BREAKING: We’re calling on President Biden to pause all federal government use of face recognition technology.

This tech is flawed, biased against people of color, women, trans people, and more.

Even if it worked exactly as advertised, it would be a nightmare. Let’s explain.

Study after study has confirmed this bias.

One study showed that face recognition tech failed in identifying Black women nearly 1/3 of the time, but was more accurate on white men.

Subsequent studies, including by @ACLU_NorCal and the government, have confirmed these findings.
These biases have real consequences that disproportionately harm Black people.

Robert Williams, Michael Oliver, and Nijeer Parks are all Black men who were wrongly arrested and detained because of this technology. https://t.co/lYu1Mgvm05
Even if face recognition tech worked perfectly, it would be a civil liberties nightmare — giving the government the ability to track us to houses of worship, protests, healthcare appointments, intimate partners’ homes — harming our rights to privacy, speech, and association.
And face recognition technology would surely be used to exacerbate over-policing of communities of color, immigrant communities, poor communities, and others already bearing the brunt of the criminal enforcement system.
Government use of this technology goes beyond law enforcement. It is already being deployed in schools, public housing, and other spaces.

Face recognition tech has no place in our daily lives. It only exacerbates the systemic biases that already exist.
Over the past two years, activists and local leaders have passed bans on government use of face recognition tech in more than a dozen cities and states.

But local authorities have no power over federal agencies like the FBI or ICE, which can still use the technology anywhere.
Right now, President Biden can:

✔️ Sign an executive order halting federal use of face recognition technology
✔️ Limit state and local governments’ ability to purchase the technology with federal money
✔️ Support the Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology Moratorium Act
Never before has the government possessed a surveillance tool this dangerous.

Tell President Biden to honor his promise to center racial equity and put a stop to this invasive technology. https://t.co/bBkITO2utx

More from Biden

Sitting down to work for the first day of the Biden presidency is a surreal feeling.

So much happened yesterday. I'm going to collect my threads here on yesterday's big immigration news.

First, we got key details of Biden's big immigration


Once Biden had officially taken office, we got the first major action. As part of a standard transition process, the Biden White House froze all regulations which Trump had been trying to finalize at the last hour. I did a thread on what we


Last night we started getting more changes. One of the first was an order telling CBP to stop putting people into the so-called "Migrant Protection Protocols," a cruel program that's left thousands in a dangerous limbo. But there's still more to do!


After that, we began getting the text of immigration executive orders. The first one put onto the White House's website was the order ending the Muslim Ban/Africa Ban and ordering the State Department to come up with a plan for reconsidering


The next immigration executive order put on the White House's website revoked a Trump executive order from January 26, 2017 which made all undocumented immigrants a priority for deportation and directed a DHS-wide review of immigration
"Ban" is a verb meaning to "officially or legally prohibit" something. If the Biden administration is not approving new fracking permits, how is that not "officially or legally prohibiting" new fracking permits?


The economy is bleeding, and the Biden administration's response is to cripple one of the few industries that has been consistently employing people throughout this crisis.

But, his allies in the media don't want him to take that PR hit, so they run cover and play word games. Biden's exact words were "We are not going to ban fracking. Period." The "Period." there would imply that ANY ban is off the table.

If you are going to prohibit via executive order - which is nothing more than a law passed outside of the normal legislative process - anything, you are "legally" prohibiting it. There are legal consequences to violating that regulation.

So yes, definitionally, Biden has "legally prohibited" fracking in some way, shape, or form, which is the opposite of his campaign statements.

In other words, he lied.
When Biden talked about unity, he was very specific about what he meant, and the insistence of right-wing tools like @Kredo0 to try to frame stuff like this as “betraying his own ‘unity agenda’” (what is that even a quote from?) shows how pointless it is to try to work with Rs.


Guys like @Kredo0 want to a.) put the onus of unifying the country entirely on Biden and Dems, b.) pretend that “unity” is the same as capitulation, while c.) not giving an inch on their end.

No. No, no, no. Nice try.

Really, get all the way the fuck out of here with that take. “Biden didn’t keep Trump’s POLITICAL APPOINTEES in their position, therefore Biden isn’t unifying the country.” Fuuuuuuck off with that bullshit.

When Biden said “unity,” he was talking about trying to help ALL Americans, not just the ones who voted for him. This, sadly, needed to be said after the Trump administration repeatedly tried to screw over people who didn’t support him.

Remember when the Trump administration INTENTIONALLY let the virus rage out of control (really should have been a bigger scandal, but 🤷🏻‍♀️) because it was mostly hitting states that voted for Dems?

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“We don’t negotiate salaries” is a negotiation tactic.

Always. No, your company is not an exception.

A tactic I don’t appreciate at all because of how unfairly it penalizes low-leverage, junior employees, and those loyal enough not to question it, but that’s negotiation for you after all. Weaponized information asymmetry.

Listen to Aditya


And by the way, you should never be worried that an offer would be withdrawn if you politely negotiate.

I have seen this happen *extremely* rarely, mostly to women, and anyway is a giant red flag. It suggests you probably didn’t want to work there.

You wish there was no negotiating so it would all be more fair? I feel you, but it’s not happening.

Instead, negotiate hard, use your privilege, and then go and share numbers with your underrepresented and underpaid colleagues. […]