TFGL2020 - S1 - Ep8 - Integrity
On this week’s podcast we are talking about whether the government should break up tech companies that wield too much power. Spoiler: yes.
We’re also covering sexism within charity fundraising and talking about the Charity Digital skills report.
Our transcribed episodes are made possible by Happy Porch. Happy Porch provides strategy, technology and development for purpose driven organisations. Find out more about them at happyporch.com
Show notes
Helping host Bex discuss these weighty topics are Greg Ashton and Harry Bailey
Stat of the week
56 percent said the government should break up tech companies if they control too much of the economy
72 percent said that Facebook has too much power
51 percent said Google and YouTube should be split into separate companies
Source: The Verge
Charity news of the week
Charity digital skills survey is out - Closing April 3
Tech news of the week
Facebook...yes Facebook, are looking for proposals for research into integrity
Corona Virus tech handbook - A crowdsourced resource for technologists building things related to the coronavirus outbreak initiated by The London College of Political Technologists
Rant of the week
And finally…
Full show transcript
Bex: Oh hi there! Welcome to the Tech for Good Live podcast. If you’re new here, it’s a podcast all about using technology to have a positive social impact. If you’re a regular listener, I can only imagine what kind of personal trauma you’ve experienced in the past that makes you want to come back and listen to more. I’m so sorry.
On today’s podcast we’ll be talking about whether the government should break up tech companies that wield too much power. Spoiler: yes.
We’ll also be covering sexism within charity fundraising. And we’ll be talking about the Charity Digital skills report.
Helping me discuss these weighty topics we have Greg Ashton. Greg's name comes from the Latin ‘Gregorius’ which means watchful and alert. So yep, that's right, soon to be parents, you can name your kids sarcastically. Hello, Greg.
Greg: Hello. It's etymology feeds back to the Gregory arm of the angelic host, who were the watchers over man.
Bex: Wow, that sounds very posh. Producer Paul is not here again. He's on an epic adventure in Norway. We think he's still alive, but then again, he is mysterious. So who knows? Maybe he never even existed. Harry Bailey is back. Harry's name comes from the old English “Hereweald” (is that how you say it!?).and it is all about being a ruler and leader, but with great power. So yep. One day, we may need to all rally together to bring him down. For now, though. Harry. Hello.
Harry: Hi. A bit harsh but OK.
Bex: Heraweald...Hereweld? Hereweild...
Harry: Heearweeild
Bex: Weird word. And me, I’m Bex. I'll be a host today. My name can mean servant of God, captivating beauty or noose. So, yeah. Cool. [laughs] it’s true...
Greg: Yeah. I think all of those probably fit….
Bex: Noose and and bound is another one that it means, and weirdly I know this because of a key ring I got from Alton Towers when I was seven.
Greg: [laughs] What, the keyring said noose and bound?
Bex: It actually said good wife and bound.
Harry:[laughs]
Greg: Wow.
Harry: That’s when you’re desperate to spend money, isn't it? You go looking at key rings and you’re alphabetically searching for your name.
Bex:I just don't know why my mum bought me that. At seven, realised I was gonna be a good wife.
Greg: [laughs] How wrong they were (!)
Bex: [laughs] Little did they know! Anyway, Stat of the Week!
Stat of the Week
Bex: 56% say the government should break up tech companies if they control too much of the economy.
Greg: So this is people in the US... so we'll take all of this for the pinch of salt… The Verge have conducted a big tech survey looking at people's opinions of tech, largely in the U. S. because, let's face it that most of the tech companies who are impacting the rest of the world are from the U.S. So 56% said they should break up. 72% said that Facebook has too much power. 51% said that Google and YouTube should be split into separate companies.
