Black Lives Matter

All of us at Tall Poppy are outraged and heartbroken by the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers. His name joins a list that grows longer every day: Breonna Taylor, Sandra Bland, Tony McDade, Eric Garner, Oscar Grant, and countless others whose lives were taken by the police. Change is centuries overdue. We demand action.

Racism and white supremacy are woven into the very fabric of the United States. As a team with several Canadian immigrants, we also amplify that white supremacist police violence extends beyond U.S. borders. We believe the protests happening worldwide are necessary and justified after years of Black voices shouting into the void.

Tall Poppy’s mission is to make an ecosystem level impact in the problem of online harassment. That means amplifying and protecting voices that have been historically silenced and marginalized.

Death threats, racial slurs, and hate speech are a daily reality for Black people online. Police surveillance tools are being weaponized against Black organizers, journalists, and protestors. Digital security and privacy has never been more urgent.

As such, we are offering free access to our personal security software to grassroots activists and non-profit organizations that are furthering Black liberation. If your organization is interested in using our software, please sign up via this form. We will prioritize small and underfunded organizations.

In addition to donating our software, we are taking the following actions in running our organization:

• Fully supporting members of our team exercising their right to protest
• Working with recruiters who specialize in finding candidates who are from communities underrepresented in tech
• Dedicating considerable resources and time to expanding where we recruit from, rather than falling back on insular networks and candidate pools
• Supporting our new hires with the resources they need to feel welcomed here
• Centering anti-racism and anti-oppression at the core of our company culture
• Continuing to offer our services pro-bono to racial justice organizations
• Implementing effective, evidence-based anti-racism and anti-oppression training to ensure that our values scale as we grow

We are currently hiring a developer, and we anticipate hiring for more positions this year. Our company is at a crossroads, and we know that how we hire this next year will set the tone for what we will become. We are committed to building an anti-racist organization as we grow.

Our work doesn’t end here. We are in it for the long haul. We say it now and we will say it again and again: Black lives matter.

–Leigh and the team at Tall Poppy

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