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🗞️Diversity and inclusion news🗞️
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👩🏾🦱The only people losing their jobs are women👩🏿🦱
Now you may think that's a clickbait headline, but the data actually suggests that.
Yes, Women accounted for all of U.S. job losses in December highlighting the pandemic's unrelentingly bad impact on working women😲
Actually, it's even worse than that: Technically, women accounted for more than 111% of jobs lost last month. The U.S. economy lost a net 140,000 jobs in December, but women lost 156,000 jobs overall during the month, while men gained 16,000 jobs, according to new analysis🤔
Now we don't have the data for the UK or Europe to hand, but who Would bet on it being drastically different? And what about the most marginalized women with the weakest safety nets in the most precarious jobs (Disprorportionaly Ethic minorities)😞
Sigh, last week we said it was going to be a tough time for women, as sadly the sats are starting to back that up✊🏿
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🗣Clubhouse🗣
We were talking amongst the team about our frustration at the endless times we hear "We need to listen to Black founders more"🙄
Well, we were sat in a room on clubhouse (The growing Audio first app) that is gaining popularity with the black community and to our disappear, wondered, why many of those same people were not in the audience listening🧐
It may sound like an indirect, but make no mistake, we are being very direct here, 2021 needs to be less about listening and more about action. As our friend Izzy at Foundervine and Yvonne at Capital X said we are fed up seeing people "often go in for funding and leave with advice"💁🏿♀️
Read more about clubhouse rise in popularity with the black community here
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🧠Things that make you go hmmm🧠
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😲The Insurrection😲
The world was shocked when last week an insurrection took place on Capitol Hill. We cover the fall out for tech in the article below, but this one is very much a diversity and inclusion story after all, if anyone wanted to see what white privilege looked like, this is the case study👀.
Now to be clear, white privilege does not mean someone's life cannot be hard, but it definitely means, the color of their skin, is not a contributing factor to that. And that was demonstrated perfectly on Capitol hill 💁🏿♀️.
After all, the idea that a group of Black protestors could make it all the way to the speaker of the house's chair, take selfies with police, and walk away with a few monuments to show for it, is just incomprehensible for frankly anyone from a minority background (and also a large proportion of the white population too)🤔
Now if that triggered you, before you reply back in a fit of rage, do just remember, when we had protestors chanting ' black lives matter', this was the police response.
So what?: This day will be an ugly moment in history texts for decades to come
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💬The turning point for big tech💬
Following the insurrection, Big tech had some soul searching to do. Platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube were in the firing line for broadcasting and amplifying the messages of not only Trump but those who, in his name, were organizing the violence💣
Big tech responded like Dominos. Twitter who were for weeks flagging Donald Trump's post, went a step further and deleted two. Facebook and Youtube then followed, removing Trump's incendiary video.
Twitter then announced they were temporarily suspending trump, and Facebook said they would until inauguration day, and then as trump tried to subvert the rules, Twitter permanently suspended @ realDonaldTrump. If you want to see exactly how they all responded see this in TechCrunch📱
This is huge🤯, after all, Twitter has far from been consistent with its content moderation standards, and now understandably so is under a wave of criticism for silencing freedom of speech. This isn't just amongst the realm of trump supporters but even Angela Merkel wading in on the debate😲.
It poses some fundamental questions; Who regulates who? Big tech to gov, or gov to big tech?🤔
Trump for years has been trying to remove section 230 which protects social media companies for being responsible for the content on their platform. The argument has long been that they are platforms, not publishers, but this is move re Donald Trump is hard to argue isn't an editorial decision🧐
After all when Trump stated ' when the looting starts the shooting starts (following which people were shot) in response to BLM activism, that appeared below the bar of unacceptable to the platforms🤨
Key questions exist now
What next for Twitter?
- Will, they remove other political leaders (cough The Ayatollah of Iran who has been inflammatory to Israel),
- What about Trump's supporters. There are many people on the platform who echo his messages and say worse.
- And will CEO Jack Dorsey survive?
What next for social media?
- Is Donald trump let back on Facebook and other social platforms? (Cheryl says for now no)
- What is the new standard or bar of what is unacceptable for leaders?
- Do we have to actually see an insurrection before the action happens?
