Website Owner Creates An Online Uproar Due To Insensitive Website Name

Earlier this week a website was created with the intention of providing its customers with a way to know what neighborhoods are safe and unsafe. While this may seem extremely beneficial, it actually was highly offensive to a great number of people, particularly African Americans. For whatever reason, the creator of the website chose to title it “GhettoTracker.com” and almost immediately word spread about the site causing quite an uproar. People visiting the website were enraged because the site seemed to insinuate that living in a poor area was a shameful place that people should never live because only criminals and those detrimental to society lived in these types of places. It was also reported that the website’s creator did no research on his own to find out if these places listed were indeed unsafe. This posed a problem to some visitors of the site because the owner took the opinions and biases of other individuals (who may or may not have lived in the particular area being discussed) and posted these neighborhoods as harmful without even seeing if this were true or not. Several people also found the website to be racist because on the front page is a picture of a white family smiling, and many thought the pictured implied that people can only be guaranteed safety by living in a predominantly white neighborhood.  A Facebook page was created for this business as well, and some people found it comical to visit the page and post racists comments about people (specifically African Americans) who live in poverty stricken and low income places. However, due to the amount of people who found the Facebook page unpleasant, the page has since been deleted. Because of how quickly information about this problematic site spread, the owner basically had no choice but to reconsider the site’s purpose and make a decision on if the webpage was indeed insensitive to a great number of people. After briefly taking the website offline, the owner deemed it considerate to try and rebrand the site as best he could in order for the site to no longer be associated with the negativity it was previously receiving. Despite the fact that many people seemed to strongly dislike the site, the owner insisted that the purpose of the site is to help ensure resident’s safety and to help them find the best place to stay. The owner also claimed that from now on he would “get the opinions of locals if he were ever unfamiliar with a certain area of town.” While people may doubt the latter statement made by the website owner, it will be interesting to see how long the website will be running, and if any changes will actually take place and remain in place.