Reviews for Shinigami Eyes
Shinigami Eyes by Shinigami Eyes
Review by Beth T.
Rated 1 out of 5
by Beth T., 3 months agoI heard pretty bad things, but I used to use this back in the day when it was still good, so I decided to test it. I can confirm; it's bad. It's not the way it used to be.
I did extensive research on who was marked by this extension, and tested on multiple browsers. I went through over 20 tumblr blogs over the course of a couple days. Plenty of the blogs marked red had no history of transphobia even after over an hour of searching their post history. Even one blog, that I'd been following for years and had shown not even the slightest hint of transphobia or controversy, was marked red. I only found one or two blogs marked red that were actually transphobic, and I would not have needed shinigami eyes to tell. It was clear simply from looking at what they wrote in their profiles (self-identifying as transphobic, for example). So, in terms of identifying transphobes at a glance, shinigami eyes has so far not been helpful.
What I find interesting (and concerning), however, is the common thread of blogs marked red. What all blogs marked red that weren't transphobic (which was almost all of the ones I found) shared in common was that they spoke on the issues trans men, intersex people, and nonbinary people face - or, shared positivity and showed kindness towards those groups. Moreover, blogs that were actively hostile towards trans men, intersex, and nonbinary people, tended to more often be marked green. I was more focused on investigating the red blogs, but from what I saw, green blogs were often quite transphobic as well or did not have enough evidence to prove that they were trans-friendly as the guidelines for markings state.
I tried to see if I could correct these issues, seeing as shinigami eyes is, supposedly, community run in their tags. However, clearing someone's name did not update them on other browsers - even after waiting a considerable amount of time for it to hopefully update. This leads me to believe that tagging is only local, and that global tags (what everyone sees) are done by the developers/mod team of shinigami eyes. Therefore, there is no true way to correct someone's marking. I have seen rumors floating that AI is involved in the tagging, but can find no evidence for or against this claim.
TL;DR
This is NOT useful for trans safety. You will end up blocking a lot of innocent people, and possibly following some very unkind people with harmful beliefs.
I did extensive research on who was marked by this extension, and tested on multiple browsers. I went through over 20 tumblr blogs over the course of a couple days. Plenty of the blogs marked red had no history of transphobia even after over an hour of searching their post history. Even one blog, that I'd been following for years and had shown not even the slightest hint of transphobia or controversy, was marked red. I only found one or two blogs marked red that were actually transphobic, and I would not have needed shinigami eyes to tell. It was clear simply from looking at what they wrote in their profiles (self-identifying as transphobic, for example). So, in terms of identifying transphobes at a glance, shinigami eyes has so far not been helpful.
What I find interesting (and concerning), however, is the common thread of blogs marked red. What all blogs marked red that weren't transphobic (which was almost all of the ones I found) shared in common was that they spoke on the issues trans men, intersex people, and nonbinary people face - or, shared positivity and showed kindness towards those groups. Moreover, blogs that were actively hostile towards trans men, intersex, and nonbinary people, tended to more often be marked green. I was more focused on investigating the red blogs, but from what I saw, green blogs were often quite transphobic as well or did not have enough evidence to prove that they were trans-friendly as the guidelines for markings state.
I tried to see if I could correct these issues, seeing as shinigami eyes is, supposedly, community run in their tags. However, clearing someone's name did not update them on other browsers - even after waiting a considerable amount of time for it to hopefully update. This leads me to believe that tagging is only local, and that global tags (what everyone sees) are done by the developers/mod team of shinigami eyes. Therefore, there is no true way to correct someone's marking. I have seen rumors floating that AI is involved in the tagging, but can find no evidence for or against this claim.
TL;DR
This is NOT useful for trans safety. You will end up blocking a lot of innocent people, and possibly following some very unkind people with harmful beliefs.
1,450 reviews
- In my experience, those marked red tend to fall into two categories: "person/group so outwardly transphobic that the marking, though accurate, is unnecessary" and "trans/nonbinary/intersex person who got into argument with a(nother) trans person but showed no evidence of transphobia, even when I went looking for it." Not every marking falls into those two categories, but the latter happens frequently enough that I don't trust Shinigami Eyes to be accurate when it actually matters.
- Rated 1 out of 5by Krusnov, 4 days agoI thought all the 1 star reviews were just a bunch of transphobes but no this thing just randomly marks people, basically anything that talks about trans people will be marked red regardless of context
- Rated 1 out of 5by Star, 8 days ago
- Rated 1 out of 5by bababooey, 10 days ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by #MCDF, 11 days agoAn extension made to help trans people avoid bigots helps you do that.
