The case in summary
Expand/minimize fact box
- The surname Aam is perceived as an abbreviation for an expression that is connected with the sexualization of children on Facebook and Instagram.
- The filters on these platforms think that you are searching for inappropriate content when you search on Aam, and block the search.
- 353 people in Norway have Aam as a middle name or surname, and several of these have experienced problems with being searched for on social media.
- One example is Sivert Rabben Aam, who has received feedback from colleagues who have tried to look him up on Facebook.
- Expert on digitalisation, Ståle Lindblad, says that this illustrates the challenges of moderating content on social media.
- Several people with the surname Aam have tried to contact Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, to sort out the problem, but without success.
The summary is made by an AI service from OpenAi. The content is quality assured by NRK’s journalists before publication.
– It becomes associated with taboo. I haven’t dared to speak so loudly about it.
This is what 25-year-old Sivert Rabben Aam from Volda tells us.
Aam is perceived as an abbreviation for an expression linked to the sexualization of children.
The term means “minors who are attracted to adults”.
The filters that are supposed to weed out inappropriate searches simply believe that one is searching for such content. A warning screen appears and the search cannot be carried out.
You get this message from Instagram if you search for the surname Aam.
Photo: Clipping from Instagram
– Disgusting
According to Statistics Norway, 353 people have Aam as a middle name or surname in this country. Most of them live in Ørsta and Volda in Sunnmøre, and they are not necessarily that easy to look up on Instagram and Facebook.
One of the 353 is precisely Sivert.
– It is a burden. It always becomes a topic of conversation if someone has looked me up on Facebook.
Sivert Rabben Aam works as an engineer and travels a lot for his job. Here he is at work in Singapore.
Photo: Private
Sivert is fairly new to his job as an engineer at Kongsberg Maritime and there will be a number of work trips abroad. He has received several responses from new colleagues who have tried to look him up to become a friend on Facebook.
– It’s disgusting, and I try to joke it away.
He says that it has become a burden. He is afraid that people who do not know him well may suspect that he has been reported because he has done illegal things online.
NRK has been in contact with several people named Aam who find it burdensome that this is associated with their surname.
Don’t be surprised
Ståle Lindblad knows most about digitalisation, artificial intelligence and social media. The expert is not surprised that this is happening.
Ståle Lindblad is an expert in digitalisation, artificial intelligence and social media.
Photo: Susanne Lindblad / Areca
– This illustrates the challenges the various platforms have when moderating content.
Lindblad said that Facebook and Instagram deal with huge amounts of data every day.
He says they close millions of fake accounts and delete millions of posts every week, and then they have to use algorithms.
When the surname is linked to illegal content, it will naturally be stopped, Lindblad believes.
He believes that the problem of Aamane can be solved, but getting to talk to the people behind the big platforms is not easy.
– That is the big challenge. It is not easy to get in touch with a human being.
Meta owns Facebook and Instagram. For several days, NRK has been trying to get in touch with Meta, without success.
– Shame on the family
Sivert Rabben Aam has not dared to ask others in the family about the message that comes up when you search for Aam. He thought it was only him who had a problem with Facebook. He thought so until a cousin dared to bring up the topic a little while ago.
Now he hopes it may be possible to sort things out.
– My father has always said that I should not bring shame on my family. And getting such a stamp every time the name of the family is searched for is a kind of shame for the family.
Published 23/04/2024, at 16.45