Thread by @evan_greer

Happy Pride Month! Because I am a no fun trans femme buzzkill, here's a THREAD of tech related battles that directly affect LGBTQ+ folks, especially trans women of color and sex workers, that are largely being ignored by the mainstream gay rights movement.

1. FACIAL RECOGNITION: this uniquely dangerous form of surveillance supercharges government and corporate oppression, automates racist policing and social control, & could easily be used by hate groups to target and out queer people. LGBTQ+ groups should join the call for a ban.

2. ATTACKS ON SECTION 230: politicians from both major parties are increasing their misguided and disingenuous attacks on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a foundational law for free expression & human rights. The last major change, SESTA/FOSTA, got people killed.

3. ATTACKS ON ENCRYPTION: one of the more recent proposals to change Section 230 was the EARN IT Act, a bill that also attempts to criminalize end-to-end encryption tech like Signal and iMessage. These attacks on privacy and security disproportionately harm vulnerable queer folk

4. CALLS FOR CENSORSHIP: liberal groups in the US are increasingly calling for social media platforms to simply remove more content faster in the name of addressing hate speech and disinformation. Without a human rights based approach this just means marginalized ppl get silenced

5. APPLE'S APP STORE MONOPOLY: wait but Tim Cook is gay, right? Sigh. Apple refuses to allow people to install software on their phones except through their highly restrictive app store, which regularly rejects apps with LGBTQ content, or censors them on behalf of governments.

6. "GENDER RECOGNITION": alongside facial recognition there is a growing array of artificial intelligence surveillance tech that claims to be able to identify things like gender and emotions based on someone's voice or appearance, see Spotify for example: stopspotifysurveillance.org

7. AMAZON'S SURVEILLANCE EMPIRE: more surveillance means less safety for the vast majority of LGBTQ+ people, and Amazon is hurtling us toward a total surveillance state, from Ring camera partnerships with police to AI-powered surveillance on their fleet of delivery vehicles.

8. DMCA TAKEDOWNS & ABUSE: ok i know it's hard to see copyright law as a major issue with everything else going on in the world, but the fact is that the censorship regime created by DMCA and copyright maximalism is regularly weaponized against LGBTQ+ content creators & streamers

9. DEPLATFORMING SEX WORKERS: beyond social media, more & more online services are actively discriminating against sex workers, many of whom are LGBTQ folks. Payment processors, apps like Patreon, major credit cards are caving to pressure from law enforcement & religious groups

10. BIG TECH MONOPOLIES: the Internet can be a force for connection & liberation for LGBTQ+ people, but as it becomes centralized into monopolies built on surveillance capitalism & algorithmic discrimination, it's becoming a force for oppression & violence. We have to change that

There are obviously a ton of other crucial battles & a lot more to say about each of the ones above, but the bottom line here is that any movement claiming to fight for queer & trans people needs to be paying attention to the ways that technology specifically impacts LGBTQ+ folks

That doesn't just mean companies hiring more queer software developers or giving us a new emoji for Pride month. It means actually listening to the concerns of the most vulnerable members of the LGBTQ+ community, and prioritizing the issues facing those most impacted.

If you run a progressive organization that claims to support LGBTQ+ folks & you're not working on any of the issues above ask yourself why. If your organization is calling for changes to Section 230 & you haven't considered the impact on trans folks & sex workers ask yourself why

The Internet has given queer & trans people more of a voice in mainstream society than ever before. But visibility doesn't necessarily translate to justice and liberation unless we fight for it. Let's not repeat our mistakes. Let's fight for EVERYONE. washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/1…

Surveillance is an LGBTQ+ rights issue. Some countries are already using facial recognition to enforce not just laws but social norms. Surveillance is about controlling our bodies and expression. Fighting surveillance should be a core value of any org fighting for LGBTQ+ folks.

Privacy is not just about what we have to "hide," it's about our ability to evolve. If the US government had ubiquitous facial recognition surveillance just a few decades ago when queerness was criminalized in most states, could the modern LGBTQ rights movement ever have formed?

Far right groups have increasingly attempted to co-opt the framework of free speech, even as they lead a massive a campaign of legal discrimination and violence to suppress trans and queer people's ability to express ourselves, our genders, and our sexualities safely.

We should not allow bigots who want to silence vulnerable people to claim to be the true defenders of free expression. Those who support LGBTQ+ folks need to speak clearly & oppose careless attempts to "sanitize" the Internet without regard for the collateral damage of censorship

I don't want Big Tech monopolies with a rainbow flag. I don't want surveillance and weapons vendors that hire trans women. I don't want corporate festivals sponsored by companies that routinely violate human rights. I don't want assimilation or acceptance. Liberation NOW!