Thread by @SarahJamieLewis

Technologists: people will use the systems you build to discover themselves, come out, find love, fuck, escape abusive situations, make friends, survive and, grieve. Many times in ways you will not understand.

Your job is to reduce harm, not to judge, ignore or suppress.

It is OK to find yourself ignorant of a marginalized population and the uses they find in your technology. Humanity is large and vibrant and wonderfully diverse, and sadly also capable of cruel acts of oppression.

It's what you do on the discovery of that ignorance that matters.

If your impulse is to tell a group of people not to use your app for any of those uses, stop. People will continue to do so. Abstinence & Prohibition are the two least effective strategies on the planet for minimizing harm.

Instead, go talk to those communities, understand their needs, their risks, their fears. Understand how, even if you can't reduce the risk to zero, you can still put systems in place that make the risk clear & minimize the harm that may result.

Shout out to @NormanShamas who has been screaming at organizations about this for way longer than I have.

And to the many amazing orgs in the crisis / social work space who have been screaming about harm reduction for decades.

We can only de-marginalize communities if we design and build systems that include them. You can only do that by including them when you design and build systems.