These demands follow the release of a report revealing how hate speech and harassment have escalated on Facebook and Instagram since Meta weakened protections.
Arisha Hatch, the interim executive director of the women’s advocacy group UltraViolet, condemned the verdict as “a stain on a criminal justice system that for decades has failed to hold accountable abusers” and called it “an indictment of a culture in which not believing women and victims of sexual assault remains endemic.”
“We are cautiously optimistic that Reddit is finally working with groups like ours to dismantle the systems that enable hateful rhetoric on their platform,” Bridget Todd, a spokeswoman for the women’s advocacy organization UltraViolet, said in an emailed statement.
The group said its members met with Reddit CEO Steve Huffman via Zoom last week, encouraging him to address racism and hate speech on the platform.
UltraViolet, a national women’s group, cheered the exit of longtime NBC News Chairman Andy Lack on Monday as a “positive development” that “suggests NBC is beginning to take issues regarding its workplace culture seriously.”
“After a career of enabling sexual abusers, preying on women in the workplace and silencing stories from survivors, Andy Lack’s name is synonymous with NBCUniversal’s toxic workplace culture. Lack should have been forced to step down after Ronan Farrow’s reporting exposed his role covering up sexual abuse at the network,” UltraViolet co-founder Shaunna Thomas said in a statement, citing previous accusations about Lack’s behavior as chairman of NBC News and MSNBC since 2015. (Lack has denied retaliating against the two women who spoke with Farrow about his behavior.)
“While no single decision or individual can eliminate the pervasiveness of sexual abuse and harassment in the workplace, these are positive developments,” she continued. “Still, NBC has a long way to go before it takes the steps necessary to address their toxic workplace culture, which has been cultivated by men like Andy Lack for decades.”
As the coronavirus pandemic dramatically changes lives across the United States, it is women who are on the frontlines of the outbreak at work and at home.
Women make up more than 80% of America’s health care workers, and are on the front lines of this epidemic, often without personal protective equipment.
Women make up the majority of grocery store workers who are keeping America fed and are working overtime to reduce the risk of infection when people need to leave their homes to buy supplies.
Women make up the majority of educators who have been forced to radically shift the 2020 academic year and make sure that their students do not fall behind while they are out of school.
As American’s social distance, and schools and daycare facilities close — women who are working from home are doing double-duty — serving as caretakers and home educators in addition to their regular lives.
Women are on the frontlines of this pandemic, and women are the heroes helping us get through it.