There's some really interesting stats here because when I first started reading this, I was thinking, Ah, The Verge. No insult to them but I was thinking, it's, you know, it's a magazine site, that there's not really gonna be a huge amount of statistical rigour here, but actually they have included details like the survey was conducted in December with 1123 people. Nationally representative, sample error is plus or minus 3% at a 95% level of confidence, which is yeah, it's really good, there’s a lot of information there, so it's really great to see that. It does raise the whole point that people in the U. S. are massively...their opinions are bent towards what is massively publicised, so Twitter gets a real hammering in the whole, like opinions of the brand and Facebook in the whole breaking up. But they kind of think Amazon's fine because they have absolutely no idea of all the evil that Amazon are doing because all the publications focus on Twitter or Facebook currently so….
Harry: I'd love to see... so if you looked at the news and the amount of positive and negative stories about these different websites and you correlated it against the opinions of the American people...you're saying you think they would closely correlate?
Greg: Yeah, without a doubt, because I think a lot of these people have…
Bex: I don't know though, Slacks got a bad rep here on this survey. And does anyone talk about Slack in the news?
Greg:Yeah, because they had quite a lot of publicity after the whole, like funding from Saudi Arabia, which was fairly big there. Although if you look in the ‘how did they impact society?’ ...Slack has got like 49% neutral. Same with Sonos, who is a really weird one to include in this, you've got, like Google, Amazon, Microsoft and then Sonos...
Harry:.....Yeah,
Greg: [laughs] It's like you…
Harry: But they have been in the news recently, I guess, so maybe they’ve chosen…
Greg: This was in December so…
Harry: I'm just wondering whether, kind of, people fear the unknown. So the neutral ones are either unknown or you think negatively of the ones you don't necessarily recognise or don't know much about. [chuckles] you assume that they’re bad
Bex: [laughs] I assume that they're bad.
Greg: Yeah, I mean...Some of the statements are quite interesting. So, like they've asked how much people agree with statements.
So, the “Facebook has too much power”... 72% agree.
“It’s OK that Instagram and Whatsapp are owned by Facebook?” 66% agree.
“YouTube and Google should be split into two companies.” 51% agree.
Like...that makes no sense. Because if you're happy with Facebook, then why would you be unhappy with Google?
“We don't need to know which products are sold on amazon.com are owned by Amazon.” Only 46% agree.
Like... yeah, I think that one,like, did they understand what that the impact of that means? It is really interesting. But it definitely shows a trend towards that...more of a distrust.
Bex: Yeah, I'm quite surprised by this. I would have thought that the general public wouldn't be this distrustful. I thought it was just us.
Harry: Yeah
Bex: I think it was a good thing that we're all thinking about this
Harry: I do think it is to do with, like, in the news, generally you hear negative stories. I mean, we say there's no kind of ‘tech for good’ news in the mainstream media, but there isn't any ‘tech for good’ news in the mainstream media, all the talk is about loss of data and unscrupulous habits.
Greg:Yeah, yeah
Harry: So it doesn't surprise me in that way. They're not particularly doing anything public, publicly or broadly, that people would go “wow, they're such a positive company”
Bex: I like the answer to this one. “What are your top reasons for not using Facebook ?” - Don't like how Facebook does business.
Greg: [laughs]
Bex: Shady. Does business wrong.
Greg: I think what's interesting as well is considering the question about “Is it OK that Instagram and Whatsapp are owned by Facebook?” there's a question which says:
“Share of people who know that Facebook owns Instagram” and “people who know that Facebook owns Whatsapp”
38% know that Facebook owns Instagram, and 29% know that they own Whatsapp. But then 66% agree that it's okay for Instagram and Whatsapp to be owned by Facebook.
Harry: [laughs] That must have been many questions in the survey, and people were phasing out towards the end…
[all laugh]
Harry: or they even forgot what they put for previous answers.
Greg: Even better is...”which company is better at…?” And they've put Google against Facebook. And of six questions...five of them, everyone said, “Google's better at that”. The only one that said that Facebook is better at is helping you connect with friends and family. So you've got other things, like communicating privacy policy, giving you control over your info, helping you manage your life. Like all Google.
