We are the Leaders We Have Been Looking For: Organizing for Algorithmic Accountability
D4BL I
D4BL I
On November 17-19 2017 we brought together community members, organizers, academics, technologists, educators, artists, policy makers, and public servants for the inaugural Data for Black Lives conference at the MIT Media Lab.
Algorithmic Justice: Race, Bias, and Big Data
Algorithmic Justice: Race, Bias, and Big Data
Speakers will discuss algorithms, race, and justice–the problems and the possibilities.
What is Data for Black Lives?
What is Data for Black Lives?
Data for Black Lives is a movement of activists, organizers, and mathematicians committed to the mission of using data science to create concrete and measurable change in the lives of Black people. Since the advent of computing, big data and algorithms have penetrated virtually every aspect of ou...
Opening Remarks and Keynote Address
Opening Remarks and Keynote Address
Opening Remarks and Introduction of Keynote Speaker: Yeshimabeit Milner, D4BL Executive Director (10 min) Keynote Address: Meredith Broussard (45 min) Poetry: Joy Buolamwini (5 min)
What is Data Capitalism?
What is Data Capitalism?
Data for Black Lives and Demos released a groundbreaking new report addressing data capitalism and offering solutions that build power for Black and brown communities. In the age of "big data" and surveillance, we need to be concerned about more than just personal privacy. Take a look at how d...
Opening Remarks and Keynote Address
Opening Remarks and Keynote Address
Conference Welcome: Rafael Reif, President of MIT (5 min) Opening Remarks and Introduction of Keynote Speaker: Yeshimabeit Milner, D4BL Executive Director (20 min) Keynote Address: Ruha Benjamin (45 min)
Automating (In)justice: Policing and Sentencing in the Algorithm Age
Automating (In)justice: Policing and Sentencing in the Algorithm Age
The U.S. incarcerates more people than any country in the world, and Black communities are disproportionately impacted by this mass incarceration. The disparities are staggering: although the majority of illegal drug users and dealers are white, three quarters of those imprisoned for these crimes...
AI Now Institute: Confronting Black Boxes: A Shadow Report of the New York City Automated Decision System Task Force
AI Now Institute: Confronting Black Boxes: A Shadow Report of the New York City Automated Decision System Task Force
In 2017, New York City became the first US jurisdiction to create a task force to come up with recommendations for government use of Automated decision systems (ADS). This report is a community powered shadow report that provides a comprehensive record of what happened during the Task Force’s rev...
Opening Panel: Data for Black Lives
Opening Panel: Data for Black Lives
Since the advent of computing, big data and algorithms have penetrated virtually every aspect of our social and economic lives. New data systems have tremendous potential to empower communities of color. Tools like statistical modeling, data visualization, and crowd-sourcing, in the right hands, ...
Data Intersections 2020 | The University of Miami Institute for Data Science & Computing
Data Intersections 2020 | The University of Miami Institute for Data Science & Computing
Big Data is more than a collection of technologies, more than a revolution in measurement and prediction. It has become a philosophy, an ideological regime, one that determines how decisions are made and who makes them. It has given legitimacy to a new form of social and political control, one th...
What Even IS an Algorithm? | Crash Course: Data for Black Lives | Episode 1, Season 1
What Even IS an Algorithm? | Crash Course: Data for Black Lives | Episode 1, Season 1
What even is an algorithm? Algorithms seem to have this vice grip on our lives. However, most of us don't even know exactly what an algorithm is or does. Here at Data for Black Lives, we aim to fight algorithmic injustice, and in order to do that, we need to fully understand what we're up against...
Advancing Community Engaged Approaches to Identifying Structural Drivers of Racial Bias in Health Diagnostic Algorithms
Advancing Community Engaged Approaches to Identifying Structural Drivers of Racial Bias in Health Diagnostic Algorithms
Following an initial system dynamics workshop at the Data for Black Lives II conference hosted at MIT in January of 2019, a group of conference participants interested in building capabilities to use system dynamics to understand complex societal issues convened monthly to explore issues related to racial bias in AI and implications for health disparities through qualitative and simulation modeling.
D4BL III
D4BL III
We will be announcing our 2023/2024 conference dates soon.
Consentful Tech Curriculum
Consentful Tech Curriculum
In 2021 Data for Black Lives joined forces with the Consentful Tech Project to release a curriculum guides practitioners through a process to develop technology in truly inclusive but also consentful ways, pushing back against the weaponization of data. We have designed this curriculum to be ...
No Humans Involved
No Humans Involved
The battle for the soul of AI is not about preventing tech from becoming human but about preventing AI from being used to define who is human and who is not.
