Charlottesville Leaders Demand Twitter Ban White Supremacists from Platform Ahead of Deadly Unite the Right Rally Anniversary, With Change the Terms Coalition
On August 7 at 12pm 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 can join by dialing 1(800)895–3361 OR 1(785)424–1062 using the call ID: TWITTER. Please RSVP to Darwin Pham at darwin@balestramedia.com.
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.
Speakers will connect their personal experiences to the danger that Twitter’s continued inaction poses, and national experts will describe the broader implications for Twitter’s failure. Twitter’s latest policy announcement limits dehumanizing tweets against religious groups but 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, which 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, National Hispanic Media Coalition and Muslim Advocates — has been meeting with major tech platforms over the past year to urge them to strengthen their terms, conditions, transparency and enforcement 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.
HOW: Dial 1(800) 895–3361 OR 1(785)424–1062 to join the call. Call ID: TWITTER
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, August 7 at 12pm Eastern (9am Pacific)
RSVP: Please RSVP to Darwin Pham at darwin@balestramedia.com or 916.320.8699.
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.