Bex: I am fascinated by people not acting on this, though, because everybody's still on Facebook.
Greg: Yeah,
Bex: I am. I am.
Harry: I'm not. Finally.
Bex: I'm working towards that, but where am I gonna find a plumber?
Greg: [laughs]
Bex: if I’m not on Facebook, right…?
Greg: There are A LOT of places you can find plumbers, I'm pretty sure.
Bex: [laughs] Charity News of the Week!
Charity News of the Week
Bex: Sexism in charity fundraising prevails apparently...
Greg: Yeah, I'm really disappointed that this wasn't published just a day earlier, so you guys could cover it on the International Women's Day podcast because obviously, it ties heavily into that, but it’s a really depressing report and supporting article, looking at the fundraising sector for charities. Yeah, and basically, highlighting, what is, not just an issue for the charity sector, but I think more widely as well, that gendering of specific roles., but then also, the kind of importance and the balance of power that is placed on those roles.
Bex: Yeah, because I think people let the charity sector off sometimes because it is largely dominated by women...this article says that 76% of charity fundraisers are women, that doesn't surprise me in my experience, but the problem is leadership are still men.
Greg:Yeah. Yeah, and some of the stories that have come out of this, things that I've heard in other sectors as well, where it's kind of like, ‘oh, put her on it because, you know, she'll understand more about those woman things’ and that kind of attitude [laughs] and you just...we laugh at it, but it is like, literally it’s still happening, today
Bex: Yeah and this idea...there's a story in here about a woman that was with her male colleagues. She was the Senior, but the funder... the person who was going to give the money was like, “Let me just, man on man, talk to your colleague.”
Greg: [laughs]
Bex: and she's like, “well, alright, but he won't be helpful”
All: [laugh]
Bex: “he’s like really junior.” [laughs] Just..what!?
Greg: Yeah. So this was conducted by the Institute of Fundraising, looking at diversity, understanding the female leadership gap in fundraising and obviously raised a lot of these points. They had 800 responses to an online survey, and it continues this trend of demonstrating that there's these problems. The thing that worries me about this, is that so many charities…. I think that... I know we avoid naming and shaming, but...I feel like we should be doing that, because I feel like a lot of the charities who are, probably doing this...will think... “But we're not like that” or they'll do like, really cursory things of “well we hired that one girl into that job and paid her alright….so that's not us, obviously.”
Bex: No, that's the thing. You only hear the good stories as well. So I was at #BeMoreDigital conference in London last week and there was an inclusion panel, and it was very enlightening, the people on the panel were giving genuinely interesting and useful tips on how to get over those things and they were good. So I'll share...Anthony... Anthony Nolan has a 50% female dev team..
Greg: That was amazing to hear
Bex: Yeah, I know, and that's bringing the tech and charity worlds together with a really surprising stat. No one can...you know, hardly anyone's achieving this. You hardly ever hear of this…
Greg: No-ones achieving that!
Harry: Co-op Digital, to be fair, are on it or very close to it.
Greg: Oh really?
Bex: Good for them, it's really rare. And then we also had the CEO of Kaleidoscope, Monica. She said that conclusion has to be from the top down. So they changed the entire makeup of the board and that has had a ripple effect so it was great to start at the top, but you know, we're hearing these great stories...but what's going wrong? Why is the rest of the sector not catching up?
Greg: I mean, I said about naming and shaming and I feel like that has a part to play but I also think that, you know, there should also be a space, to.... We shouldn't necessarily shame in the aspect that it's like “Oh you've done wrong and you'll never do right” because I think that's one of the biggest problems that we have currently, with, kind of more diversity, is those people who believe that someone's done something wrong in the past and there's no way that they can change like you're a misogynist and you can never get better…
Bex: yeah that’s not helpful, I agree
Greg: It’s not helpful because we've all made mistakes, like, you know, both sides of the argument I think people have made mistakes because we've learnt now, like we've developed, you look at any industry 20 years ago and understanding of what diversity was and what inclusion was, it has completely changed. So it's giving people that ability to say “We've got this wrong. How do we get better? But...without getting people to understand that they've got it wrong first, you can't then move on to “How do we get things better?”
