Activism
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Hitting the Books: High school students have spent a decade fighting Baltimore's toxic legacy
In Fighting to Breathe: Race, Toxicity, and the Rise of Youth Activism in Baltimore, Dr. Nicole Fabricant of Towson University, chronicles the participatory action research of local students between 2011 and 2021, organizing and mobilizing their communities to fight back against a century of environmental injustice.
Three Google workers sue over alleged violations of 'don't be evil' motto
Former Google workers have sued the company for allegedly violating the 'don't be evil' part of its policy by firing them for opposing controversial projects.
Itch.io offers 700 games in a pay-what-you-want racial justice bundle
Itch.io is supporting racial justice and equality with a 700-game pay-what-you-want bundle that donates proceeds to social groups.
Google fires employee activist amid protests
Google has fired at least one of the employees accusing it of retaliating against workplace organizers. Rebecca Rivers has confirmed that she's been fired as part of a larger move that terminated four employees. In a memo obtained by Bloomberg, the company's Security and Investigations Team claimed that the four had committed "clear and repeated violations" of data security policies, and that they hadn't just glanced at calendars or files during work as had been claimed before.
Protesters accuse Google of retaliating against organizing workers (updated)
Tensions between Google and its employees aren't about to ease up any time soon. Staff held a protest in San Francisco on November 23rd that accused Google of retaliating against two workers, Laurence Berland and Rebecca Rivers, for workplace organizing. The two were placed on indefinite leave earlier in November for allegedly violating company policy through improper document access, but Berland, Rivers and supporters believe that was really just a pretext for punishing activism.
Amazon employees call for a company-wide climate change plan
Amazon is the next tech giant to face mounting calls to action from its employees. A total of 3,541 employees have published an open letter asking Jeff Bezos and other leaders to adopt a shareholder resolution and release a "company-wide" climate change plan meeting their terms. Some are clarifications of existing initiatives, while others would require a significant shake-up in its existing strategy.
'World's longest' electric car trip ends in Australia
One of the more prominent campaigns for mainstream electric car adoption has just come to a close. The Netherlands' Wiebe Wakker has officially completed what's billed as the "world's longest electric car trip," stopping a roughly three-year, 59,000-mile journey from Amsterdam to Sydney, Australia. He set out on March 15th, 2016 in a modified VW Golf as part of the Plug Me In initiative, which aimed to show the feasibility and advantages of EVs. The journey took him across 33 countries and relied on a combination of volunteers (for accommodations, charging and food) as well as sponsors that included tech giants like Adobe and Canon.
Facebook introduces political petitions to your News Feed
Facebook's efforts to improve civic engagement are expanding beyond easy access to politicians and voter registration campaigns. As of January 21st, it's launching a Community Actions feature in the US that brings political petitions to the News Feed. Creators just have to write a description, tag the relevant political figures and watch the support roll in. A discussion section lets people both comment on petitions and run their own support campaigns, such as events or call-your-representative drives. You can see the number of people who've backed a petition, but you'll only see names for friends or public figures.
Thousands descended on DC to march for truth and science
A balmy Friday evening gave way to a miserable Saturday, with low, gray clouds that blotted out the sun and soaked Washington DC with rain. That wasn't enough to stop thousands of people -- from all over the country -- from gathering on the grounds in front of the Washington Monument to march for science. It's no wonder, either.
London police allegedly used hackers to target activists
If it wasn't already clear why it's a problem when police surveillance goes wrong, it is now. An independent investigator is looking into claims that London's Metropolitan Police used an illegal, roundabout way to access the emails of activists and journalists. An anonymous former worker alleges that a Met intelligence unit took advantage of India "counterparts" that used hackers to obtain email logins for innocent people ranging from Greenpeace protesters to Guardian reporters. The snooping had been going on for a "number of years," according to the insider, and there was reportedly widespread document shredding to cover up the monitoring.
Lyft donates to the ACLU in response to Trump's immigration ban
More than a few tech companies have voiced opposition to President Trump's Muslim-focused immigration ban, but Lyft is going the distance by making a firm financial commitment. The ridesharing outfit has promised to donate $1 million to the American Civil Liberties Union over the next four years in a bid to "defend our Constitution." Trump's policy goes against both Lyft's inclusive beliefs and the "nation's core values," the company says, and the team "will not be silent" on issues like this.
