Since the dawn of the internet era, social media has been a reliable way to quickly gather information from people worldwide but this information isn’t always accurate. We’ve all heard teachers say that Wikipedia is an unreliable source since any user or troll on the internet can edit the page to be whatever they want. The source of information is infinitely more valuable than the information itself. This is the reason why anonymous story sharing pages such as @bipoc.of.marin contribute very few tangible positives to the fight for racial inequality in Marin County.

@bipoc.of.marin is a page on the Facebook-owned social media platform, Instagram, where anonymous users can share stories about discriminatory experiences in Marin through a google form. These submissions are then uploaded to the page with over five thousand followers with any names censored for people to read.

As someone who grew up in Marin County with a black mom and white dad, I have experienced my fair share of racist jokes and dirty looks, so I understand why it is relieving to have a place where you can share your experiences without repercussions. However, without any repercussions, the state of racial inequality in Marin will never change. By allowing the perpetrators of racial discrimination to remain anonymous, we only enable their discriminatory behavior by showing them that there are no consequences to their actions.

On the other hand, this may be a benefit as anybody can submit any rumor or made-up story to @bipoc.of.marin, and it will be published. I have tested this myself by submitting a popular rumor to the page that was completely untrue yet it was posted anyway and it wasn’t taken down even after people commented that the story was just a rumor. Fortunately, the names are kept anonymous so the student falsely accused of discriminatory behavior wasn’t put on blast in front of five thousand people.

One quote from an anonymous student sums up the situation quite well: “I’d say that they have a good idea behind their account but they executed it poorly and are susceptible to made-up stories for stirring drama.” At first, when asked for a quote, this anonymous student stated, “I would but I don’t want to say anything because I would say something negative about it and I’m not trying to get canceled.” Despite having several obvious flaws, @bipoc.of.marin is essentially protected against criticism as critics are fearful of “cancel-culture.” Of course, anybody who shares an opinion on a controversial matter is bringing controversy upon themselves, that is just how open debate and freedom of speech works. Unfortunately, hate speech is also protected under freedom of speech which is why we must make efforts to have open debates where we convince people to give up their ungrounded, and discriminatory arguments.

However, there is no open debate when we only hear one side of the story from an anonymous user with no source. This creates an echo chamber of problems being created but never solved. Luckily, this has changed with @bipoc.of.marin now allowing users to submit public call-outs to entities such as the Marin Board of Supervisors but most of their posts remain anonymous. The page states: “Without all of you, the change that is occurring right now would not be possible.” But it does not seem like there has been a significant change. Besides the effort to rename Sir Francis Drake High school and debatably the removal of school resource officers there has not been a lot of effort to convince Marin county residents out of long-held discriminatory beliefs.

This page only reinforces the problems of social media activism as they only reach people who hold the same progressive beliefs without producing tangible results in the real world. There is certainly a problem when an entity has the potential to spread false information to groups of people who will most likely not question or criticize it. 

It is more important now than ever before to take everything you read with a grain of salt. In this unprecedented age of misinformation, it is absolutely necessary to question all forms of authority, especially those that are susceptible to abuse such as @bipoc.of.marin. No matter how beneficial this page is for individuals it can be infinitely more damaging to innocent people.