Bex: I think it's because it's such a defensive....People get so defensive about it, because actually this has got nothing to do with the charity sector, the tech sector, it's just that everyone's a bit sexist.
Greg: Yeah
Bex: And some people are more so than others, and it's just the way that society has been for a very long time and we're all struggling to get over it, so as soon as you say to someone “Hey, that was a little bit sexist” and that's a loaded word... instead of going “Oh yeah, it might be”...people just get defensive because that's nature.
Greg: Yeah, yeah, and I think that when we do that, everybody then says... it's like they get backed into a corner, so that instead of like saying “Okay, we've got this wrong” they instantly go “No, we're fine. There's nothing wrong here, everything's perfectly fine. Look, we've got a women's lunch group, that's showing….”
Harry: They meet once a month, on a Thursday.
Greg: Yeah, yeah!
Harry: Yeah, I think you have to be careful of that, of triggering people and they just go defensive and if you aim at the organisation rather than individuals, you've got a chance of that. I think you struggle in smaller organisations because the people who are running the organisation even see that kind of framing as being personal. I remember when me and Bex were working on the Inclusion Coalition stuff way back, some point I'm sure we will bubble that back up again, but it was always conversations around “How do you allow people to make changes?” “How do you allow people to understand that they can improve without making it personal?”... because as soon as you do, people shut down and you end up with nothing.
Bex: Yeah, and I think that's interesting about directing it at the organisation rather than the individual. But I have also seen PR teams shut this stuff down at an organisational level, and what you do about that? It's a big, big topic
Greg: It’s that cognitive dissonance stuff, where you present someone with friction and they just double down on their belief.
Harry: Yeah. There's no reason why I don't think we should be naming and shaming. I think that once you get to a certain size as an organisation and you've been around for a certain amount of time, there should be change
Greg: Yeah, definitely. I did hear an interesting take on how to communicate and champion more liberal views. The argument that they were making was that it's really easy if you're doing like, a far right thing where you can blame a specific person or specific group because that is tangible, it's easy to attach on to, whereas the more liberal, because they do take that view of “Well, it's not a single person's fault or a single group's fault so we'll just talk about this societal need to change.” They were like, the reason liberal points of view are harder to express is because you don't have that enemy to fight against. I can’t remember who I was, but they were basically saying we need to shift that and we need to actually start pointing the finger at groups and people who are getting in the way of this change so that we have something to rally around.
We also need to stop talking about focusing on the challenge, like not enough, you know, the pay gap and things like that. We need to shift the attention to talking about the vision of what the world will be like if we do those things. So instead of saying “the pay gap is this big”, “women are being disadvantaged in this way”... she was saying that you need to focus on what happens if we do change that. What does the world look like if we do that? So point the finger at the people who are actually getting in the way of this, but then talk about what happens if they get out of the way of that. And I thought that was really interesting because it does happen. You know, the far right, you have a very easy message to communicate because it's kind of like, “Well, that person's at fault.” and, yeah, people get behind that message.
Harry: Hmm. Interesting...
Bex: But I think what...why the other side of the argument doesn't do that because you point your finger at someone, and then what happens? And as much as they might have been a bit sexist and that's not okay...do you want that person to be bullied offline? And their family to be bullied...you know, we know the repercussions as well, of pointing fingers. I'm not saying you shouldn't, but, you know, it can also be bad.
Greg: Yeah,
Bex: We can't solve this in one podcast,
Greg: [laughs]
Bex: So instead, why not take the charity digital skills report?
Greg: Nice, nice
Bex: Also that'll help lead into it. We'll know who's in what roles. You know, we'll probably... I'm assuming it's looking at gender stuff, too.
