How Diaspora Peoples Place Uses AI and Social Media

1Keep our footprint low

• Ask first whether AI is needed. If a volunteer, a template or a simpler tool can do the job, we use that instead.
• Use the lightest model that works. Routine tasks go to small, efficient models, which can use a small fraction of the energy of the largest ones. Large models are reserved for complex builds.
• Cap heavy sessions. We limit long, multi-step AI sessions to four per month and group related tasks into one session instead of many.
• Set an annual target. Our goal for 2027 is to keep our AI use under 15 kWh, roughly a third below our 2026 estimate, and we will report how we did.
• No AI image, video or voice generation. These are among the most energy-intensive uses, and they draw directly on creative labor.

2Protect artists and creative work

• We never use AI to create or imitate the work of artists, performers, poets, photographers or vendors.
• We never present AI-generated images as real photographs, and we do not create synthetic voices or likenesses of real people.
• AI never replaces a paid creative commission. When our budget allows design, photography or video work, we hire people.
• We share artists' original work on social media only with their permission, credited and linked, and we tell them that public posts on Meta platforms may be used for AI training.
• Before we use a culturally specific motif or symbol in our branding or merchandise, we consult members of the community it comes from.

A note on our community's flyers. Many community organizations and diaspora businesses we feature use AI to make their flyers, often for the same reason we use it for our back office: no budget and no staff. These commitments govern our own work, not theirs. We do not exclude events from our calendar or judge partners based on how a flyer was made. Where we can, we connect organizers with diaspora designers and illustrators in our network, because the best way to protect creative work is to keep it paid.

3Protect our community's data

We do not put donor financial information, personal details about vendors, volunteers or children, or private legal matters into AI tools. We use account settings that keep our inputs out of model training wherever those settings exist, and we maintain a short list of approved tools that we review twice a year.

4Keep people accountable

A person reviews and verifies everything AI helps produce before it is published or sent, and AI never makes decisions about vendor selection, artist fees or how funds are spent. No volunteer is ever expected to use AI, and anyone who has questions about a use can pause and ask without penalty.

5Be transparent

This page is public, and we update it each year with a new footprint estimate. When a funder asks, we disclose whether AI assisted with a grant application.

6Give back and push for accountability

Each year we make a contribution to a local water or environmental justice organization in the San Gabriel Valley or Greater LA, and we name it in our annual report. We chose a local contribution over buying carbon offsets because many offset markets are hard to verify, and a local contribution is one our community can see. We also stand with frontline communities organizing for transparency and accountability from data center developers, including efforts guided by the NAACP's Frontline Framework.

1Use social media as a doorway

Our posts point people toward our website events calendar, our email list and our events, where we can reach our community without an algorithm or an ad platform in between. Supporters who give $5 a month receive our community events calendar in their inbox twice a month, which helps fund our move off the platforms.

2Post less, and post with purpose

We post only event flyers, recaps of our events and our weekly community events calendar. After a few weeks we archive older flyers and calendars, so our profile shows our impact, our next event and the latest calendar without building a permanent library of content for the platform. Three pinned posts tell people who we are and where to find us off the app.

3Protect creative work

We do not emphasize original creative work on social media. We feature artists, performers and vendors by promoting their events and linking to their own websites and shops rather than posting their portfolios. We share an artist's original work only with their permission, and we encourage creatives to keep the full version of their work on platforms they control.

4Protect the people in our photos

We ask for consent before posting identifiable photos of community members, and we honor every request to be left out or taken down. We do not post identifiable photos of children without a parent's or guardian's permission. At protests, vigils and other politically sensitive gatherings, we avoid showing faces that could put people at risk.

5Stay informed and give credit

We follow community organizations, venues and diaspora businesses so we can keep up with local events for our calendar. When we share an event, we use the flyer its organizers already made public, credit the host and link to their account, and we correct or remove a listing whenever an organizer asks.

6Limit what the platforms can take

Wherever a platform offers a setting that keeps our posts out of AI reuse, we turn it on, and we submit Meta's AI training objection request even though it is not guaranteed for US users. We do not collect sign-ups, donations or personal information through direct messages. We send people to our website, where their information stays with us, and we never sell or share our email list.