Failures in Ethics in Training and Praxis: The Values Embedded within Race, Technologies, and Justice

• In Event: Technology, Inequality, and Social Justice - I

Abstract

In this paper, I discuss how “ethics” has failed technological studies, racial equality, and social justice. Below, I outline my paper’s main arguments and contributions, while specifying my methods:

* How often is racial justice specified in the curricula for ethics in technology? Using thematic and critical discourse analyses to examine a database of ethics taught in courses related to technology, engineering, and the social sciences, I share how ethics is often presented as race-neutral, reflecting a philosophy of “colorblindness.”

* In terms of activist research, how do we incorporate guidelines for ethical research of datafication involving minoritized communities and technological studies? Using autoethnographic data drawn from my research experiences as a feminist cis-woman of color and as a Fellow and the Founding Coordinator of the Race and Media Working Group at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, I share how one set of guidelines created by editors actually required researchers of color to divulge personal information in our examination of digital racism, which put us at great risk of personal harm by those racists from whom we were supposed to seek permission to study.

* Regarding interventions in existing policy designs, how do we influence technological companies to create datafication policies that support minoritized communities better than the ones they have currently? For example, let us discuss values other than “consistency” that should be used to inform social media platform companies when it comes to considerations of race, racism, and racial justice.

Author

• Jenny Korn, The Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University