Greg: Yeah, this is the biggest digital skills report of the year.It's been running for quite a few years now, and it does provide a really, really interesting snapshot of what's happening in regards to digital skills in the charity sector. And I think this year is gonna be really, really interesting considering the progression of digital. I've seen myself and heard from across the sector, so I think, yeah, I really encourage people to get out there and fill this in. The more information we get, the better, because there are greater challenges now and that need to move to Digital is even more present, so I'd be really interested to see the results of this once it's done so yeah, get out there! Search for Charity Digital skills report and get it filled in.
Harry: So you got until Friday 3rd April and then they publish on 5th May...that’s a swift turnaround! So hopefully we’ll be talking about it quickly after that.
Greg: Yeah
Bex: Tech News of the Week!
Tech News of the Week
Bex: Facebook are looking for proposals for research into integrity....
Greg: Yeah, you couldn't write it, could you?
Bex: [laughs]
greg: Like…[laughs] they’re really interested in misinformation and polarisation, so they’re asking…
Bex: Are they though…(?) [laughs]
Greg: Yeah(!) They’re asking people to submit proposals for, um, research. They're gonna provide $2 million in funding for research, looking at things like health misinformation, quantifying harms of misinformation, information processing of sensational, hateful, divisive or provocative, problematic content. Jesus, that is a hard sentence to say. Effective polarisation, dangerous speech, conflict and violence. Misinformation...News trust...I mean, this goes on.
Bex: So all the bad stuff that they do...
Bex: Yeah, literally, all this bad stuff that they do... before they make any changes, they're going to get people to just research it so that they can learn how much of a bad impact they've been having for the last, however many years and then go “But don't worry, we're getting better because we've done this research.”
Harry: Would you say that this is an attempt to make it a community issue?
Greg:Yeah
Harry: Rather than a Facebook issue…
Greg: Yeah, they want massively... with everything that Facebook do….they wanna delegate responsibility to the community. Their view is “We're just a channel. We're not making these things happen.” Reality is... they are, because, as we know, you create a platform, you create social habits, whether you like it or not, and they just won't accept that responsibility.
Bex: And this just reminds me of when the cigarette industry used to do, you know, fund loads of research centres, into the effects of cigarette smoke, and then...they didn't lie, but they would just not publish a load of stuff, if they didn't like it. And I just think that's what they’re gonna do right?
Greg: I mean, did nobody at that table when they said, “guys, we're gonna create a foundation for research into integrity. So we're going to fund loads of research into what we're doing and how it impacts society.” ….Did no one go…”I'm not sure on the integrity of funding research into integrity ourselves, like, will people believe the integrity of that research?”
Bex: [laughs]
Greg: Like I mean, come on, guys like...you’re fucking just making it easy for us now!
Harry: [laughs] I'm so torn on this. Like I can see...I already know a couple of people who are going to be applying for it, I understand that this could make a difference to some organisations. It’s what they do with that and how it spins, how they spin it, that could potentially be negative…
Grag: Anybody who goes for this and believes that they're going to get any kind of ethical integrity to their research, that it's not gonna be, like you say, tanked if it doesn't meet the party line…
Bex: Leak it! You’d leak it!
Greg: ...like, you’re completely fooling yourselves, it's that whole thing of “We can change the system from the inside” ...can you fuck!
Bex: Not this system
Greg: Like...come on, guys… just stop convincing yourselves that the world is all rainbows and happy faces. This's just... this is going to turn into another Libra for Facebook, where it just completely bites them on the ass.
Harry: [laughs] It's almost like you are being let in, but you're being let into a community rather than you're being let into Facebook. Are you being let into a community that Facebook wants to make responsible for those things, rather than being let into Facebook: The Organisation?
Greg: Yeah, and they've notoriously had like... people who have worked with them have found that they've been really hard to work with, so... yeah... it just... it confounds me that anyone would think that this is a good idea. But they thought that creating their own currency was a good idea. So, like, it just goes to show how...
