09-28-2023 Fearless Fund Fights Back Injunction to Continue Supporting Black woman-led startups

Today’s DINT features a win for Black woman-led startups in the quest for access to funding. We also take a look at word choice when reporting the news. It truly does make a difference and can change the entire tone and understanding of a story.

Today’s Top 5 News Stories in Tech, Race, and Gender

1 / 🤔 US judge refuses to block venture capital fund's grants for Black women

On the heels of his victory in banning race-based admissions guidelines, Ed Blum `turned his attention to the world of venture capital … to bring fairness through anti-affirmative action measures.

Good summary below: 🔽

@kevin.ortegarojas

The role of contemporary activism is to solidify the work of generations past. Edward Blum wants to use the work of the civil rights movem... See more

Tuesday a judge blocked Blum’s motion to end a capital fund’s grant program for Black women. Reports show Black women get less than 1% of available venture capital funds. Black women created Fearless Fund to concentrate solely on funneling venture capital dollars to worthy Black female-led businesses, aiming to turn around the imbalance in funding for this segment of the population.

This could spell a positive turn in pushing back what some call misguided racial fairness initiatives that result in fewer opportunities for those often shut out of mainstream, traditional forms of funding and educational opportunities.

2/ Word Choices in Reporting on Racial Issues Among Mainstream Media

We at DINT review thousands of news stories each week to boil down the day’s news to the most relevant five stories of the day. Doing this gives us a unique perspective on the approach to news reporting in the mass media.

Today’s lead story on Fearless Fund’s court victory highlights how each media group looks at race-based issues:

Reuters - (our fav)
US judge refuses to block venture capital fund’s grants for Black women

The Washington Post - (‘allows’? not a good word choice)
Judge allows grant program for Black female entrepreneurs to continue

CNN - (lacks objectivity, clearly anti-conservative/left-leaning)
Georgia federal judge rejects conservative activist group’s effort to halt grant funding for Black women

All three headlines are for the same story. But as you can see, the angles on reporting the issue vary widely. We value objectivity while sharing as much truth and detail as is available to us. I hope this helps give some insight into our editorial process when bringing you the day’s top stories.

3/ 👩🏽‍🏭 Tech layoffs are all but a thing of the past: TechCrunch+

It appears layoffs in the tech industry have slowed to a near halt, based on research from layoffs.fyi. The year started with a spate of layoffs in tech as the industry shifted focus to all things AI. As the dust settles, companies are making more intentional decisions when reducing head count, reports TechCrunch+.

4/ 🪪 Backdoored firmware lets China state hackers control routers with “magic packets”

China-manufactured tech continues to serve as an attack vector for U.S.-based firms using popular brands such as Cisco for network hardware. BlackTech, Palmerworm, and Circuit Panda are sponsored by the Chinese government according to governments officials in the U.S. and Japan.

These groups placed stealth backdoor tech into Cisco devices that are nearly indetectible by usual cybersecurity resources. For its part, Cisco says the vulnerability would stem from admin credentials breaches and not a vulnerabilities within the devices and that the affected devices are older models of their technology.

5/ 😎😎 Meta’s smart glasses can take calls, play music, and livestream from your face - Will They Work for Black and Brown Users? 🤷🏽‍️🤷🏾‍♀️🤷🏿‍♀️

The Verge reports one of the coolest reveals from Meta Connect 2023 is the firs line of smart glasses that allow users to engage with Meta’s top platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.

We’ve reported that technology used to identify facial movements hasn’t always worked well for Black and Brown users. Here’s a sad example from HP:

What’s Happening in Tech

BLK Men in Tech THRIVE Conference

October 19 - 22, 2023
Fort Lauderdale, FL

Palate Cleanser

Cute boy Duncan is Oswego County Humane Society's Pet of the Week!