From the Color of Change…

Color Of Change, the nation’s largest online racial justice organization, today launched the “Black Tech Agenda” which is endorsed by several prominent members of Congress: Senator Cory Booker (NJ), Senator Elizabeth Warren (MA), Representative Robin Kelly (IL-02), and Representative Pramila Jayapal (WA-07).

The Black Tech agenda sets an affirmative vision for how to create tech policy that centers racial justice, ensuring bias and discrimination are rooted out from the digital lives of Black people and everyone. The agenda has 6 pillars which outline real policy solutions for Congress to advance racial equity in Tech:

• Advancing Robust Antitrust Policy: Create fair markets where Black businesses can compete, Black workers can thrive and Black people have abundant options;
• Protecting Privacy and Ending Surveillance: Limiting monopoly power to create fair markets where Black businesses can compete, Black workers can thrive and Black people have abundant options;
• Preventing Algorithmic Discrimination: Forcing companies to address discrimination in their decision-making through independent audits and repair the harm that has happened;
• Expanding Broadband Access: Ensuring everyone has high quality, affordable internet;
• Supporting Net Neutrality: Treat all internet traffic equally and designate the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) as its regulatory body; and
• Addressing the Disinformation and Misinformation Crisis: Changing the incentives for profiting from harm by regulating optimization algorithms and reducing monopoly power.

The Black Tech Agenda, as a comprehensive roadmap to prioritizing the policies that impact Black communities on and offline, is an effort to distinguish the real solutions to advance racial equity from fake, self-regulated suggestions proposed by Big Tech.