Don't know about you, but I could sure go for a bit of good news
today.
Here's your Coronavirus Mental Health
Break:
Last week, you made something amazing happen, Microsoft
announced it will sell all of its shares of civil-liberties-abusing
facial recognition tech company AnyVision.
Microsoft announced it during the Friday afternoon media
graveyard shift hoping that no press would pick up the story. But
NBC News snapped the story up and credited the human rights
organizations involved in the #DropAnyVision campaign for the
win!
That's right, YOU, yes you were instrumental in
forcing Microsoft to respect its own ethical principles in rolling
out dangerous facial recognition technology. Now, the world
looks a little less like an Orwellian dystopian nightmare because of
your actions.
Sometimes we think that clicking on a petition doesn't matter,
well, in this case SumOfUs members set things in motion,
forced the media to scrutinize AnyVision, forced Microsoft to launch
an investigation into AnyVision with Eric Holder at the helm and,
ultimately, brought down the insidious AnyVision-Microsoft
partnerships.
When SOU members like you decide to take action, large
corporations take notice.
The #DropAnyVision campaign was powered by SumOfUs and MPower
members under the leadership of Jewish Voices for Peace. In January,
the #DropAnyVision campaign held a teach-in and petition delivery at
Microsoft campus in Redmond. Activists delivered a
75,000-signature petition, passed out fliers to Microsoft workers
and discussed how Microsoft is violating its own six ethical
principles on facial recognition technology.
Together, we made change happen.
Help
us continue leading amazing campaigns against digital espionnage and
civil rights abuses in this midst of this COVID crisis when the
health surveillance state is rising by chipping in a monthly
donation.