Bex: Could it be though...that they’ve realised all the bad they've been doing and they want to find ways to….rectify it (?)
Greg: Yeah, but then they've thought “so WE should fund that because that shows good integrity because we're funding ways to solve all the problems that we've solved” but they're not. They're funding research to show if they've actually had an impact...
Bex: yeah, it’s a bit weird...
Greg: ...even though there's loads of research that shows that they are, so they're not acting on it. So this could go on for years, and then they go, “Oh yeah, shit, guys, we realise that we've been doing all this bad stuff”. It's just….it’s just idiotic, it really is. [laughs]
Bex: [laughs]
Harry: ...and if you want to apply you have until 1st April, 5pm!
All: [laughs]
Bex: No, really, if you’re like a strong willed person who would leak this research then apply!
Greg: Oh my God yes! I would love that, I’d really love that.
Bex: Please apply. But, we’ll see
Greg: I am more and more thinking that we need to start treating Facebook like a nation, like a nation state. Like when I think about the ways that charities interact with countries and governments and they're like, “Well, we're not going to make our own laws blah blah blah” and then the government start talking about making laws and they're like, “Oh, we've got some recommendations for those laws”... like...organisations should be lobbying Facebook like there would lobby any government. They should be pushing for change by using press and PR in the same way that they would do with governments. Like the only way that we're gonna get Facebook to work with any integrity is by challenging their power the same way that we challenge the power of governments, through evidence, through publicising the wrong that they do, by researching the impact on society without them funding it.
Bex: So who funded a Coronavirus misinformation study this week? That happened as well
Greg: Yeah:
Bex: ...and it was by another group of people who generally spread misinformation themselves, our government, something like that, I dunno! [laughs] But moving on...Coronavirus. There is a tech handbook, which is a crowdsourced resource for technologists, building things related to the Coronavirus outbreak.
Greg: Yeah, I'm currently looking at it. Yeah, it's really good. So this is coronavirustechhandbook.com, all one word. So this has data sets, tools, diagnostic questionnaires, models, research infrastructure, case map dashboards…
Bex: It’s open as well, anyone can add to it
Greg: Yeah, you can add. You can learn. There's infographic, tools for remote working, public service announcements, practical projects, project ideas, stuff for doctors...
Bex: It’s really nice! I like the ‘datasets we’d like section’ as well. Like ‘this is what we do have. This is what we don't know. Anyone else know it?’
Harry: This is lovely isn’t it? It’s huge
Bex: Yeah I love it
Greg: It’s a shame Sam's not on the podcast because he would have loved this, like this open data stuff...
Bex: ALL THE DATASETS!
Greg: ....is really, really useful. I think it's really interesting because...and it's…. this has been initiated by the London College of Political Technologists. Yeah, what a brilliant idea to fight that misinformation, share data, you know, maybe help in some way, if you've got some plucky coders or people wanting to make use of these things.
Bex: Yeah there’s stuff here like, worldometers, real time world statistics being tweeted out, that's come from a dataset. I just really like the things that are being created…
Greg: Yeah, I think if you're really interested in this stuff, there’s ways that you could use it to help people. Yeah, I think it's a fantastic little thing that someone's put together, brilliant, nice to see someone actually doing something good with this instead of...
Bex: Yeah and the….So... the London College of Political Technologists, at Newspeak House, do handbooks like this when anything big happens. They had one for the election and other things I believe.
Greg: Oh?
Bex: I've seen them do this a couple of times, and they do always react really quickly to stuff. So, it's just really...I really like what they do
Greg: That’s a really good idea. I also like the fact that I'm in there and there's an Anonymous Axolotl...so... that's cool
Bex: [laughs] Who doesn't like an axolotl(?) They’re so happy.
