New Twitter bot helps users celebrate black culture this Black History Month. Looking for new ways to celebrate black history and culture this Black History Month? When you DM the @Blackbirds account, the bot will greet you automatically, letting you choose from one of four preset categories: Today in #BlackHistory, #ForTheCause, #SelfCare and #ForTheCulture. "We recognize the incredible impact of black people and culture on our platform every day, so we wanted to contribute to that conversation in a meaningful way during Black History Month through this bot," Shelby Williams, a member of Blackbirds and a brand planner on Twitter’s Brand Strategy Team, told Mashable. Image: @Blackbirds/Twitter Twitter's overall theme for this year's Black History Month is #ForTheCulture, a hashtag and philosophy the company says serves to highlight black Americans making a difference — past and present. "You could say we made this bot #ForTheCulture," Williams said. Though Twitter has long been critiqued for lacking racial diversity inside the company, the presence and work of Blackbirds serves as a way for the company to support underrepresented employees — and black Twitter users in general. The company's celebration of Black History Month through the Blackbirds bot, however, is undoubtedly a reflection of the platform's unique ability to connect and support the black community. "Whether we formally recognize it or not, [celebrating black history and culture] is not limited to February," Williams said. "In fact, this conversation is happening every day.
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Looking for new ways to celebrate black history and culture this Black History Month? There’s a bot for that.
Blackbirds, Twitter’s black employee resource group, launched a chatbot on Feb. 1 to provide users with community-focused facts, information and support. When you DM the @Blackbirds account, the bot will greet you automatically, letting you choose from one of four preset categories: Today in #BlackHistory, #ForTheCause, #SelfCare and #ForTheCulture.
“We recognize the incredible impact of black people and culture on our platform every day, so we wanted to contribute to that conversation in a meaningful way during Black History Month through this bot,” Shelby Williams, a member of Blackbirds and a brand planner on Twitter’s Brand Strategy Team, told Mashable.
Users can DM @Blackbirds and access the feature throughout the month of February.
Here’s how the options work. Today in #BlackHistory shares one of three lesser-known facts about black history relevant to that particular day. #ForTheCause highlights community events to support the black community in one of five major cities: New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. #SelfCare provides simple self-care tips and reminders to help the black community focus on putting themselves first, especially in a tense social and political environment. And #ForTheCulture highlights moments from notable black creators, along with tweets from driving…
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