Facebook Wrongly Bars the Specials' Neville Staple for Link to Skinhead Culture

Facebook Wrongly Bars the Specials' Neville Staple for Link to Skinhead Culture
By Allie Gregory
Published Jun 10, 2020
The Specials founding member and ska legend Neville Staple has accused Facebook of briefly banning his and his wife's pages because of a mistake in an algorithm that tied his links to skinhead culture with racism.

Contrary to what algorithms may perceive to be racist, English 2 Tone ska music — especially that of the Specials, which proved to be immensely popular with anti-fascist skinheads in the '80s — has intrinsic links to anti-racism, the artist argues.

"Caca faat! You couldn't make it up!! My wife Sugary Staple & I get banned for 24 hours — no explanation or apology. The World has gone nuts!" the artist wrote in a tweet.

"They've clearly not looked into 2 Tone," Sugary Staple said of the confusion in conversation with the BBC.

"We're the 2 Tone era, we came about when racial tensions were nuts — a bit like what we're going through now," Staple's manager, whose profile was also removed, told the BBC. "We were all about bringing black and white together."

Staple's Facebook page has since been reinstated after it was taken down on Monday (June 8). According to the BBC, the social media platform has admitted the profiles were "removed in error."

See some reactions below.