Peninsula 360 Press editorial office
On September 20, 2020, Peninsula360Press (P360P) published an opinion column entitled "Hit to the Census in Redwood City". https://peninsula360press.com/opinion/opinion-golpe-al-censo-en-redwood-city/
This column was based on an e-mail complaint from a user of the Nextdoor social network who asked for anonymity to avoid reprisals. The email included a screenshot where Redwood City Councilwoman Giselle Hale had posted on Nextdoor about the importance of being counted and the benefits of the census to the city, as well as ways to still participate. About this event, P360P published the note "Latinas go for one last attempt to promote the 2020 Census in Redwood City" dated September 15, 2020, available at https://peninsula360press.com/peninsula/ultimo-intento-para-prover-el-censo-2020-en-redwood-city/
As the screenshot shows, 19 people voted for and against the removal of the publication. One of the people who voted was Johanna Rasmussen, wife of Chris Rasmussen who is running for City Council in District 7. However, the publication was not removed because it did not violate the rules of the social network.
On September 29th Rasmussen posted on his Twitter account at 10:40pm in reference to the P360P article: "What are you talking about? My very first job was with the census"; to which P360P responded "We are talking about this -a little hand pointing down emoji-" with the screenshot mentioned above. She replied, "I didn't report Councilwoman Hale. As you can see here, 19 different Nextdoor separate Nextdoor Leads voted on this post. Leads do not have the ability to remove posts, only Nextdoor staff can do this".
On the morning of September 30, 2020, Rasmussen informed the production of P360P to request a right of reply with respect to what was published in the initial note. According to Rasmussen "The reason Councilwoman Hale's posts were reported for self-promotion by people in the community I do not know".
According to Rasmussen, on September 21, 2020 she tried to contact Giselle Hale to let her know: "I am a Lead in Nextdoor and I wanted you to know that the RGB photos in your publication were marked and reported as "self-promotion spam" in Nextdoor. From what I can see, it's most likely the last photo of you being alone that's in question. I just wanted to let you know, in case you want to edit the post. Johanna."
Rasmussen says that after getting no response she sent her the following message on September 26, 2020: "I wanted to make you aware that a member of the community reported another of your publications. It's about the Census."
Today, September 30, 2020, Rasmussen posted on Twitter and sent the screenshot of these messages to our newsroom.
Johanna claims that she has been targeted and discriminated against because, although she does not speak Spanish, she is Latina. P360P made it clear to her that this is a media outlet created to give voice to the ethnic diversity of the Peninsula, including Latinas and Latinos, and that those of us who work here identify as such. Our function as a medium is to report what is happening in our community including the social-digital networks.
Rasmussen concluded the call by requesting that it be added to this note that she worked "I worked for the Census by making maps on the coast of San Mateo county to make sure that we got everyone of our migrant farmer workers counted and I also held meetings in the neighborhood association about the census”
With respect to the allegations of racial discrimination, the opinion of P360P is the following:
Racism against the Latino community is a systematic phenomenon in this country. That is precisely why P360P was struck by the fact that a publication that talks about the effort of 12 Latina women to promote the census was reported in an attempted to be eliminated by some members of the social network Netxdoor.
