Diversity

The New York Times has created a "gender editor" position, naming former Newsweek editor Jessica Bennett to the new role. "Jessica is the author of Feminist Fight Club, an illustrated battle manual for fighting sexism at work, and a coveted campus and corporate speaker on gender, identity and digital culture," reads a press release from The Times. "At Newsweek, she coauthored a cover story about the women who had sued the magazine for discrimination in 1970, and as executive editor of Tumblr, she helped oversee the first live-GIFed presidential debate. She also once interned for the late Trump biographer Wayne Barrett," the announcement continues. The paper adds that Bennett will lead "a multi-pronged initiative to deepen the engagement of female readers around the world."

Reps Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ) and Emanual Cleaver (D-MO), two black lawmakers, sharply rebuked Twitter this week for serving as “an avenue to spread racism and bigotry” — and threatened regulation if the tech industry as a whole doesn’t identify and suspend the accounts behind those messages. The calls for action came in a letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey sent on Oct 3.

For them, the tipping point appears to be reports that Russian agents sought to stir political unrest ahead of the 2016 presidential election by stoking racial tensions, even running ads targeting groups like Black Lives Matter. “As a result of the far-reaching nature of Twitter’s technology, we have seen an effort to undermine our democracy, create or fan flames of racial divisions, and spread hate speech that can ultimately cumulate into violence,” the two Democratic lawmakers wrote. “We are disturbed by the ease in which foreign actors were able to manipulate your platform to advance anti-American sentiments that both exacerbates racial tension and ultimately threatens our democracy,” they continued. “More importantly, we are disappointed by the silence from you and others in your industry on ways to counter such blatant manipulation of this medium to build racial animosity, the consequences of which are quite literally life threatening.”

[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission Chairman, Ajit Pai, a former Verizon lawyer, has spoken eloquently about the “digital divide” and his commitment to resolving it. His solution? Creating the same market conditions that fueled the divide in the first place.

Pai’s approach is a field of dreams that suggests, “If we let them (internet service providers, or ISPs), they will provide it.” But that business model, at least for many of the large incumbents, has left far too many offline. Pai has suggested that broadband deserts are created by the boogie man of government regulation. But ISPs will invest only when they need to and they likely don’t see the need to right now. The problem we face is getting service to those who are too costly to serve. Pai needs to see that the pattern of exclusion in broadband results from the failure of business models, not merely the presence of regulations.

[Maya Wiley is a Henry J. Cohen Professor of Urban Policy & Management at The New School.]

In this case study, we argue that barriers to broadband access, one aspect of the digital divide for low income communities of color, stem from a myriad of factors including deregulation of the telecommunications industry and a history of segregation of and disinvestment in neighborhoods of color. Specifically:
The deregulation of the telecommunications sector in the 1990s allowed sweeping consolidation of the industry and created a broadband market with significantly less competition between firms, steeper prices, and slower speeds compared to other industrialized nations.
Regulators do not hold internet service providers (ISPs) accountable to universal build out requirements, which the government enacted in exchange for granting monopolies in the market. This monopolized and deregulated environment has allowed ISPs to upgrade digital infrastructure in the most profitable, high-income areas first. The persistence of de facto racial segregation of neighborhoods means such investments (and lack thereof) result in digital redlining of a disproportionate number of neighborhoods of color and rural areas of all races.

Black and Latino representation has declined in Silicon Valley, and although Asians are the most likely to be hired, they are the least likely to be promoted, according to a new study exposing persistent racial prejudice in the tech industry.

The research from not-for-profit organization Ascend Foundation, which examined official employment data from 2007 to 2015, suggests that people of color are widely marginalized and denied career opportunities in tech – and that the millennial generation is unlikely to crack the glass ceiling for minorities. “There have been no changes for Asians or any other minority over time – men or women,” said Buck Gee, the study’s co-author and an executive adviser to Ascend, a US-based research group that advocates for Asian representation in businesses. For some groups, he added, “It’s actually worse.”

