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RECENT VICTORIES

Tampa’s District Attorney Drops Bogus Charges Against COC & BLM Organizers

This summer, Tampa’s Police Department systematically tried to intimidate and harass Black activists. On August 22, the sheriff violently arrested a Color Of Change organizer in her home and arrested 3 other organizers – all on trumped-up, bogus charges. This was clearly meant to instill fear in activists fighting for racial justice. These tactics are not unique to Tampa. We’ve seen local police and federal agents target protesters in Portland, New York, Chicago, and St. Louis too. 50,000 Color Of Change members joined our campaign to drop the prosecution of the protesters and fire the police chief. Less than 2 weeks later, the Hillsborough State Attorney dropped the charges. We hope it sends a signal to Tampa police that there will be consequences for harassing and intimidating Black protesters.

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Google Blocks Proud Boys’ Website & Online Store

We were all horrified when, on live TV during the presidential debates, President Trump told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” instead of condemning white nationalists. But Color Of Change’s work to pressure tech companies to take responsibility for how their platforms are used is having an impact. Google quickly moved to get a Google Cloud Services customer to remove the Proud Boys’ site and online store – effectively cutting off the hate group from new money and potential members. They also worked with us when news broke about the Wolverine Watchmen, the group plotting to kidnap Michigan Governor Whitmer. We cannot let domestic terrorists build power online. It’s time for tech companies to create systems to proactively root out racist, extremist behavior on their platforms, instead of waiting for groups like Color Of Change to call them out.

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Twitter Adds Protections Based on Race & Ethnicity to Its Content Policy

In another win towards stopping the spread of hate online, Twitter announced it will expand its “dehumanization content policy” to protect people based on race, ethnicity, national origin, and caste. This move reflects the power of Color Of Change members and the Change the Terms coalition, which met with Twitter executives in 2018 and have been pushing the company to take a stronger stance since. It’s a huge step towards protecting Black social media users and getting rid of racist and violence-inciting tweets. Until now, Twitter has been slow to reign in far-right extremists, letting misinformation around the elections to spread. Going forward our focus will be on ensuring that Twitter enforces the new policy. Examples of the kind of content that will now be banned can be found here.

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Color Of Change helps people respond effectively to injustice in the world around us. As a national online force driven by 7 million members, we move decision makers in corporations and government to create a more human and less hostile world for Black people, and all people. Until justice is real.

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