By Betty Vandenbosch, Chief Content Officer at Coursera At Coursera, we believe that learning is the source of human progress — that it has the power to transform our world. In 2020, we strengthened our commitment to address systemic racism through learning. We focused on creating social justice and anti-racism content and elevating Black voices […]
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Tag: brutality
Google Removes Android App That Was Used To Spy On Belarusian Protesters
Google has removed an Android app from the Play Store that was used to collect personal information from Belarusians attending anti-government protests. ZDNet reports: The app, named NEXTA LIVE, was available for almost three weeks on the official Android Play Store, and was downloaded thousands of times and received hundreds of reviews. To get installs, NEXT LIVE claimed to be the…
How Google Docs Became the Social Media of the Resistance
An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: In just the last week, Google Docs has emerged as a way to share everything from lists of books on racism to templates for letters to family members and representatives to lists of funds and resources that are accepting donations. Shared Google Docs that anyone can view and anyone can edit,…
Mobilewalla Used Cellphone Data To Estimate the Demographics of Protesters
An anonymous reader quotes a report from BuzzFeed News: On the weekend of May 29, thousands of people marched, sang, grieved, and chanted, demanding an end to police brutality and the defunding of police departments in the aftermath of the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. They marched en masse in cities like Minneapolis, New York, Los Angeles, and…
California City Bans Predictive Policing In US First
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: As officials mull steps to tackle police brutality and racism, California’s Santa Cruz has become the first U.S. city to ban predictive policing, which digital rights experts said could spark similar moves across the country. “Understanding how predictive policing and facial recognition can be disportionately biased against people of color, we officially banned…
Many Police Departments Have Software That Can Identify People In Crowds
An anonymous reader quotes a report from BuzzFeed News: As protesters demand an end to police brutality and the coronavirus pandemic sweeps the nation, police departments around the country are using software that can track and identify people in crowds from surveillance footage — often with little to no public oversight or knowledge. Dozens of cities around the country are using…
Amazon Pauses Police Use of Facial Recognition Tech For a Year
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Amazon on Wednesday said it was implementing a one-year moratorium on police use of its facial recognition software, reversing its long-time support of selling the technology to law enforcement. Civil liberties activists have voiced concern that facial recognition could lead to unjust arrests during demonstrations against police brutality, racial injustice and the death…
Facebook Moderators Join Criticism of Zuckerberg Over Trump Stance
Pressure from Facebook staff is continuing to mount on Mark Zuckerberg over his policies towards posts by Donald Trump, with moderators joining those criticizing their boss for his stance. From a report: The moderators penned an open letter to their colleagues in support of virtual walkouts that have broken out at the company, after Zuckerberg refused to take down posts by…
When the Police Get Filmed, Is There More Accountability?
Slashdot reader DevNull127 writes: Racism is not getting worse. It’s getting filmed,” Will Smith said in 2016. And this week the Washington Post noted a parallel pattern emerging: videos of violent police encounters which “contrast sharply with accounts by the departments or their unions.” The Post provides four examples of police officials providing “inaccurate or outright misleading descriptions of what has…
How to actually stop police brutality, according to science
Though the issues brought up by this week’s George Floyd protests run deep, there is evidence that certain policy changes can lead to less violent police departments. Source: https://www.livescience.com/evidence-police-brutality-reform.html