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
So the white hand was magically cleaner then the dark skin hand? pic.twitter.com/BOWqE00yEe
— Loud-Minority (@L0udMin0rity) August 16, 2017
