UPDATE: We earned a huge victory on May 18. After years of fighting, and one week after we launched our #EyesOnAmazon campaign in partnership with the Athena Coalition, Amazon announced it would extend the moratorium on police use of facial recognition software. This is a victory for our people—not corporate goodwill. “Until further notice” isn’t the same as “total ban.” There are still unmet demands on the table, so our #EyesOnAmazon Week of Action will keep advancing this fight until all are met.
While the world suffers through a global pandemic, Amazon has quietly continued to fuel our country’s violent police state–and get rich while doing it.
It’s been nearly one year since the Black Lives Matter movement uprisings following the murder of George Floyd and Amazon’s subsequent announcement to temporarily suspend facial recognition technology sales. June 10th will mark the one year anniversary of Amazon’s performative, empty promise to stop selling racist facial recognition and surveillance technologies to law enforcement.
Nearly 200 Black people have been killed by police since the murder of George Floyd, and continued police use of Rekognition, Amazon’s dangerous surveillance tool, poses a threat to the safety of Black and brown communities. Amazon’s police surveillance tools are fundamentally designed to reinforce anti Black ideologies, and are a threat to the safety and dignity of BIPOC communities.
But it’s not just their surveillance technologies; Amazon shows its true colors in how it treats its own workers, and how it uses the Oppression Economy to feed its profits, power, and influence. As the clock runs out on their one year moratorium, we’ve got all #EyesOnAmazon, because it’s #PrimeTime to shift power back to the people.
Now that time is running out with no further commitment from Amazon in sight, we are mobilizing to disrupt Amazon’s unprecedented power. Specifically, we are demanding Amazon permanently divest from facial recognition and surveillance technology, and cease involvement with police, ICE, and any other law enforcement.
We need YOU to join the countdown to help us disrupt Amazon’s power. Here are 3 ways you can support the #EyesOnAmazon campaign.
- DONATE to MediaJustice to make sure we have the resources to keep holding Amazon accountable.
- RSVP for the Week of Action (June 7- June 11) to make sure you get reminders and the latest updates.
- SIGN the petition to tell Amazon it’s #PrimeTime to stop policing us.
