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.”
In an open letter this spring, the groups urged media outlets and other organizations to ensure that at least 50 percent of the moderators running the debates would be women and at least 50 percent would be people of color. UltraViolet Action, an organization dedicated to gender equity, spearheaded the letter, which also called out sexism in political media coverage writ large.
The group applauded the NBC lineup and urged other media outlets to follow suit.
“NBC’s decision to ensure that four out of the five moderators for the first Democratic presidential primary debate are women or people of color is a huge win for representation at the debates and a welcome change from the status quo,” said UltraViolet’s executive director Shaunna Thomas. “Our country has seen what happens as a result of unfair media coverage of presidential candidates — and this cannot be the reality in 2020.”
Feminist group UltraViolet had been campaigning for weeks for major networks to include women and people of color as moderators in the upcoming primary and general election debates.
National women’s group UltraViolet, which had urged Netflix to pull out of the state, commended the streamer for saying it would consider a boycott. Still the group is pressing Netflix to take an even more aggressive stand against the abortion ban.
“Netflix’s statement is appreciated, however waiting on the courts to act focuses on a distinction without a difference. The crisis moment is now,” said executive director and co-founder Shaunna Thomas. “We need Netflix to engage in this fight and use its economic power to speak out for Georgia women, and the hundreds of women who work on Netflix productions, to set an example for the whole country that putting women in danger has consequences – and refuse to do business in the State until the law is repealed.”