- How does this contrast to non-US politics, after all the worlds a big place
What will the regulators do? Some think this is far too late, and others think this is far too far. Will section 230 go after the argument is harder to maintain. Twitter's stock fell 12% on Monday with Facebook down almost 4% and Alphabet lost 2% with investors fearing new regulation👩🏾⚖️
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🕵🏼♂️Oligopoly power🕵🏽♀️
So after Trump was de-platformed, a load of his supporters went to an alternative app, Parler ( or in some cases quite amusingly parlor by mistake🤣).
The app had quickly become a home for some of the disenfranchised thanks to its low standards of content moderation that lead to right-wing faces such as Katie Hopkins, Steve Bannon, and Milo Yiannopoulos flocking to the platform👀
Nonetheless, it didn't escape attention. Having quickly surged towards the top charts of the big app stores both Apple and Google moved to serve notice on the platform that they would be removing it if it didn't fix up its content moderation standards quickly😲
Whilst some will say this is a bit hypocritical, (after all look at some of the dross of apps you can download🤣), their terms and conditions are lengthy, and in the case of android it's not a monopoly.
Ultimately from their point of view, if they had knowledge that potential acts of terrorism were being organized and facilitated, they did not want to be complicit with it🤷🏽♀️.
For many, that would be the nail in the coffin, but the fatal blow for them came from Amazon Web services who provide the hosting. After all no servers = no app. And that's exactly what happened.
With less than 48h notice, Amazon threatened to pull the plug (and Parlers CEO said everyone else did too). Just like that on Monday morning the app was gone💥.
Now some (including Parler who are suing Amazon) say this is the example of big tech out of control. Just like that, the major organisations can stifle business (potentially competition) free speech and innovation. Even we were impressed by how swiftly it happened😅.
The counter-argument is, these are independent companies. They can sell their products and services to who they want, and if they know illegal activity is occurring, they have an obligation to do something💁🏿♀️
So, it is a bit of a regulatory mess. Left unchecked, this could happen more often, and in a dystopian view, you can see whilst folks in Russia, China, and other countries may be looking on with Peril or delight (after all the Russian opposition leader, is not particularly happy)🤔
Alternatively, when do regulators step in? Is this anti-competitive, should free speech be possible even if suspicions of illegal activity occur? Is it for anyone to police private or public discourse?🤷🏽♀️
So what?: This is the tipping point for the day that was always going to come, Tech versus regulation, and guess what the EU are licking their lips🤣
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😅Use WhatsApp or (please don't) leave😅
So the big integration is underway, and just as predicted, Whatsapp served users a notice, that they need to consent to share their data with Facebook or they will delete their account😱
Annoyingly even if you did opt for that, simply deleting the app will not prevent WhatsApp from retaining a user’s private data. To ensure this, users must instead use the in-app feature for deleting their accounts, and even then stuff you've done in groups will linger around😒
Now we were slightly confused about " why people were so bothered?" After all, Facebook has been doing this for years. For instance, Elon Musk has urged users to switch to Signal, while Microsoft has told users to download Skype - which “keeps your personal data private” - instead (🤣🤣🤣 like anyone is really doing that), but we did see a big surge to Apps like Telegram.
So what?: The decision is yours, but quite a lot of people are on some of the alternative apps these days
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📈 The tools behind the tech📉
📦Product📦
📏Design📏
👩🏿💻Code👩🏿💻
🏢The business behind the tech🏢
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🌐Events and opportunities 🌐
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👨🏽💻A 10-year View of Entrepreneurship in Africa💰
The team at Localglobe are putting on an interesting virtual event on Jan 19
They'll be covering
- What is needed to build a thriving seed ecosystem in Africa? What ingredients do we have and what is missing?
- How is the regulatory infrastructure evolving and what role should policymakers play in accelerating the opportunity?
- How can venture help to solve the continent’s biggest social challenges?
Sign up here
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👨🏽💻M12💰
Have some bold predictions for 2021
Ahead of the launch of our rise program do take a look at what one of the worlds more active notable Corporate backed venture funds are backing.
Our eyes were drawn to their interest in the Cyber Insurance space. Afterall with more connected corporate devices and malicious actors than ever its a bit of a no brainer
Read more here about what they are doing with us
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🙌🏾The latest from the Colorintech team🙌🏾
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😎And that's the bottom line😎
👊🏾Let us know what you think if you have any feedback on the newsletter here👊🏾
📩If you think someone else would enjoy it, they can sign up here📩, you can forward it or you can share
  
🤗In these challenging times, we hope you and your loved ones stay safe.🤗
❤️Love, peace and happiness from the Colorintech Team!❤️
13/01/21
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