D4BL I
D4BL I
On November 17-19 2017 we brought together community members, organizers, academics, technologists, educators, artists, policy makers, and public servants for the inaugural Data for Black Lives conference at the MIT Media Lab.
What is Data for Black Lives?
What is Data for Black Lives?
Data for Black Lives is a movement of activists, organizers, and mathematicians committed to the mission of using data science to create concrete and measurable change in the lives of Black people. Since the advent of computing, big data and algorithms have penetrated virtually every aspect of ou...
Yeshimabeit Milner FAccT 2021 Keynote
Yeshimabeit Milner FAccT 2021 Keynote
In this keynote address at the FAcct 2021 Conference, Founder & Executive Director Yeshimabeit Milner calls on researchers to do more than push for fairness, accountability and transparency-- but to demand justice, power and self-determination in the fight to make data as a tool for social chang...
Data for Black Lives Statement in Solidarity with Palestine 🇵🇸
Data for Black Lives Statement in Solidarity with Palestine 🇵🇸
We at Data for Black Lives stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people and demand an end to Israeli Apartheid.
D4BL II Welcome
D4BL II Welcome
Opening Remarks and Introduction of Keynote Speaker: Yeshimabeit Milner, D4BL Executive Director (10 min)
No More Data Weapons
No More Data Weapons
Data for Black Lives is launching #NoMoreDataWeapons. No more investing in Data Weapons, No more building new Data Weapons, No more disguising Data Weapons as legitimate and neutral.
CA Reparations Task Force
CA Reparations Task Force
The state of California is the first and only state to have created a state body dedicated to the study and proposal of reparations. On January 27 I gave expert testimony on discrimination in technology to the California Task Force to Study and Develop a Proposal for Reparations at the first meet...
Abolish Big Data
Abolish Big Data
Abolition means the creation of something new - the history of big data and a prophecy for big data abolition.
Opening Remarks and Keynote Address
Opening Remarks and Keynote Address
Conference Welcome: Rafael Reif, President of MIT (5 min) Opening Remarks and Introduction of Keynote Speaker: Yeshimabeit Milner, D4BL Executive Director (20 min) Keynote Address: Ruha Benjamin (45 min)
Amazon is selling facial recognition software to the police - here's why it matters.
Amazon is selling facial recognition software to the police - here's why it matters.
In a country where we’re still trying to end the dangerous culture of racial profiling - from Starbucks to student lounges to public spaces - we won’t allow one of the biggest tech companies to use their immense resources to fuel the incarceration machine. Facial recognition software is most...
Automating (In)justice: Policing and Sentencing in the Algorithm Age
Automating (In)justice: Policing and Sentencing in the Algorithm Age
The U.S. incarcerates more people than any country in the world, and Black communities are disproportionately impacted by this mass incarceration. The disparities are staggering: although the majority of illegal drug users and dealers are white, three quarters of those imprisoned for these crimes...
What's up with FACIAL RECOGNITION? | Crash Course: Data for Black Lives | Episode 2, Season 1
What's up with FACIAL RECOGNITION? | Crash Course: Data for Black Lives | Episode 2, Season 1
What's up with facial recognition? Facial recognition technology has become well integrated into so many parts of our lives. We unlock our phones with our face, Facebook can automatically recognize our friends' faces, and (most concerning) law enforcement can easily recognize our faces in picture...
Data for Black Lives COVID-19 Movement Pulse Check and Roundtable Report
Data for Black Lives COVID-19 Movement Pulse Check and Roundtable Report
On April 15, 2020 the Data for Black Lives Movement held a roundtable to serve as a pulse check for our movement. Today we release the report of this historic event, a culmination of voices and expertise that provides a roadmap for how we must coordinate, organize and mobilize during this crisis ...
AI Now Institute: Confronting Black Boxes: A Shadow Report of the New York City Automated Decision System Task Force
AI Now Institute: Confronting Black Boxes: A Shadow Report of the New York City Automated Decision System Task Force
In 2017, New York City became the first US jurisdiction to create a task force to come up with recommendations for government use of Automated decision systems (ADS). This report is a community powered shadow report that provides a comprehensive record of what happened during the Task Force’s rev...
D4BL II
D4BL II
This weekend we will turn a critical eye to the role that data and technology have played in Black communities. In panels, workshops, and over meals, we will chart out a bold new vision for the future, in which data is used in novel ways to build progressive movements and promote civic engagement...
Introducing #NoMoreDataWeapons | Crash Course: Data for Black Lives | Episode 1, Season 2
Introducing #NoMoreDataWeapons | Crash Course: Data for Black Lives | Episode 1, Season 2
Data for Black Lives is launching #NoMoreDataWeapons. No more investing in data weapons, no more building new data weapons, no more disguising data weapons as legitimate and neutral.
