[Racism News]
Change of Terms Coalition will hold press conference on Aug. 7 to talk about “how online hate turns into offline violence, and how Twitter’s failure to remove purveyors of hate in the two years since the Unite the Right attacks serve to allow white supremacists to organize, fundraise, recruit and normalize attacks on diverse communities and threaten all users.”
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
On August 7 at 12 pm Eastern, the Change the Terms Coalition will hold a press call with leaders from Charlottesville calling on Twitter to ban White supremacists from their platform.
Participants from Charlottesville will discuss how online hate turns into offline violence, and how Twitter’s failure to remove purveyors of hate in the two years since the Unite the Right attacks serve to allow White supremacists to organize, fundraise, recruit and normalize attacks on diverse communities and threaten all users.
All speakers will connect their personal experiences to the danger that Twitter’s continued inaction poses.
Twitter’s latest policy announcement limits dehumanizing tweets against religious groups. However, it allows tweets that target individuals or groups based on their actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, immigration status, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability.
The Change the Terms coalition, that includes more than 55 human, civil, and digital rights groups – including Free Press, Southern Poverty Law Center, Center for American Progress, MediaJustice, Color of Change and Muslim Advocates – have been meeting with major tech platforms over the past year to urge them to strengthen their terms and conditions to reduce hateful activities online.
Press Call Details:
WHAT: A press call to launch and discuss the Change the Terms coalition’s campaign demanding Twitter remove and ban White supremacists from their platform.
WHO:
Jessica J. González, Vice President of Strategy and Senior Counsel at Free Press and Co-founder of Change The Terms
Don Gathers, community activist, Co-founder of the Charlottesville chapter of Black Lives Matter, and Former Chair of Charlottesville’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials, and Public Spaces
Lisa Woolfork, Associate Professor at the University of Virginia, author of Embodying Slavery in Contemporary Culture, Charlottesville Black Lives Matter organizer
Steven Renderos, Co-Director of MediaJustice
WHEN: Wednesday, December 7 at 12 pm Eastern (9 am Pacific)
RSVP: Please RSVP to Darwin Pham at [email protected] or 916.320.8699 to receive the dial in.
Change the Terms is a coalition calling on Big Tech to institute and enforce service agreement prohibitions on hateful activities to protect public safety and respect diverse voices. The coalition includes more than 50 civil rights, human rights, technology policy, and consumer protection organizations dedicated to encouraging social media sites, payment processors and chat services to commit to fair, effective and transparent rules and practices for content moderation.
