language is, whether you like it or not, charged. And for a lot of people it's deeply uncomfortable. It just doesn't make sense to have language like this in an application that's supposed to help people feel safe and secure.

[ktagbnaw]

See the origin of the term blacklist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacklisting#Origins_of_the_term

Despite its origins and etymology, many incorrectly assume that the term has racial undertones, leading to controversies surrounding its usage.

[MSavoritias]

I don't think it really matters here if it really means that or where the term came from.

What mattters is that some members of our users/community don't like it. And since it doesn't costs us much to change it I don't see a reason not to. Besides I don't think any of us wants a random word that doesn't really change anything to be the hill they die on.

[kara-b]

What mattters is that some members of our users/community don't like it. And since it doesn't costs us much to change it I don't see a reason not to. Besides I don't think any of us wants a random word that doesn't really change anything to be the hill they die on.

Look at the number of downvotes on your comment and the first comment, I think the members of our "community" don't like your idea. Besides, The term "blacklist" is used throughout the Matrix.org spec and can't just be changed on one client because it would cause confusion.

We can't just go around changing terms like "whitelist" and "blacklist" just because it includes the word "black", It's a color and the origin definitely matters. Stop being offended about normal words, No one cares.

Hope this reply doesn't come over as very rude or stupid, I'll delete it if that's the case.

[ZoomRmc]

In European tradition (and lots of others), "black" is often considered a colour with a negative load. This mostly stems from the fact that black is the colour of darkness, which has always been the state of increased unsafeness for our ancestors. It's a colour of the underworld in ancient Greece, it's everywhere in the Bible, it's a colour of mourning (at least Romans already used it for that matter).

On the other hand, black is the colour of strict, elegant style and authority. It's ultra-popular for clothing, design and interior decoration, due to its practicality, high contrast and ability to harmonize with other colours. No one thinks of a "little black dress" as of something that has the connotations I listed in the previous paragraph.

Personally, I very much doubt that breaking the language in this way will bring the desired effect and will be truly internalized, as it's going against very deep cultural roots which, in turn, have very logical and natural genesis.

Nothing there has anything to do with race or skin colour.

PS: Denoting people by their skin tone is considered offensive in many countries. Speaking as a non-US citizen I can attest that there's a widespread confusion on why in American English there's a few words meaning the same thing but some of them are considered offensive and some are not, especially since these norms basically flipped during a single human lifespan.

[MSavoritias]

What mattters is that some members of our users/community don't like it. And since it doesn't costs us much to change it I don't see a reason not to. Besides I don't think any of us wants a random word that doesn't really change anything to be the hill they die on.

Look at the number of downvotes on your comment and the first comment, I think the members of our "community" don't like your idea. Besides, The term "blacklist" is used throughout the Matrix.org spec and can't just be changed on one client because it would cause confusion.

We can't just go around changing terms like "whitelist" and "blacklist" just because it includes the word "black", It's a color and the origin definitely matters. Stop being offended about normal words, No one cares.

Hope this reply doesn't come over as very rude or stupid, I'll delete it if that's the case.

We can see about the details of the implementation. If it is needed to change on the Matrix spec the issue can be raised there too.

As far as I saw there is one upvote in my comment and 10 positive reaction on the original post. The community seems divided. And it seems that people do care. Judging by here and the moves that are being done by RedHat and other companies.

As far as your remark for we "can't", I think it is a human language. By that I mean we can change it or adapt it into whatever we want. Its not something final that can't be changed.

The whole thing is being done for a minority that wants to feel included. Of course the downvotes are going to be more. People are hard to change. But also because the minority can't exactly vote the majoritarian way the problem. They will always lose. So the question is: Is the majority willing to change for the minority to be included?

Just because something is technically right doesn't mean that we can ignore the culture around it. Or the feelings and the reception people have to it.

[ara4n]

We have absolutely no attachment to the word blacklist; very happy to change it to blocklist or denylist or similar. (Going to lock this issue to contributors now, to avoid the temptation to over-debate the conclusion, which in the end is a call for the project to make.)