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As we wrap up the year, our team took a collective moment to reflect on society's progress towards a more humane tech world. Here are five highlights from 2021 that are propelling the humane technology movement forward — along with ways you can get involved and take action.
#1 - Whistleblowers Increase Accountability
In October, Ifeoma Ozoma, the Pinterest whistleblower, released a Tech Workers Handbook to help guide employees looking to speak out against Big Tech. Ozoma also played a role in the passing of California’s Silenced No More Act (SB331), which prevents firms from forcing non-disclosure and non-disparagement agreements that limit workers’ ability to speak out about harassment and discrimination. Shortly after, Frances Haugen came forward with the release of the Facebook Files — which outlined the platform’s opaque and negligent practices underscored by a prioritization of profit over user safety and well-being — and has since been testifying for policymakers globally.
The progress made by whistleblowers in 2021 builds on the work of others in prior years including Sophie Zhang and Timnit Gebru. In speaking up, whistleblowers have granted society critical insight into problematic practices within tech firms, increased the leverage of tech employees, created a culture of accountability, and mobilized regulatory action.
TAKE ACTION: Check out Ifeoma Ozoma's Tech Worker Handbook which is "a collection of resources for tech workers who are looking to make more informed decisions about whether to speak out on issues that are in the public interest."
Explore Timnit Gebru's newest initiative Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR) which is "a space for independent, community-rooted AI research free from Big Tech’s pervasive influence."
#2 - Growing Awareness of Algorithmic Bias & Discrimination
The documentary Coded Bias (available on Netflix) helped spread an understanding about technology’s built-in biases. As the film explains, these biases reinforce inequalities and eventually determine our realities. The film follows MIT Media Lab researcher Joy Buolamwini through her investigation of algorithmic discrimination in facial recognition technologies that do not detect darker-skinned faces. Coded Bias has influenced the passing of US state and local legislation to rein in the use of biased algorithms and educated technologists on building more humane products.
The importance of this work is demonstrated by the fact that in November, 193 countries adopted the Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence — the first global agreement that defines values and principles for the inclusive development of AI in order to prevent many of the harms discussed in the film.
LEARN MORE: Explore the work of experts featured in the film, including:
- Meredith Broussard — author, Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World
- Silkie Carlo — Director, Big Brother Watch
- Virginia Eubanks — author, Automating Inequality
- Ravi Naik — Law Society’s 2018 Human Rights Lawyer of the Year
- Dr. Safiya Umoja Noble — author, Algorithms of Oppression
- Cathy O'Neil — author, Weapons of Math Destruction
- Dr. Zeynep Tufekci — author, Twitter and Teargas
We'd also encourage you to read more about potential algorithmic biases mentioned in the film, including: Facial recognition technologies, bias in finance like mortgage algorithm, bias in healthcare like health predictors, and bias in hiring like resume review systems.
#3 - Accountability for Facebook’s Role in the Rohingya Genocide
A class action complaint, has been launched in the US and the UK to hold Facebook accountable for its role in the Rohingya Genocide. The suit claims that Facebook was “willing to trade the lives of the Rohingya people for better market penetration in a small country in south-east Asia.” As the Facebook Papers, Karen Hao, and many others have revealed, Facebook has not only been negligent in global content moderation, but frequently prioritizes growth over user safety.
The suit highlights the egregious externalities of Facebook's business model, demonstrating that there are financial costs to unmoderated growth at the expense of human rights. As Facebook continues to allow the algorithmic amplification of violent content globally, the lawsuit has the potential to shift the platform’s business model by forcing the platform internalize the costs of its external harm. The pursuit of the lawsuit alone illustrates that the demand for platform accountability is growing globally.
LEARN MORE: Read about the 2018 U.N. investigators’ claim that Facebook contributed to the genocide and the current lawsuit which points to Facebook's algorithmically amplified hate speech against the Rohingya people, its failure to invest in local moderators and fact-checkers, its failure to remove content inciting violence against the Rohingya, and its failure to remove accounts, groups, and pages encouraging ethnic violence.
#4 - Technology Protections for Youth
The UK’s Age Appropriate Design Code, which went into force in September, provides 15 standards for online services to abide by in order to ensure the protection of children’s personal data. This UK legislation will have global effects because it requires compliance by all platforms that process UK-based children’s data.
In the US, we have seen bipartisan support of legislation to protect kids on the internet. There are several bills aiming to increase protections for children that are currently being considered:
- The Children and Teens' Online Privacy Protection Act (an update to COPPA), prohibits the collection of personal data from kids 13 to 15 without consent, implements a “Digital Marketing Bill of Rights for Minors,” and creates an “Eraser Button” that parents and kids can use to remove kids’ personal information from platforms.
- The KIDS Act, which applies to youth under 16, bans quantifiable popularity features and certain addictive design features (e.g., autoplay, push alerts, reward badges) as well as prohibits the amplification of harmful content and influencer marketing.
- The Kids PRIVCY Act implements key features of the UK’s Age Appropriate Design Code including the requirement that the best interest of children be a primary design consideration.
In a recent but important move, a bipartisan group of US Attorneys General, who act as the “people's lawyer” of their states, launched an investigation into Instagram’s impact on young people. This investigation has the potential to shift the extractive tech ecosystem as Big Tech is held accountable during its "Big Tobacco" moment.
Protections for kids using social media are expanding, largely through external regulations. The passed and proposed pieces of legislation tackle both platform changes (e.g. autoplay) and the platform business model (e.g., banning surveillance advertising for kids). These interventions come after years of growing awareness about social media’s harms on children, most recently reaffirmed through the Facebook Files, and demonstrate a cultural shift around the issue.
TAKE ACTION: If you’re a US citizen interested in advocating for any of the above legislation, Common Cause will help you find your representatives' contact information or Democracy.io will help you write to your representatives directly.
LEARN MORE: Watch recent US Congressional hearings with Antigone Davis (Facebook); Adam Mosseri (Instagram); Jennifer Stout (Snapchat); Michael Beckerman (TikTok); Leslie Miller (YouTube).
This New York Times opinion video creatively demonstrates how social media platforms capture and monetize children’s data and calls for US lawmakers to adopt the Age Appropriate Design Code in full.
#5 - Nobel Peace Prize for Protecting Journalism
On December 10, 2021, Maria Ressa was honored with the Nobel Peace Prize, along with Dmitry Muratov, “for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace.” Ressa has exposed abuses of power, growing authoritarianism, and the weaponization of social media to spread disinformation and manipulate public discourse in the Philippines (her native country). She is currently on bail pending an appeal against her June 2020 conviction of cyber libel, which press freedom watchdog groups criticized as a direct attack on a democratic media by the Duterte administration. The honor is shared with Dmitry Muratov, the editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, one of the last independent news sources in Russia.
This Nobel Peace Prize marks a critical moment in history in which we collectively recognize the inconceivable challenges faced by journalists in protecting open society values, such as truth and democracy. Journalists play a necessary role in navigating the many crises we are faced with today, from climate change to social and economic inequality, which cthe meta crisis.
TAKE ACTION: If you’d like to support journalists who are working in this area, you can donate to organizations like Committee to Protect Journalists, or Reporters Without Borders, or the Freedom of the Press Foundation, who are all working to support the freedom of the press worldwide.
LEARN MORE: Listen to our conversation "The Dictator's Playbook" with Maria Ressa on our podcast 'Your Undivided Attention.' Or watch the PBS Frontline documentary about Maria Ressa "A Thousand Cuts"(available on YouTube.)
