This week, Rainbow PUSH Coalition and Color of Change will launch a Twitter-based, social media and online petition campaign to hundreds of thousands of their subscribers demanding that Twitter to release its EEO-1/workforce diversity/inclusion data, and convene a direct dialogue with SF Bay Area community partners on solutions and strategies.

Ironically, the two organizations will utilize Twitter and other social media tools to spread the campaign nationally and worldwide. On Friday at the Netroots Nation conference in Detroit, Color of Change will lead a “Black Twitter” plenary session where activists will push out the petition campaign over Twitter and social media.

Twitter continues to resist this appeal for change, transparency and corporate responsibility. The lack of inclusion of Blacks, Latinos and women in technology is deplorable. Twitter must lean in and join in – release your EEO-1 workforce data.

Responding to Rainbow PUSH and others, Google voluntarily released workforce data. Rainbow PUSH then sent letters appealing to 20 tech companies, including Twitter, to follow suit. Yahoo, LinkedIn, Facebook have since posted their data; Intel, HP, Microsoft, and Cisco post data on their websites. Pandora, eBay and Apple have indicated they will release soon.

A recent poll study finds that African Americans “over index” on Twitter – Twenty-six percent of black internet users, compared to 14% of white users and 19% of Hispanics. If Blacks and Latinos “use” Twitter, certainly the company can include us on their boards, c-suite leadership and workforce. Why aren’t they? Releasing their data will tell the story.

(See http://rainbowpush.org/news/single/african_americans_1st_in_new_media; http://rainbowpush.org/news/single/pew_study_blacks_over-index_on_twitter_-_26_of_black_internet_users_surveye)

Rev. Jackson stated, “Twitter are among the industry’s most visionary voices, and you can lead the way forward in transforming the industry to mirror the America you depend upon for talent and customers. Inclusion leads to growth, and when there is growth, everybody wins. There should be nothing to hide. Transparency is a critical value necessary to maintain the trust and confidence of your consumers, and the general community. Silicon Valley and the tech industry, at their best, can be a tremendously positive change agent; at your worst, you can hold on to old patterns that exclude people of color and women from opportunity. You have demonstrated that you can solve some of the most challenging complex problems in the world. Inclusion is a complex problem – if we put our collective minds to it, we can solve this one, too.”

Rashad Robinson, executive direcctor of Color of Change stated, “Although not on the payroll, Twitter has been built off the creativity of Black people and owes our community a transparent conversation about the state of diversity at the corporation. Disclosure of employee data is an important first step, but we hope — given the growing power of Black Twitter — that the company will take seriously the call to recruit and retain more Black employees at every level of the corporate structure.”