Black Lives Matter site faced over 100 attacks in half a year
When you launch protests in the modern era, you don't just have to worry about aggressive responses on the streets... you have to worry about your online presence, too. Deflect Labs has determined that Black Lives Matter's official website was subject to over 100 botnet-based denial of service attacks between April 29th and October 15th, a large part of it coming from members of a Ghost Squad hacking collective that had vocally denounced BLM's campaign. And it didn't require many people, either. Just two culprits (who may be the same person) launched nearly a fifth of the attacks, one of which tried to flood the site with traffic using nearly 1 million bots.
Free The Vote: A game developer's journey to political activism
We all have a tipping point. There's a moment when we hear about one more act of violence or one more slight against people in our community, and all of the injustice we've witnessed in a particular situation suddenly coalesces into clear conviction. At this moment, we can't sit silently and watch anymore. We are compelled to act. Dain Saint's tipping point was the shooting death of both Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, two black men who died at the hands of police officers just one day apart from each other in July. "I couldn't do nothing, but I didn't know what to do," Saint says. To gather his thoughts, he wrote a post on Medium titled We Can Be Better. It's a call to action and a raw, eye-opening take on the state of trust, fear and empathy in America. As a black engineer living in Philadelphia, Saint himself is realistic but filled with optimism, and so is his blog post.
Your Facebook check-in won't help North Dakota protestors
There's a new viral message making its way through your Facebook friends' status updates today. The copy-paste chain letter message claims that police in Morton County, North Dakota are using Facebook check-ins to target demonstrators and disrupt protests of the Dakota Access Pipeline, while also calling on everyone to check in at the location "to overwhelm and confuse" law enforcement officials. Unfortunately for everyone at home, the rumor is false and status-update-based activism will do little to actually support the protestors' cause.
Hashtags help survivors break their silence
Last Friday, the Washington Post revealed a video recorded in 2005 of Donald Trump and Access Hollywood co-host Billy Bush engaged in a lewd and crass discussion about women. Caught on a hot mic, Trump said that he can grab women "by the pussy," that he starts kissing them without waiting for consent and that he can get away with it because he's a "star." Trump has since come under fire for his remarks, not just because they are vulgar, but because what he is describing is sexual assault.
Anti-pipeline activists claim Facebook censored their live video
Facebook has long had a tough time walking a fine line when it comes to political material, and the pressure isn't about to let up any time soon. Unicorn Riot maintains that Facebook censored their live stream of a protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline, deleting the Livestream.com link shortly before two of its reporters were caught up in a mass arrest. Comments and posts popped up security alerts when they contained the link, and Facebook's debugger insisted that the web address ran afoul of "community standards."
Apple patches three zero-day exploits after activist is hacked
Apple has rolled out a patch for three previously unknown zero-day exploits that were used to target the iPhone 6 of Ahmed Mansoor, an award-winning human rights activist based in the United Arab Emirates. Security company Lookout and internet watchdog group Citizen Lab investigated the attack on Mansoor's iPhone and found it to be the product of NSO Group, a "cyber war" organization based in Israel that's responsible for distributing a powerful, government-exclusive spyware product called Pegasus.
UK spies tracked Middle East activists with a web link shortener
Intelligence agencies don't always rely on hacks to monitor and influence political events. Motherboard has learned that the UK's GCHQ created its own URL shortener, lurl.me, to both disseminate pro-revolution talk during Iranian and Arab Spring protests as well as track activists. Puppet accounts would use lurl.me to help get around government censorship, while GCHQ would send special links to help identify activists who were otherwise hard to follow. The combination also made it easy to understand the effectiveness of revolutionary campaigns online -- if many people clicked a link and behavior changed, GCHQ would know that its efforts made a difference.
Activists say Vietnam shut down Facebook during Obama's visit
During President Obama's three-day trip to Vietnam this week, authorities in the country blocked access to Facebook in an attempt to silence political dissidents, according to reports from two activist organizations. Digital-rights group Access Now and local pro-democracy organization Viet Tan collected reports from within the country and concluded that Facebook was fully blocked or restricted in Vietnam from Sunday through Wednesday, Reuters reports.
Anonymous says it's outing 1,000 prominent KKK members (updated)
Anonymous is no stranger to risky internet activism, and its latest campaign is no exception to the rule. The hacking-focused collective claims that it's outing "up to" 1,000 people who are either Ku Klux Klan members or "close associates" of KKK factions. It says it'll reveal all on November 5th, but an early data leak already purports to name-and-shame mayors, members of Congress and police officers (including cops in Ferguson, Missouri). If true, the details would potentially wreck more than a few careers -- especially those of people who use roundabout methods to support the Klan while keeping their racist connections a secret.
