Ethical tech adoption in civil society

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Most digital technologies are designed by, or at least brought to mass adoption by, commercial enterprises. This is often, but not always done, on the back of government funded infrastructure or research. Civil society, which exists as a counterbalance to and with some intended separation from, both markets and governments, often adopts new technologies without first considering how the tools might conflict with the sector’s own values.

Some technological approaches, such as artificial intelligence (AI), have attracted enough public detractors that industry is responding with its own policy association “principles of practice,” bringing an undeniable stamp of “regulation pre-emption.” AI, of course, has been in the public’s mind for decades, courtesy of robot cartoons and science fiction. There's a robust debate among tech leaders about the future of AI.

For other technologies, where the need for placating the public is less urgent, the typical deployment strategy goes something like this:

·      R&D, either in universities or industry

·      experimentation in specific applications,

·      commercial take up where experimentation is successful

·      rampant application to broader business opportunities,

·      crossover experimentation on social issues

·      belated social sector response when application generates “unintended” (though not necessarily unpredictable) consequences

Is there a better way to do this? Can the social sector pre-emptively develop a set of guardrails for the application of new technologies so that predictable harm (at least) can be minimized or prevented? 

Doing so requires articulating a set of sector values that would apply to multiple technologies, or at least a means of checking technologies for fit not at the “shiny object” level but at the mission-alignment, core values level. There are some such efforts to do so - at least one in AI and public services and the responsible data principles could be seen as a digital data level version of this.

Consider the blockchain. The technology's protocols were originally developed as a means of enabling trust and accountability in a decentralized manner. The first application to gain popular attention were currencies and currency exchanges. Now, the blockchain is being used (or proposed to be used) for other types of trusted exchanges that require some form of independent accountability.

In order to function without a central repository, the blockchain requires the creation of a permanent record of an action which is verifiable by the larger network.

Those technological requirements result in a few features that have come to dominate public discussion of the blockchain. These include, but are not be limited to:

·      It is immutable. Once a piece of information is added to the chain it cannot be changed.

·      It is decentralized and verification is built into the technology. There is no single point of control.

It is these technological features that need to be assessed against the values of purpose of a particular task or action. Is immutability of record a good thing? Is it in line with the goal seeking to be achieved? If the action being taken involves tracking material goods in a supply chain than the the answer may be yes. If the action being taken involves tracking a human being through space and time, then the answer is not as straightforward. It’s easy to imagine cases where a person might not benefit from a permanent record of their presence – escaping violence, seeking assistance to which stigma is attached, peaceably protesting injustice to name a few.

Now let’s consider the other commonly pitched feature of blockchain - decentralized verification. If there is no single point of control for governing the system, then there is also no point of redress for an individual who may be wronged by it. Since “social good” often centers around changing dynamics between individuals and systems (think education, health care, disaster relief, migration rights for just a few examples), applying a system that provides no redress for individuals is unlikely to be seen as an improvement (at least by those individuals supposedly being helped).

Social sector applications of new technologies need to consider the tradeoffs in values between the mission being pursued and theencoded values of the technology itself. Business applications of new technologies are often focused on the commercial prerogatives of efficiency, scale, or cost, and the primary perspective is that of the implementing organization. Social good applications must align with a significantly more diverse, complex, and structural set of values, while not compromising the rights of the people theoretically being assisted.

Civil society needs to adopt and adapt to the digital age we live in. Many technological applications are appropriate. But in assessing these opportunities, we must consider not just each new and shiny technology but also the values they encode. And the social sector should assess this alignment in relationship to the rights and opportunities of the intended beneficiaries, not to the organization implementing the technology.

U.S. nonprofits under attack

Are you still trying to make sense of how digital tools facilitate efforts to shut down civil society? Read this for my quick primer on how this works. There will be a lot more in the Blueprint 2018 - coming on December 14.