What is PREDICTIVE POLICING? | Crash Course: Data for Black Lives | Episode 4, Season 1
What is PREDICTIVE POLICING? | Crash Course: Data for Black Lives | Episode 4, Season 1
What is predictive policing? Well, if you've seen the movie Minority Report, you already have a bit of an idea. Predictive policing involves using algorithms to analyze massive amounts of information in order to predict and help prevent potential future crimes. In this episode of the Crash Course...
Building Black Political Power in the Age of Big Data
Building Black Political Power in the Age of Big Data
In 2012, for the first time in American history, Black people had the highest rate of voter turnout of any racial or ethnic group. And advances in data and technology have created new opportunities to expand the political power of Black people and hold institutions accountable. SMS technology has...
Abolition in the Age of Big Data
Abolition in the Age of Big Data
Fingerprints, facial recognition, background checks, gang databases, FBI lists, social media surveillance, credit scores: data has always been central to the expansion of the prison industrial complex, the immigration enforcement industry, and the financialization of our economy. Abolition is...
24th Session of the OHCHR Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent
24th Session of the OHCHR Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent
The Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent public session Data for Racial Justice will be held in Geneva from 25-29 March 2019. This thematic session will involve specific focus on its mapping exercise and bring together experts to discuss the human rights situation of people of A...
D4BL III
D4BL III
We will be announcing our 2023/2024 conference dates soon.
What is Data for Black Lives?
What is Data for Black Lives?
Data for Black Lives is a movement of activists, organizers, and mathematicians committed to the mission of using data science to create concrete and measurable change in the lives of Black people. Since the advent of computing, big data and algorithms have penetrated virtually every aspect of ou...
Datafication and Community Activism: Redrawing the Boundaries of Research
Datafication and Community Activism: Redrawing the Boundaries of Research
A workshop to held in the Department of Informatics, University of California, Irvine Irvine, California
D4BL Movement Roundtable | Abolition & Self Determination
D4BL Movement Roundtable | Abolition & Self Determination
We convened a roundtable of organizers, activists, and practitioners to discuss how we can organize, mobilize and coordinate in this moment and for the long haul. Together, we ask the questions - what does it mean for us to practice liberation in this moment? To demand and build the infrastructur...
D4BL II Welcome
D4BL II Welcome
Opening Remarks and Introduction of Keynote Speaker: Yeshimabeit Milner, D4BL Executive Director (10 min)
Abolish Big Data
Abolish Big Data
Abolition means the creation of something new - the history of big data and a prophecy for big data abolition.
D4BL Movement Roundtable | Abolition & Self Determination
D4BL Movement Roundtable | Abolition & Self Determination
We convened a roundtable of organizers, activists, and practitioners to discuss how we can organize, mobilize and coordinate in this moment and for the long haul. Together, we ask the questions - what does it mean for us to practice liberation in this moment? To demand and build the infrastructur...
What is Abolition? | Crash Course: Data for Black Lives | Episode 3, Season 1
What is Abolition? | Crash Course: Data for Black Lives | Episode 3, Season 1
What is abolition? More specifically, what does it mean to "abolish the police" or "abolish big data"? Why may we even want to abolish policing and big data? These phrases were thrown around a lot in this past year. So, in this episode of Crash Course, Linda is unpacking what abolition is and wha...
Abolish Big Data - UCI Bren ICS
Abolish Big Data - UCI Bren ICS
At the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences Abstract: Bid Data is more than a collection of technologies, more than a revolution in measurement and prediction. It has become a philosophy, an ideological regime, one that determines how decisions are made ad who makes the,...
Data Intersections 2020 | The University of Miami Institute for Data Science & Computing
Data Intersections 2020 | The University of Miami Institute for Data Science & Computing
Big Data is more than a collection of technologies, more than a revolution in measurement and prediction. It has become a philosophy, an ideological regime, one that determines how decisions are made and who makes them. It has given legitimacy to a new form of social and political control, one th...
Abolition in the Age of Big Data
Abolition in the Age of Big Data
Fingerprints, facial recognition, background checks, gang databases, FBI lists, social media surveillance, credit scores: data has always been central to the expansion of the prison industrial complex, the immigration enforcement industry, and the financialization of our economy. Abolition is...
Abolish Big Data
Abolish Big Data
A call to action to dismantle the structures that concentrate the power of Big Data into the hands of a few and to put data in the hands of people who need it the most.
D4BL III
D4BL III
We will be announcing our 2023/2024 conference dates soon.
No Humans Involved
No Humans Involved
The battle for the soul of AI is not about preventing tech from becoming human but about preventing AI from being used to define who is human and who is not.