"I also believe that starting with design for marginal communities will not help them."
This view is all too common among those purporting to build new decentralized tech "for everyone" - it doesn't work.
The margins must drive the function, it is there that your models break.
This view is all too common among those purporting to build new decentralized tech "for everyone" - it doesn't work.
The margins must drive the function, it is there that your models break.
Technology designed from the weighted side of the power asymmetry will fail those whose lives are lived under that power asymmetry. More so it will fail those communities - by design -
It will fail black and indigenous people of colour, queer people, trans and non-binary people, sex workers and those with low/no income, not through malice, but through sheer ignorance of the technology to resist the authoritarian/puritan/supremacist impulses of the majority.
The reason we started @OpenPriv was to build an organization where the voices of the marginalized aren't just listened to but focused, amplified and are the guiding force in any systems design.
Because we have seen what happens when you don't do that.
Because we have seen what happens when you don't do that.
And here is the thing...it is painfully clear when your project has not had these conversations because it is baked into your feature set.
When privacy is about
"respect" instead of surveillance resistance, when sharing is about "civility" and not censorship resistance.
When privacy is about
"respect" instead of surveillance resistance, when sharing is about "civility" and not censorship resistance.
