PRESS ADVISORY: Charlottesville Leaders Join Change the Terms Coalition to Demand That Twitter Ban White Supremacists from Platform

On Wed., Aug. 7, at 12 p.m. Eastern time, the Change the Terms coalition will hold a press call with racial-justice and anti-hate leaders from Charlottesville and call on Twitter to ban white supremacists from their platform.

Participants from Charlottesville will discuss how online hate turns into offline violence, and how Twitter’s failure to remove purveyors of hate in the two years since the deadly Unite-the-Right attacks allow white supremacists to organize, fundraise, recruit and normalize attacks on diverse communities.

Speakers will connect their personal experiences to the danger that Twitter’s continued inaction poses; national experts will describe the broader implications of Twitter's failure to address these threats. Twitter has been very reluctant to ban white nationalists and supremacists. Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke still has an active account; the white supremacist accused of murdering 51 people in Christchurch, New Zealand, was also on Twitter, where he spread Islamophobic and racist content. 

The Change the Terms coalition, which includes more than 55 human-rights, civil-rights and digital-rights groups — including Free Press, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Center for American Progress, Color Of Change, Media Justice, Muslim Advocates and the National Hispanic Media Coalition — has been meeting with major tech platforms over the past year to urge them to strengthen their terms, conditions, transparency and enforcement to reduce hateful activities online.

Press-call details:

WHAT: A press call to launch the Change the Terms coalition’s campaign demanding that Twitter remove and ban white supremacists from their platform.

HOW: Dial (800) 895-3361 OR (785) 424-1062 to join the call.  Call ID: TWITTER

WHO:

Jessica J. González, vice president of strategy and senior Counsel at Free Press and co-founder of Change the Terms

Don Gathers, community activist, co-founder of the Charlottesville chapter of Black Lives Matter, and former chair of Charlottesville’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials and Public Spaces

Steven Renderos, co-director of Media Justice

Lisa Woolfork, associate professor at the University of Virginia, author of Embodying Slavery in Contemporary Culture and Charlottesville Black Lives Matter organizer

WHEN: Wed., Aug. 7, at 12 p.m. Eastern time (9 a.m. Pacific time)

RSVP: Please RSVP to Darwin Pham at darwin@balestramedia.com or 916-320-8699.