Part 2: Who for, what for? — This blog is part two of the series [Software] Development as Freedom, where I explore the downfalls and dangers of the belief that giving people coding skills will lead to a more equal society. …

Part 1: Structure vs Agency — What happens when you position code camps as a solution to inequality? This two-part blog series explores how the idea of coding as a ‘liberating practice’ can harm the purposes it claims to support. The future is digital. Skills will set you free. This mantra seems to be creeping its way through policy, education, philanthropy, corporate social responsibility and more. Across the world, coding camps are increasingly positioned as emancipatory projects that will facilitate upward mobility and liberate historically marginalised groups from their perpetual underrepresentation in the tech sector[1]. …

28 October 2021: the Internet is awash with videos of Mark Zuckerberg painting a future he’s dreamt up for us. Holograms, teleportation, experiencing outer space — these are no longer sci-fi dreams but the reality we’ll all be able to experience when Facebook brings us the Metaverse. Forget climate change…

Although technological determinism has long been critiqued in the social studies of technology, it remains central to political and media depictions of technological forces. But what is technological determinism, and why does it matter? Identifying and critiquing technological determinism has been central to the social study of technology. Indeed, key…

Do artifacts have politics? This question has been the subject of decades of discussion in the social sciences and remains pertinent today. — Do artifacts have politics? This question, itself the title of Langdon Winner’s theory of technological politics (Winner, 1980), has generated decades of discussion and remains pertinent today. In his influential essay, Winner proposes the theory that technology, as a material artifact, can embody political ideas (Winner, 1980). …

Data ethics has become something of a buzzword: as the importance of AI in areas like government, healthcare and finance grows, so do concerns about what, how and why data is used. But data ethics is not a new topic of concern; it has existed for far longer than the…

Many people in the Digital Identity space are talking about the UK’s Digital Identity and Attributes Trust Framework, and rightly so; as the market grows and fragments, the framework marks an important step in the UK Government’s commitment to shaping how digital identities are developed in the UK. So, what is the framework? The UK…

Netflix’s The Social Dilemma builds on a conversation that’s growing globally: what are we trading when we use technology for free, and what can we do about it? With a viewership of 38 million, the documentary reached an impressive audience. But despite its scale, it failed to address some important topics… — I work as a consultant in Digital Ethics, so having an opinion on Netflix’s The Social Dilemma feels like part of the job description. To be honest, my judgement was a little clouded before I started watching — I’d already heard criticisms of the show over-dramatising aspects of technology development…

As UX Designers, it’s easy to blame technical complexity on developers. Designers work with coders, but code isn’t our job — our job is to provide users with a seamless experience, helping them to achieve their goals efficiently. We forget to ask: is efficiency good for us? Is it moral…