RacialDiscrimination
Latest
Google settles with contractor over alleged racial discrimination
As much as Google talks about being inclusive of other cultures, it might have some more work to do. The Guardian has learned that Google recently settled a racial discrimination claim from a British contractor who collected shopping mall WiFi data for the Maps team in Europe. Allegedly, the company withdrew an offer for a new contract after the man (going by the pseudonym Ahmed Rashid) complained about harassment and racial profiling from mall staff and security due to his Moroccan roots. The company had a "complete disregard" for safety by insisting on secrecy for the project, Rashid said -- he couldn't tell others he was coming or flash ID to allay their suspicions.
Uber and Lyft aren't immune to racial discrimination by drivers
For a while, ridesharing has been seen as a possible solution to the racial discrimination you sometimes see with taxis. If drivers can't always see or hear you first, they're less likely to reject your request, right? Unfortunately, the industry isn't entirely color-blind. A newly published study reveals that there's still some bias in the ridesharing world. Uber drivers in Boston were over twice as likely to cancel rides on people with black-sounding names, for example, while black men waiting for rides in Seattle faced tangibly longer wait times for both Lyft and Uber.
Big data shows racial bias in police behavior
Stanford University just delivered further proof that massive, readily available data sets can solve tricky law enforcement problems. School researchers combing through a mix of 28,119 Oakland Police Department stop reports, officer body camera footage and community surveys have learned that there are "significant" racial biases at play. OPD officers are not only more likely to stop a black person, but far more likely to conduct searches of black people, even though they weren't any more likely to find something incriminating. Officers more frequently handcuffed black people without arresting them, too. And the pattern is the same regardless of the crime rate in a given region.
