Big tech companies are responding to George Floyd in a way they never did for Michael Brown

This week, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and their peers put out statements of solidarity against racial injustice. Let’s revisit their stunning silence six years ago.

In the days since the death of George Floyd, technology’s biggest companies and their leaders have made public statements expressing solidarity with Black communities. The communications — which, really, are press releases — condemn racism and call for unity. Some at least name George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery. Some have said “Black Lives Matter” outright.

More meaningfully, many companies have committed donations to causes fighting racial injustice in the millions of dollars.

So some of the wealthiest businesses in the world are showing up in a moment when the national attention has turned to racial injustice. But surely, they must have shown up before? It hasn’t even been six years since the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown spurred the protests in Ferguson, Missouri. Many of those companies’ CEOs found time to publicly participate in the Ice Bucket Challenge to raise money for ALS, so surely they spared a moment to show solidarity with Black Lives Matter in 2014, right?

Let’s compare the corporate response today with what was said six years ago. We researched responses to the events of 2014 through online searches, checking company newsrooms, and sweeping social media accounts:

AMAZON

2020

“We believe Black lives matter,” reads a blog post published on June 3rd. Amazon committed to donating “a total of $10 million to organizations that are working to bring about social justice and improve the lives of Black and African Americans.” Amazon’s Black Employee Network will also be given a grant to “fund local organizations that support education and racial equality initiatives in communities across the country where our employees live and work.”

On Instagram, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos encouraged his followers to read a Medium essay by Shenequa Golding. Hours this article was first published, Bezos said that Black lives matter in response to an angry customer email he posted on Instagram.

2014

We could not find public responses from Amazon regarding the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown or the Ferguson protests.

APPLE

2020

Apple CEO Tim Cook published an open letter, “Speaking up on racism,” on Apple’s website on June 4th. In the letter, Cook made a number of commitments:

We commit to continuing our work to bring critical resources and technology to underserved school systems. We commit to continuing to fight the forces of environmental injustice — like climate change — which disproportionately harm Black communities and other communities of color. We commit to looking inward and pushing progress forward on inclusion and diversity, so that every great idea can be heard. And we’re donating to organizations including the Equal Justice Initiative, which challenge racial injustice and mass incarceration.

Cook shared a similar version of this letter to Apple employees on May 31st, where he committed Apple to matching all employee donations made for the month of June.

Cook has also tweeted twice about Minneapolis:

2014

CEO Tim Cook shared a tweet from Pope Francis on the day of Michael Brown’s death.

We could not find other public responses from Apple regarding the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown or the Ferguson protests. In fact, here’s what the Apple newsroom looks like during those dates:

FACEBOOK

2020

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg committed to giving “additional $10 million to groups working on racial justice” in a Facebook post on May 31st. He also noted that his philanthropic arm, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, has invested $40 million annually for “several years” to organizations fighting racial injustice.