Redlisted
14th November 2021
I received a notification from one Twitter user alerting another to the fact that “Shinigami Eyes shows [me] as a transphobe”’ with a link to the webpage Shinigami-eyes.github.io. Confused, I clicked on the link and made a startling discovery. Shinigami Eyes is a browser add-on that highlights supposed “transphobic” and “trans-friendly” people, businesses and organisations. Unbeknownst to members of the public, users who enable this function are invited to colour code others in either red or green — red meaning “danger” and green meaning “safe”. The extension supports Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Tumblr, Medium, Youtube, Wikipedia articles and search engine results. According to Google Chrome, it has over 40,000 current users, and the extension is also supported via Firefox and Android.