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DAIR (dair@dair-community.social)'s status on Wednesday, 05-Jun-2024 05:42:00 JST DAIR
- ACM FAccT
DAIR & our collaborators call on @facctconference @FAccT
to divest from Israeli apartheid, occupation & genocide. Get our zines on the complicity of the conference's sponsors, & a #NoTechForGenocide pin if you haven't done so already.
Join an emergency meeting on June 5 at 12:50pm Rio time in Grego Room + Zoom, RSVP here: Tomorrow, June 5 at 12:50pm in Grego Room + Zoom, RSVP here: http://bit.ly/FAccT-Palestine http://bit.ly/FAccT-Palestine.
Get your zine at one of the conference tables.
In conversation about 6 months ago from dair-community.social permalink
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1. Technology plays a massive role in the apartheid and violence happening in Palestine. Occupied Plaestinian territories have been used for decades by the Israeli state to test military technology before selling it to repressive regimes around the world. biometric surveillance tools like facial recognition and license plate readers run at military checkpoints and surveillance cameras tracking the movement of Palestinians, gamified smartphone aplpications help the israeli military register Palestinians into databases, automated drones regularly shoot and kill Palestinian civilians, and the list goes on. As technologies, researchers, and FAccT community members, we are all implicated. Two of ACM FAccT's funding sources, Google & Amazon, are in the business of making Israeli apartheid more efficient, violent & deadly, by providing the Israeli government with $1.2 billion worth of cloud compute infrastructure. It is our duty as the ACM FAccT community to live up to our own code of ethics and send a message: We will not take money from war profiteers.
  https://cdn.masto.host/daircommunitysocial/media_attachments/files/112/560/015/317/215/664/original/ab2bdf243ddd2f35.png
2. FAccT for a Free Palestine with the Palestinian flag, and sketches of people. Text is in black, with people's graphics in red and green. Condemn the violent occupation of Palestine and refuse funding from complicit corporations.
  https://cdn.masto.host/daircommunitysocial/media_attachments/files/112/560/015/402/732/478/original/5c36acac00831cc1.png
3. We demand that the FAccT -- EC & Steering Committee: Condemn the violent occupation of Palestine, and refuse funding from complicit corporations. (photos of people standing and in a wheel chair, next to them stacks of money and bombs).
  https://cdn.masto.host/daircommunitysocial/media_attachments/files/112/560/015/549/980/408/original/3700151026f92456.png
4. Its not just FAccT. There are lots of other ways your institutions may be entangled with the genocide in Palestine. 1. Many tech corporations, large and small, contract with the Israeli government -- even non-military contractors. 2. Many of our labs receive grants from the U.S. department of defense, which has massively supported the ongoing Israeli military assaults on Palestine. Even seemingly inoccous projects are often co-opted & used for weapons research. 3. Many of our universities' endowments are invested in arms manufacturers & complicit corporations via their hedge funds. For example, of the University of Michigan's $23B endowment, 62% was in high risk investments connected to weapons manufacturers & the Israeli state. Universities know this, & they are calling the police on their own students & faculty protesting the occupation, sometimes to violent ends. How do we fight back? Start conversations with your colleagues. How can we be more connected? Participate in the ongoing Boycott, Divest, Sanction movement. Where does your money go? Map the flow of military funding into your own research groups. Whose money are you taking? Coordinate actions with your coworkers & colleagues, like sick-outs or sit-ins. What can we accomplish together? Read & sign the HCI Researchers Divestment Pledge (bit.ly/HCIdivest). What do we stand for? For all resoruces, references, & tips, check out bit.ly/facct4palestine.
  https://cdn.masto.host/daircommunitysocial/media_attachments/files/112/560/015/484/860/706/original/91e5c6dfc190e6b0.png
5. FAccT Emergency Meeting for Palestine
  
  Please RSVP -- and please come if you can make it in-person and did not RSVP! We cannot, in good conscience, allow this conference to pretend computing and algorithms are free from struggles for a free Palestine and against apartheid. We stand against war, terror, and dispossession in the Congo, in Sudan, in Gaza, and in all parts of the globe. We recognize and condemn the ways AI and other advanced technologies are deployed to harm and advance the Zionist project. And we are here to act on those values. Join us in this organizing meeting to discuss how we can fight for a free Palestine. We will hear from organizers acting in solidarity with Palestine, and strategize together on how to organize within our workplaces and research communities to divert research away from militarism. Date and time: Wednesday, June 5th from 12:50pm-2:20pm Location: On Zoom (link will be emailed to RSVPs) and in the Grego Room in the Rio Othon Palace Hotel This meeting is convened by individuals from the FAccT community members and is in no way affiliated with the FAccT Executive Committee or ACM.
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