Matching Your Tech with Your Ethics

From surveillance practices to labor infractions, big tech is increasingly enabling oppressive actions and structures throughout the country. Amazon and Google provide ICE with a host of data storage services. Meta has coordinated with the White House on major domestic artificial intelligence and data center investments. Immigrants, activists, and journalists are at increasing risk, and these corporations play a key role in this danger.

For nonprofits that work with vulnerable populations and/or are committed to politics of inclusion and resistance, the stakes are significant. These companies surveil and track us and our networks and share that information with federal agencies. So…why do we continue to support them?

Our engagement with big tech can feel overwhelming, especially for smaller organizations and already stretched staff. It can also feel like there are no reasonable alternatives — that Amazon and Google own everything, and even what they don’t own will eventually succumb to enshittification. Remember Google’s original motto?

Present Moment (https://www.presentmoment.tech), Ultra Advising (https://www.ultraadvising.com) and Jordan Kerzee (https://www.kerzee.co ) are hosting a conversation that reviews the issues with big tech companies, the risks and ethical conundrums involved with continuing to work with them, and the viable alternatives — both tech and analog. We will propose options, digging into how to take steps toward alignment gradually, and without interrupting operations.

This workshop will be geared toward all levels and will assume we define certain terms together — what is our data and where do we want it to go/not go; what data do we actually need/not need to collect, store, or delete; what activities could we move offline; what is big tech and how does it support systems of oppression?

The conversation will take a solidaristic, consent culture approach — sorting the gestural from the actions that will actually help keep us all safe — as we gain a deeper understanding of how information is shared and how we intentionally and unintentionally share our information and that of others.

Admission is sliding scale/pay-what-you-can