Greg: Yeah
Bex: They would probably not get on on this negative podcast
Greg: [laugs] Or they would, but they’d be smiling the whole time.
Bex: That’d be just creepy
Greg: [laughs]
Harry: Just before I left, we were talking at home about somebody who my wife knows on Facebook, who's a Flat Earther of course...
Greg: Oh, right (!)
Harry: ...Anti-Vaxxer…
Greg: Yeah
Harry: Chemtrails from planes…
Greg: Wow!.
Harry: And apparently the Coronavirus is funded by various governments, just to make us, like, just comply...
Greg: Yeah…
Harry: Because everybody's going to stay home. That’s what they want...
Greg: What hasn't helped with this, is there is so much pop culture reference to a virus coming from China. So there was the Dean Koontz novel where...
Harry: That did nail it, didn’t it(!?)
Greg: Yeah(!) Which literally had a virus coming from Wuhan, which was built in a lab near Wuhan. So there was this rumour going around that it was coming from a government lab and everyone's like, No, tha...t that's the plot for a novel....
Harry: That’s a book [laughs]
Greg: Then there was The Simpsons thing as well, where it was like, someone in a factory in China coughs into a box and it gets sent to Springfield and they start... and this virus goes round Springfield. So that was another one I saw, like, yeah, like no wonder there’s all this misinformation. It's been around for years. We've just missed it until it became relevant. Ah, it's scary.
Harry: I was going to say, what's the thing…? If you put enough chimpanzees with typewriters in a room they’ll write the complete works of…
Greg: [laughs] Oh my God, yeah...
Harry: ...literature has been around for long enough that pretty much every storyline of real life will already have been written about some point, right?
Greg: Ahh that's so weird. So now we need to start reviewing old episodes of Star Trek, things like that to look for like...clues…
Harry: Patterns!
Greg: ...to what the future holds!
Bex: [laughs]
Greg: Man, someones going to spend a lot of time doing that now...You could probably build an algorithm to do that...predict the end of the world based on 80’s TV…
Harry: AI based real life news events from datasets of previously written or acted out fiction.
Greg: Yeah! Someone should do that. Get onto the…
Bex: In this fictional future that your all painting... is ‘Tech For Good’ called something else…?
Greg: [laughs]
Rant of the Week
Bex: [laughs] So, Rant of the Week... and I've had time to calm down about this now, so I will be very reasonable. Somebody wrote something on LinkedIn...Lucy Bernholz, who apparently is very important by the looks of it, so I don't want to upset Lucy, she’s probably coming at this from a very nice place…
Greg: She’s a Senior Research Scholar from Stanford
Bex: ...she has updated her post since then because a lot of people got very angry, but basically the post originally was having a pop at the term ‘Tech For Good’ and part of me...part of me agrees, so, you know…
Greg: Yeah, we've had that whole conversation before ourselves…
Bex: Before we even set up, we were like tech for good, right? That's the wrong way round, semantically, we don't want to be putting tech on to good stuff, it should be the other way around, good comes first, and then tech is just something we can use to do good with…
Greg: Also when we came up with it, like, it was a fairly uncommon thing, everyone was still very much in the ‘Let's do bad with tech...’
Bex: Yeah, not a lot of people were doing good with tech, but it was kind of an established term, and I think that's what ended up, you know, making the choice for us, like people know what it is. And maybe, you know, there's questions around it, there’s questions about every term, but, you know, it's kind of...fairly established, so let's just run with it and... people are building like a movement, a community round it in various places around the world. So I think it's helpful now. It is a term that people kind of get, but I don't know... that... what to say about this?
First of all, I think Lucy's coming at this from... it must be from a very different perspective. Maybe a different country. Maybe tech for good is very different. She's from Stanford Centre on Philanthropy. So, you know, maybe tech for good is very different over there and we don't realise. But basically she's saying that she thinks that tech for good is repurposing a technology built for commercial purposes and putting it into civil society...
First of all, that doesn't work, and we know that, and we don't do that...
