As brands around the world continue to speak out against racism, Australian tech business Canva has formulated its own response.
The graphic design joined thousands of brands around the world in sharing a black tile on its official Instagram page as part of the #BlackoutTuesday movement earlier this week, which asked social media users around the world to pause and reflect.
In addition to sharing the image, Canva also outlined some affirmative action it had put in place.
“We stand in solidarity against racism and injustice,” the post said.
“Discrimination of any kind goes against the values we hold dear and we need to do everything in our power to end it.
“We are reviewing and updating our media library to increase the diversity of images and representation of the black community.”
Canva offers users access to a stock photo library and has been making a significant push in the space since acquiring stock library sites Pexels and Pixabay last year.
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“Right from the start, Canva’s mission is to empower everyone to design, so from the very beginning, we built Canva to be global from day one,”Canva Marketplace photo creative director Elle Hughes told B&T.
“In order to create authentic designs, it’s incredibly important for our design community to be able to discover and have access to a diverse and representative media library, not only in terms of ethnicity, but in terms of being truly representative of the world’s population (age, body type, ability, gender etc.); this mission has underpinned all of our in-house production efforts across photos, illustrations, and other elements, to ensure that underrepresented groups receive equal visibility.”
It has also extended the Canva for Nonprofits program to organisations fighting against racism and discrimination.
Canva co-founder and CEO Melanie Perkins [feature image] has also called on businesses to add an anti-discrimination clause into their terms of use, something Canva added a couple of years ago.
“Our aim is to outline clear expectations for our Canva community to abide by when using our platform, and we reserve the legal right to stop them from using our services if they don’t comply,” Perkins said.
“It’s a small step for us, but putting our values in our Terms seems like a good start towards creating a brighter future.
“We’d love to see other companies do the same – so decisions don’t feel piecemeal, but in line with shaping a world we can all be proud to live in.”
