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   Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 24-Sep-2023 16:12:04 JST Aral Balkan

   • Strypey
   • Stephen Collins
   • Dan Hon
   • Laura Kalbag

   @strypey @trib @laura @danhon Unfortunately the “industry” (if we’re talking about Silicon Valley/surveillance capitalism) isn’t actually interested in carrying out ethical design because it would involve scrapping their hugely profitable and fundamentally unethical business model (design starts at the funding and business model of the organisation). When Big Tech says they want ethical design, they mean they want better PR.

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     Mastodon Migration (mastodonmigration@mastodon.online)'s status on Sunday, 24-Sep-2023 16:46:52 JST Mastodon Migration

     in reply to

     • Strypey
     • Stephen Collins
     • Dan Hon
     • Laura Kalbag

     @aral @strypey @trib @laura @danhon

     Exactly. How did things get so F'ed up that every single tech product is now designed with two customer groups in mind. Those who will use the product and the F'ing data brokers who will pay for the personal information of those who use the product. In most cases this second group of bloodsuckers is the more important and lucrative customer.

     How does "ethical" fit into any part of this design paradigm?

     #SurveillanceCapitalism

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     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 24-Sep-2023 16:46:52 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Strypey
     • Stephen Collins
     • Mastodon Migration
     • Dan Hon
     • Laura Kalbag

     @mastodonmigration @strypey @trib @laura @danhon Because they are, and have always been, colonialists. This is the colonialist mindset. They are the white man bringing the fire. And the fire always comes with terms and conditions attached. The white man brings the fire not to share the warmth and illumination but to light his way by burning the other.

     https://www.bbc.co.uk/ideas/videos/surveillance-capitalism-has-led-us-into-a-dystopia/p06p0tdy

     #capitalism #colonialism #design

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     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 24-Sep-2023 16:51:25 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Strypey
     • Stephen Collins
     • Mastodon Migration
     • Dan Hon
     • Laura Kalbag

     @mastodonmigration @strypey @trib @laura @danhon (Also only one of those two groups is the customer, the other is the “user” – the person who is sold* to the customer.)

     * Rented, really. You’re too valuable to sell. If I’m Big Tech and I own you – the profile of you; the proxy, the algorithmic approximation you – I’m not going to sell that, I’m going to hold onto it forever and lease access to it to others.

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     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 24-Sep-2023 17:25:12 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Strypey
     • Stephen Collins
     • Mastodon Migration
     • Dan Hon
     • Laura Kalbag

     @mastodonmigration @strypey @trib @laura @danhon Exactly, yes.

     Preaching to the choir here but I’ve been trying to get folks to understand that for a decade now :)

     https://ar.al/talks/

     “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” – Upton Sinclair

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     Mastodon Migration (mastodonmigration@mastodon.online)'s status on Sunday, 24-Sep-2023 17:25:13 JST Mastodon Migration

     in reply to

     • Strypey
     • Stephen Collins
     • Dan Hon
     • Laura Kalbag

     @aral @strypey @trib @laura @danhon

     Excellent video Aral!

     Another analogy that you might consider is creative vs. extractive enterprise. In creative enterprise, a product is constructed from materials that cost less than people will pay for it. In extractive enterprise, something of value taken, with the cost being the mining operation. In surveillance capitalism it is the customer base's personal data that is being mined, in an extractive enterprise business model.

     #SurveillanceCapitalism

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     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 24-Sep-2023 17:47:44 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Strypey
     • Chris
     • Stephen Collins
     • Dan Hon
     • Laura Kalbag

     @cmw @danhon @strypey @trib @laura Make it the whole damn system. If you’re founding a VC-funded startup (aka a startup), or the CEO of one pre/post exit, there’s nothing you can do to make it ethical. Venture capital is an unethical, colonial, extractive funding model that creates unethical, colonial, extractive corporations. Ethics, in the corporate model, is the purview of the public relations department.

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     Chris (cmw@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 24-Sep-2023 17:47:45 JST Chris

     in reply to

     • Strypey
     • Stephen Collins
     • Dan Hon
     • Laura Kalbag

     @aral

     So original quote by @danhon, but instead of designers make it CEOs/founders? @strypey @trib @laura

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     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 24-Sep-2023 17:55:31 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Strypey
     • Chris
     • Stephen Collins
     • Dan Hon
     • Laura Kalbag

     @cmw @danhon @strypey @trib @laura (In other words, you can practice #decoration, not #design, to make something look or sound ethical. Many times when folks say “design”, what they’re really talking about is decoration. Decoration is when you take something fundamentally unethical and sugarcoat it to try and mask the malodorous scent of the rot at its core and make it more palatable.)

     https://vimeo.com/281704944