While women and people of color are employed at tech companies in larger numbers than they used to be, their upward mobility at those companies has stagnated. From 2007 to 2015, white men consistently composed a higher share of executive roles than professional roles at tech companies, the study found. It’s the reverse for Asians, Hispanics and blacks, especially if they’re women.

Rep Robin Kelly (D-IL), a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, is pushing Facebook to strengthen its advertising standards after Russian operatives used the company’s ad service to attack groups like Black Lives Matter during the 2016 elections. In a letter sent to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Rep Robin Kelly pressed the company to “ensure that discriminatory and tactically divisive ad-targeting is aggressively prevented.” The Illinois Democrat pointed to Russian-linked Facebook pages that promoted “incendiary anti-immigrant rallies, targeted the Black Lives Matter movement and focused attentions on critical election swing states like Wisconsin and Michigan.” “It is my belief that Facebook cannot be the Trojan horse through which America’s vulnerabilities are exploited,” Kelly continued.

Women and minorities have seen significant gains among first-time directors in episodic television, a new study from the Directors Guild of America shows. The study of the just-concluded 2016-17 season, released Sept 27, shows the percentage of ethnic minority first-time TV directors more than doubling since 2009-10 and the percentage of women nearly tripling.

“Finally, after years of our efforts to educate the industry, hold employers accountable through our contracts, and push them to do better, we’re seeing signs of meaningful improvement,” said DGA president Thomas Schlamme. The DGA has been studying first-time hires since the 2009-10 season. The new report shows that 56 (or 25%) of all first-time hires in the 2016-17 season were ethnic minorities, up from 24 in the 2015-16 season; 73 (or 32%) were women, up from 38 in the prior season; and 18 (or 8%) were female minorities, up from six.

Allow me to quickly reiterate my call for five policies I believe can help move the needle when it comes to digital inclusion. We have seen how the phenomenal success of low-power FM (LPFM) is playing out in local communities across this country. The first call I wish to make, is for us to find ways, in which to replicate and enhance this success story for more underrepresented groups – that are largely minority and women – who are seeking to be a part of the broadcast landscape. Second, in recent years, I have called for the establishment of a pilot incubator program, aimed at increasing the number of women and minority owners in the broadcast space. Third, when divestitures are required during merger transactions, we should urge parties to strongly consider offers from women and minority business owners. Fourth, the time to act on the Commission’s independent programming NPRM is now. With a robust record of more than 36,000 filings, I believe we have enough data to move to a final order, targeting two of the worst offending practices facing many independent video programmers: “unconditional” most favored nation clauses, and unreasonable alternative distribution method provisions. And lastly, with the help of Congress, we can and should reinstate a tax certificate program, focused on promoting opportunities for new entrants.

We recruited you to put you to work. As members of the Committee, your mission is to offer guidance so that the agency can take important steps toward increasing diversity throughout the communications industry and bringing digital opportunity to all Americans.

One of your tasks will be to identify issues that might not already be on the Federal Communications Commission’s radar. Another will be to advise us about issues that we’ve already identified. Another task we’ll assign you is to examine is how we can make sure that disadvantaged communities have access to next-generation networks. Broadband can be a great equalizer when it comes to jobs, health care, education, and civic engagement. But if we don’t bridge the digital divide, communities on the wrong side of that divide will fall further behind in each of these areas. Our goal should be ubiquitous, high-speed networks that bring together all Americans—and I do mean all Americans. Last but not least, we’ll ask you to take a hard look at diversity in Silicon Valley. I look forward to working with you to increase diversity throughout the communications industry and to bring digital opportunity to all Americans.

Here are the five biggest issues causing lawmakers to look at the technology industry in a new, harsher light: The Russia investigation, A new antitrust movement, Culture wars, Sex trafficking, and Advertising algorithms.