And here's a story from the Electronic Frontier Foundation that adds to the list of how and who (tl:dr - email spear phishing)

 (Photo from EFF: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/09/phish-future)

Racism, white supremacy, and civil society

This letter, titled White People Show Us, from Angela Glover Blackwell and Michael McAfee of PolicyLink makes central what many would prefer to push aside. Racism is a problem created by white people. People of color suffer, but white people are the ones who created it, benefit from it, perpetuate it, and, I believe, also suffer from it. None of us are free when some are not. It's not enough to say this, we need to act to change it, persistently and continuously.

Civil society - associational spaces where we voluntarily come together to do things for others - is home to some of the most powerful forces for equity and anti-racism work. Historically, it is here, in civil society, that political power is built, change is crafted, protest and alternatives are envisioned, and pressure on dominant governing systems - which in the U.S. have always been tools for advancing white interests - builds until those systems change. It is long, arduous, daily work and power never cedes without pressure.

Systems change is particularly hard when the same rules that protect the rights of people to focus on building an equitable society and fighting racism protect the rights of people doing the opposite. Free speech and assembly - two universal human rights (and Constitutionally protected rights in the U.S.) - apply to groups with a range of views. This is by design. As is often noted, freedom of speech only means something if it protects the "speech you hate," not just the things that are easy to say. The right to peaceable assembly applies to groups on both sides of an issue. And a right to due process to determine what is protected and what is not sits alongside these rights, to make sure that lines can be drawn and limits set. Violence and the intent to harm are not protected. Not all speech is protected, and when it is, it's protected from government interference, not private counter speech, or action by non-government actors to determine that certain speech is not to be supported. The right to association is for peaceable assembly - it is not a right to gather to cause harm.

Civil society depends on these rights. It is strengthened by the intentional divisiveness that these rights encompass. In majority run democracies there are, and always will be, many minorities. It is the right of these minority opinions to be expressed - safely and peaceable - that buttress and support and legitimize the actions of the majority-run systems. When any powerful actor (elected, appointed, or market-driven) limits the right of minorities to organize and speak, we fast track out of democracy.

One of the biggest challenges today is that the Internet is an underlying space for civil society but we haven't figured out how to enforce our nation-bound, values-shaped analog norms and rules in this global, hybrid commercial/public space. Internet intermediaries (at many levels) host our discourse, our efforts at organizing, and our protests. They are not democratically elected governments, not signatories to human rights declarations, not publicly accountable as agents of the people.

They may not have chosen this role, but they have it - they intermediate free speech and assembly for people around the globe. In order to exist, civil society's fight for these fundamental rights now takes place on two fronts, facing both governments and Internet intermediaries. While this recognition will be new to some, there are people and associations that have been working on these issues for years, have developed procedures and policies for dealing with these issues, and can help the rest of think this through.

It's painful and ugly to want those with whom we passionately disagree to have the same rights as we do. Passionate disagreement is one thing. Violence and intent to harm are different, and due process is required for determining when this is the case. The intention to exclude, harm, dominate, reject, subjugate, or abridge the rights of others matters. When speech or assembly prepares for, expects, and provokes violence, violence often happens, and lots of people pay attention.

That momentary attention is important, but this is not the only way that racism subverts our society, nor is it the most frequent or possibly even the most damaging. Systems and rules built on racist assumptions and designed to perpetuate inequity are all around us, all the time, doing damage and needing to be undone.  Groups that gather armed and shielded, those that violently beat or murder people with whom they disagree, and actions taken to limit other people's rights to vote - these are all racist acts of violence. The first three are not acts of civil speech or assembly. The last one is not legal.

These are not easy issues. They are not limited to - or even fully exemplified by - horrific, public, violent acts of terror and physical harm. Civil society is home to many groups that know this best; thoughtful, informed experts who've worked to protect civil rights and liberties and those that work to fight racism and other hateful acts in digital spaces. It's time we recognized how much civil society writ large needs these groups, their work, and these rights.

Aligning your tech with your mission (graphic)

Yesterday I wrote about aligning your organization's tech with your mission and values. This has to do with making sure that your organizational approaches to privacy, consent, sharing, data use, etc. carry through from your board through to your software licenses.

Here's the "back of the napkin" from a conversation about this with some funders and nonprofits.

And here's yesterday's post. Here's a related post on digital literacy.

The tools and policies on digitalimpact.io are designed to help.