Yes, some trans people are bigots. If you think this in some way works against the stated purpose because your Tumblr blog or Reddit profile or whatever is red, you should perhaps interrogate your beliefs before review bombing a web extension. - Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 19710293, 14 days agoGreat way to avoid anyone who isnt a transfeminist. I always check and it's yet to be wrong
- Rated 5 out of 5by villain, 14 days agoShinigami Eyes is very effective and has helped me steer clear of transmisogynists. It's true what they say that a majority of the negative reviews are transmisogynists who were marked red by the eyes and instead of self-reflecting and looking inward, they instead get angry and give this extension 1 star. Highly recommend using it, it's helped saved many trans women from bigoted interactions from cisgender bigots and transmasculine people who are incapable of empathizing with anyone different from them. (Love, a transmasc person <3)
- Rated 5 out of 5by faken, 15 days ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 20091312, 17 days ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Kat_, 20 days agoI do think there are silly red ratings that don't actually help with anything, such as rating historical figures (wow are you telling me Hitler was transphobic?), the addon is solid. You really cannot always trust someone who is marked green, but if you are a transfem, you sould really stay away from anyone marked red, no matter how much they whinge about it. Every time I checked, there was good reason to mark them red (participating in mass harassment campaigns, constantly being antifeminist, being friends/mutuals with actual radfems, peddling male/female socialization type rhetoric and other bio-essentialist garbage). 100% of those 1 star reviews are from transmisogynists and it's clear to see. When they talk about radfem trans women, they're not referring to the small minority of transfems who try to recycle actual radfem ideology (an incorrect position) but any trans woman who might've read Whipping Girl or has a basic understanding of intersectionality or is just a bit too uppity.
Take their 1star reviews as good reason to install this addon. - Rated 5 out of 5by windowsxp, 23 days ago
- Rated 1 out of 5by opek, 23 days ago
- Rated 1 out of 5by Incendiary, 23 days ago
- Rated 1 out of 5by h.h., 24 days ago
- Rated 2 out of 5by sd, 24 days agoI used it for many years. It used to be very good for telling if someone is more covert about their transphobia-
However, lately, the people doing all the rating and anybody who might be approving those ratings only seem to care only about discrimination against trans women, and nobody else. This extension was never for ONLY labeling transmisogyny, it was for transphobia as a whole.
Before anyone makes assumptions, I am not saying that transmisogyny is not a serious issue. It is very serious and you should defend your trans sisters. But it is not the only issue, and it is not the only focus of this extension.
Taken directly from the github: "This extension is focused on anti-trans (including anti-nonbinary) sentiment".
I have seen many people who are blatantly anti-nonbinary being flagged as "trans-friendly". I have seen people going as far as to say trans men should be killed flagged as "trans-friendly".
I will not deny that most people flagged as red deserve it, because it is true.
But lately, I have seen many people doing nothing but pointing out intersexism in trans communities get flagged as red, as well as people acknowledging that trans men also face discrimination (not even using that "transandrophobia" term which people seem to hate so much) flagged as red.
Trans women and trans men both face discrimination, which often presents itself in different ways. Trans women tend to be hyper visible (many anti-trans laws focusing on trans women, being afraid of "men" in women's restrooms, sports teams, etc., V-coding in prisons, and more), while trans men tend to be erased (deaths -often due to transphobic hate crimes - get labeled as femicide, reduced to "mentally ill women" or that they were "manipulated", correctively raped, the identities trans men throughout history get erased, and more). They are both serious issues, and both should be talked about.
I have also seen many very loud racists i have seen labeled "trans-friendly" purely because they also happen to be trans. The extension github also mentions something along this line- "Being transgender, having some decent minimum standard like "hurting people = bad", or supporting the overall LGBT community" is underneath the header "Not enough to mark as trans-friendly". Somebody who only has respect for specific groups of trans people should not be considered "trans-friendly"
I understand that proper moderation for this extension is tough if not outright impossible. But i am pretty tired of bad actors poisoning the well for seemingly no reason other than to cause infighting.
Also, not the most relevant, but I have also seen many people talk about purposefully flagging users as anti-trans over petty discourse (especially fandom-related) that has nothing to do with trans people or even LGBT issues as a whole. I would not be surprised if at least some of those flags have made it through to other users.
Because of this I started to feel it would be useful to have a function to submit WHY somebody is being flagged for whichever reason, though with more thought, that would likely only be abused as well if not properly moderated... - Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 20071927, a month ago
- Rated 2 out of 5by SpoopySoup, a month agoI just want a little bit more transparency, more options in the options page (like more colors for ones you marked yourself, or if it was verified by the team running this), maybe hover notes on why a page was submitted and colored with simple 'time updated' metadata, because what if the mark was from ages ago and nobody looked to update it if it was someone being 14 or something 10 years ago.
I use it mostly to take a page, blog, or person with a grain of salt and to look into it myself, because sometimes transmeds can be green and someone simply with unusual pronouns for their gender can be red.
I probably used this for so long every time I see a colored blog it likely is my mark that's clientside, which is why I still use it, since I constantly curate it.
Nobody can perfectly verify everything and some can fly under the radar, if you are using this plugin, PLEASE don't be afraid to mark/submit your findings too, there may be issues but you can help by submitting the correct dropdown even if its already marked. Even clearing marks is helpful. - Rated 2 out of 5by siam, a month agonot much help when it doesnt tell you why someone was marked red. when i come across a youtube channel marked red, and the channel is nothing but innocuous content unrelated to lgbt issues, am i supposed to just believe that? im not going through all their social media to find the truth. transphobia is a heavy accusation, you best have a good reason for it.
- Rated 5 out of 5by tumbwr, a month ago
- Rated 1 out of 5by Firefox user 16038924, a month ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by NyxieNyxious, a month ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Foosy, a month ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 19984572, a month agoThe negative reviews are from terf bots, ignore.
- Rated 5 out of 5by tom9mi, a month ago