Last month, Kenya’s ICT Minister announced that it had no plans to ban Facebook or shut down the Internet despite reports emerging that the platform is failing to combat hate speech that could lead to election violence. The statement came after Global Witness, an advocacy group, and Foxglove, a non-profit legal firm, released a report stating that Facebook “appallingly failed to detect hate speech ads in the two official languages of the country: Swahili and English.” Although Facebook released a blog post on July 20th that detailed its plans to combat
“Try not to use the word minority, say underprivileged or underserved; otherwise, if you say minority, investors will make certain assumptions.” “What assumptions?” “Oh, you know…” That was an interaction between a first-time Black founder and a white venture capital (VC) investor who was supposed to be advising her. Speaking to POCIT, she said she felt several investors she had spoken to had an unconscious bias towards her as a founder and the audience she was targeting. While she understood POC markets were ‘small’ in her native country – on
They’ve been spat on, called racist names, harassed in grocery stores, and violently attacked. Since the emergence of COVID-19, some combination of misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theory has been weaponized to target people perceived to be Chinese. The violent consequences of online disinformation targeting Asian American and Pacific Islander communities demonstrate the power of the internet to stoke racial resentment. Misinformation, disinformation, and online hate speech have led to widespread violence in India, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka in the past several years. Conspiracy theories targeting the AAPI community have caused upswells in hate crimes
According to Zion Market Research, the digital mental health market was valued at $1.4 billion (£1.1billion) in 2017 and is projected to reach $4.6 billion in 2026. Still, it has often been claimed that many of these apps do not cater to the specific challenges that Black, Indigenous, and people of color face. That’s why we’ve dug a bit deeper to find the apps that put inclusion and diversity at the forefront of their mission and have a mission to ensure everyone gets support. Therapy for Black Girls Therapy for
African technology startup, Theeper, known for creating technology for businesses to support fast, direct, and efficient transactions, has raised $2.1M in seed funding. The funding round, which Raba Partnership led, included VC fintech company Rali_cap Ventures, BYLD, and leading African fintech Chipper Cash and Stitch. Theeper, co-founded by Kosisochukwu Chike Ononye and Michael’ Trojan’ Okoh in 2021, is located at the crossroads of data and finance. They work directly with businesses to address the difficulty of transferring money from one fintech wallet to another fintech. According to Theeper, its API
The community-led startup Afropolitan, also known as the company behind “The Year of Return” event in Ghana, has raised $2.1 million (£1.8 million) in pre-seed funding to bring its vision to life, with Srinivasan being one of its investors. The funding round, which saw African-based VC firms Atlantica Ventures and Microtraction participate, also included angel investors Balaji Srinivasan, Elizabeth Yin of Hustle Fund, and Iyinoluwa Aboyeji of Future Africa. Afropolitan, co-founded by Eche Emole and Chika Uwazie in 2016, works to create community-led events for Africans and those in the
Megan Thee Stallion has officially won her battle to trademark “Hot Girl Summer,” which had been used to promote clothing, music, and even food, without her approval. In a recent interview with Allure, the rapper explained that she didn’t know the phrase was “gonna catch on how it did,” and saw its value as corporations started to use the phrase on social media. “When I saw Wendy’s and Forever 21 saying, ‘Hey, are you having a Hot Girl Summer?’ I was like, ‘Hell no, Forever 21, you’re going to have to pay
In times of crisis, it’s especially crucial that governments share accurate, up-to-date information with their citizens and journalists – as social media can play an important role in disseminating urgent information. But we’ve seen time and time again that some leaders have taken liberties to silence their people. Nigeria and Zimbabwe are just examples of countries with governments that have done so in recent years. Back in 2019, Zimbabwe blocked access to social media for seven days as deadly protests swept the country which killed at least 12 people. The government
The gaming industry is set to reach $222 billion thanks in part to Gen Z consumers who are the biggest and most monetizable audience, according to a new report published by Data.ai. There are more than 2.7 billion gamers worldwide, and with a young demographic it’s scale and appeal is attracting luxury brands like Balenciaga, who became the first luxury brand to partner with Fortnite on four virtual outfits, or “skins”, alongside accessories, weaponry and a virtual Balenciaga destination in-game. And in November, luxury fashion brand Moncler followed with in-game
HoneyComb is hiring on Pocitjobs Alayshia Knighten is a seasoned DevOps Engineer with a love of infrastructure and a focus on breaking down technical learning barriers for customers. She recently spoke to POCIT about navigating life in the tech sector as a woman of color and her role at Honeycomb, an observability tool that lets developers quickly make sense of the billions of rows of data needed to fully represent the user experience in your complex and unpredictable systems. Since joining Honeycomb as a Senior Implementation Engineer in October 2020,
