Out of 98 HBCUs, Instagram Has Only Verified 4…

In today's day and age, social media is king. A brand’s most accessible and influential touchpoint with its audience is online. If there was ever any doubt, COVID-19 has proven once and for all that a strong social media presence is pivotal to organizational survival in the 21st century. 

Over the last six years, Watch The Yard has organically built a following of 325k followers on Instagram by celebrating, archiving and reporting on Black college culture. We now reach over 10 million college-educated African American each month, and have become the largest brand in the space. The success of today’s YARD CON, a digital conference providing practical support to Black college students impacted by COVID-19 nationwide, was made possible by Watch The Yard’s vast reach on social media.

Our growth was hard won. After all, the Internet is not a democracy. Social media platforms’ features, verification processes, and algorithms highlight some accounts over others, which in turn leads to differential access to customers, contracts and credibility. In other words, tech products are political, determining who gets what, and how much. Watch The Yard has experienced these politics firsthand. 

Despite request after request, we can’t seem to get Instagram to verify our @WatchTheYard or @WatchTheBands accounts. Each time, we’re met with vague explanations in stock language about secret internal policies. All the while, we’ve watched as brands smaller than ours get verified. Our team started to hypothesize that maybe this has to do with the space we are in--the Black college space. 

"It couldn't be just us," we thought. So we did some research into it, and turns out that we are likely correct. 

We looked to see if any of Divine Nine national pages are verified by Instagram. It turns out, only two of the nine are verified: Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. and Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. That is right, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. the largest organization of Black women in the world, has not received verification. 

Then, Watch The Yard created a list of every Historically Black College and University’s (HBCU) Instagram account and documented which are verified. The results were staggering.

Of 98 HBCUs, only four are verified: Spelman College, Morehouse College, Jackson State University, and Saint Philips College. That’s right, barely 4% of Historically Black Colleges and Universities are verified. Howard, Hampton, North Carolina A&T, FAMU...none of them are verified despite esteemed institutional legacies, vibrant campus cultures, and dedicated alumni bases. 

Predominantly white universities (PWIs) have a much higher verification count, though. The University of Southern California is verified. The University of Michigan and Ole Miss are verified. Princeton, and Harvard are verified. Even Biola University is verified. This pattern of differential treatment between HBCUs and PWIs on Facebook cuts across institutional type (public vs. private), selectivity, and ranking. As with many dynamics in society, it seems that Internet politics operate along racial lines.

We’re not 100% sure what’s happening here, but we can tell you what it looks like from the outside. It looks like tech companies are not paying much attention to Black issues or the brands and culture we create.

We often hear about a lack of minority representation in Silicon Valley. Do the people handling verification even know what HBCUs are? Do they understand how important institutions like Black fraternities and sororities have been to our communities, for over a century? Does it take white investment for big tech to take notice?

By now, you can sense how frustrating this situation is for us at Watch The Yard. As a business that cares about preserving, serving, and uplifting the Black community, and that has invested so much time and money into the Facebook and Instagram ecosystems, we feel this acutely. 

In actuality, this should be frustrating to all of us. After all, Black communities power social media, driving viral trends and cultural commentary, globally. We deserve recognition, and we deserve reciprocity.

The good news is that Facebook has the capability to fix this. If you’re reading, please investigate the ways in which systemic racism might be creeping into your products, and adjust. Ensure that verifiers adequately research minority organizations and our contributions to society. And listen to your customers! Feel free to contact us at contact@WatchTheYard.com. We are more than happy to provide ideas, feedback, and information from our archives. We have made a full spreadsheet with names, handles, and follower counts that we can send you.

If you have ethics, think of your users. If you have logic, think of your reputation.

SIGN THIS PETITION IF YOU THINK FACEBOOK AND INSTAGRAM SHOULD VERIFY @WatchTheYard, @WatchTheBands AND THE FOLLOWING HBCUs AND DIVINE 9 PAGES.

Alabama A&M University
Alabama State University
Bishop State Community College
C.A. Fredd Campus of Shelton State Community College
Miles College
Oakwood College
Stillman College
Talladega College
Trenholm State Technical College
Tuskegee University
Arkansas Baptist College
Philander Smith College
Shorter College
University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff
Howard University
University of the District of Columbia
Delaware State University
Bethune-Cookman University
Edward Waters College
Florida A&M University
Florida Memorial University
Albany State University
Clark Atlanta University
Fort Valley State University
Interdenominational Theological Center
Morehouse School of Medicine
Morris Brown College
Paine College
Savannah State University
Kentucky State University
Dillard University
Grambling State University
Southern University and A&M College
Bowie State University
Coppin State University
Morgan State University
University of Maryland, Eastern Shore
Alcorn State University
Coahoma Community College
Hinds Community College
Mississippi Valley State University
Rust College
Tougaloo College
Harris-Stowe State University
Lincoln University of Missouri
Barber-Scotia College
Bennett College
Elizabeth City State University
Fayetteville State University
Johnson C. Smith University
Livingstone College
North Carolina A&T State University
North Carolina Central University
St. Augustine’s College
Shaw University
Winston Salem State University
Central State University
Wilberforce University
Langston University
Cheyney University of Pennsylvania
Lincoln University
Allen University
Benedict College
Claflin University
Clinton Junior College
Denmark Technical College
Morris College
South Carolina State University
Voorhees College
American Baptist College
Fisk University
Knoxville College
Lane College
LeMoyne-Owen College
Meharry Medical College
Tennessee State University
Huston-Tillotson University
Jarvis Christian College
Paul Quinn College
Prairie View A&M University
Southwestern Christian College
Texas College
Texas Southern University
Wiley College
Hampton University
Norfolk State University
Virginia State University
Virginia Union University
Virginia University of Lynchburg
Bluefield State College
West Virginia State University
University of the Virgin Islands
Selma University

Alpha Phi Alpha
Alpha Kappa Alpha
Delta Sigma Theta
Phi Beta Sigma
Zeta Phi Beta
Sigma Gamma Rho
Iota Phi Theta

Full article: https://www.watchtheyard.com/activism/hbcu-instagram-verification/