Today, @Facebook released their civil rights audit, a product of years of pressure from our team and a growing collective of civil society, researchers and advocates. After years of pushing Facebook to prioritize the safety of Black users, here is our own audit.
First, a little background. @Facebook agreed to publicly release its civil rights audit after a meeting we had with @sherylsandberg in 2018, after it was exposed that FB hired a PR firm to malign our work with anti-Semitic and anti-Black stereotypes.
This is because Color Of Change has been pressuring Facebook since 2015, when we successfully pushed them to protect Black activists who were being doxxed by white supremacist groups after their failure to act.
In 2016, we built pressure on its surveillance of Black people, and in 2017, we met with @Facebook to demand they conduct a civil rights audit. We continued to engage with them even while they were attempting to discredit us.
Since then, we have continued to push @Facebook on its political ad policy, civil rights infrastructure and voting rights issues. Repeatedly, they made steps forward but ultimately failed to enforce their own policies to stay in the good graces of those in power.
In @Facebook’s audit, Laura Murphy, whose leadership and attempt at progress we value greatly, correctly assesses that Facebook’s approach to civil rights is incremental and counterproductive.
Our demand for a C-Suite level civil rights position has not been met, and there is no reason to believe that Facebook will prioritize civil rights protections moving forward, especially as executive leadership backchannels with Trump and far-right extremists.
We need to see:
-a civil rights infrastructure equipped for a global platform
-real enforcement of its stated policies
-resources to investigate and prohibit white supremacist hate and support for white nationalism
-concrete steps to combat bias baked into its algorithms.
-a civil rights infrastructure equipped for a global platform
-real enforcement of its stated policies
-resources to investigate and prohibit white supremacist hate and support for white nationalism
-concrete steps to combat bias baked into its algorithms.
With our democracy at stake, advertisers are joining the #StopHateForProfit campaign because the cost of doing business with @Facebook is the safety of marginalized communities. If FB won't protect free elections and public safety, Congress must intervene. Our work continues.
