Note: This repo is a collection of readings and associated discussion prompts that I created for bootcamp students as an advanced lecture at Lighthouse Labs.
The readings and discussion prompts were designed for web development students with no particular background in Science and Technology Studies. The readings are meant to be short and introductory, encouraging students to start to think about tech in more critical ways, as well as to continue learning about the politics of tech on their own.
Together with your group, read through the topics below, then pick one that sounds interesting to you. Follow the link to a short reading and a worksheet related to that topic.
From the article:
A widely used algorithm that predicts which patients will benefit from extra medical care dramatically underestimates the health needs of the sickest black patients, amplifying long-standing racial disparities in medicine, researchers have found.
Read about how this happened despite the fact the algorithm's developers excluded race data from their calcuations.
From the article:
Commercial content moderation ... describes one of the dirtier jobs on the corporate internet: reviewing and removing violent, racist, and disturbing content posted to social media sites like Facebook and YouTube and in the comments sections of brand-aware websites for consumer products.
Read about the hidden labourers that keep the internet useable, and their exploitative and dangerous working conditions.
From the article:
In 2016, it was reported that the world’s data centres used more than Britain’s total electricity consumption - 416.2 terawatt hours, significantly higher than the UK’s 300 terawatt hours. At three percent of the global electricity supply and accounting for about two percent of total greenhouse gas emissions, data centres have the same carbon footprint as the aviation industry.
Read about how increased data collection, storage and use is contributing to climate change.
From the article:
Nondisabled people excitedly circulate [a new accessibility gadget], hailing it as a win for accessibility. Disabled people, meanwhile, roll their eyes at what disability advocate and design strategist Liz Jackson terms a “disability dongle”: “A well intended elegant, yet useless solution to a problem we never knew we had.”
Read about how nondisabled developers of technology make assumptions about disabled people and their needs, creating expensive and unnecessary devices instead of listening to the disabled community.
From the article:
What we call imposter syndrome often reflects the reality of an environment that tells marginalized groups that we shouldn’t be confident, that our skills aren’t enough, that we won’t succeed — and when we do, our accomplishments won’t even be attributed to us. Yet imposter syndrome is treated as a personal problem to be overcome ... rather than a realistic reflection of the hostility, discrimination, and stereotyping that pervades tech culture.
Read about how imposter syndrome blames victims instead of focusing on the toxic environments that make them feel like they don't belong.
Content warning: the article briefly describes the aftermath of terrorist attacks, violence, and natural disasters.
From the article:
The people who run the Internet platforms are making calls about who they think is deserving of empathy. That makes their decisions thoroughly political.
Read about how companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon decide what violent or tragic events get to count as 'serious' through their selective use of features like People Finder, Safety Check or solidarity profile picture updates.