Greg: But I think there are a lot of people who DO do that… because I always hear everyone is obsessed with scale…
Bex: Yeah
Greg: And that is a tech term, and that is the, you know, Day 1, 101 tech development…”How do we make this thing scale?” And everyone is obsessed with that
Bex: Yeah, yeah. But I don't think that's where we came from. I think we're moving towards that. So I think it's like a massive injustice to say “that's just the whole point of good” No, isn't, we know that that's a bad thing. But I agree we are moving towards this domain of saying, actually, we need to make this profitable. And how do we, you know, sell the IP, when actually, it should be open for all? And so I do think there's something in that, but that's not, you know, we know that. I think the people working within the Tech For Good sector...there are nuanced debates but overall, we know that it's a challenge and things like context matters in the context of civil society. You know, we need to think about cost benefit analysis. Yes. Yeah, we know. Yeah, these are the discussions we’re having within the tech for good space. Commercial technologies prioritise skill on efficiency. Yes, they do. But what? You know, we don't start with a commercial technology. Sometimes we do because of, you know, money. But that all makes me just think that yeah, whatever Lucy's experienced as a concept of Tech For Good is not what we experience as Tech for Good...
Greg: I mean, if it's in America, I guarantee it's definitely not what we experience as Tech For Good, cause it's probably charging through the nose and paid for by dirty money but...
Bex: Yeah, and I just got mad at this because...
Greg: I mean that’s a gross generalisation but…
Bex: ...everything she said, I agree with... it’s just that Tech for Good, to me, is not this and you know, especially when we think of... we are all volunteers, we’re having these discussions on a weekly basis for free. We run a community of people that...there’s 3000 people signed up for our Meetup group in Manchester, who all, kind of like...get this? And I just was really annoyed that...it’s kind of rude to say all this ...without... from our context, but I guess her context is very different....
Greg: I think the worst thing was...and she did correct this....but she used the Tech For Good logo from our friends down in London at techforgood.tv without really knowing much about them based on what I can tell. So she redressed that, she changed that, but it was bad form on her part. But I think there is a mixed bag here because I totally agree with her on some of the aspects of like, trying to use too much from Tech to create change and use tech in the Social sector, like using those lessons from a sector that is just corrupt to the core...
Bex: Yeah, but I think...most of us get that. We start with the problem. We know that. Start with a problem then see if Tech can maybe help...
Greg: Yeah but I think some of those who are more on the social side don't. And they just see the Tech side of stuff, whereas those people like ourselves, who are kind of like toeing that line, understand that a bit more. But I kind of think that argument is separate to her semantic argument about we shouldn't be calling things “Tech for Good''. The problem is, and this happens everywhere, is the people who care about that spend centuries arguing over semantics because they're so worried about getting it right or they want to sell something. So they argue that “you guys have been labelling this wrong for ages...here's my book on how we need to change labels. It will cost you this much.” Whereas the guys who are using it to make money don't give a shit so they don't question it at any point, they just go “This is Tech For Good guys!” And the people who are actually genuinely trying to do good, spend more time talking about the meaning of a fucking word instead of actually spending the time doing the good.
Bex: Yeah, I mean, I think that's my like, output from this. What did you want to change from this article? Did you want our Tech for Good group, or our podcast to change its name? Is that what you wanted? Because if we do that, that's just detrimental towards and it's not helping the cause. So I think that was like my output from it. What? What do you want us to do? OK, you’re mad at this...now what?
Harry: I think the ship sailed a long time ago, like, people who are doing the bad stuff will always attach themselves to the NAME, whereas the people who are doing the good stuff will attach themselves to the MEANING of that group....
Greg & Bex: Yes!
Harry: ...Like ‘Tech for Good’...it could be called ‘Dogs for Harry’, it wouldn't...it doesn’t matter what it's called...
Bex: [laughs] Do you want a dog, Harry(?)
Harry: ...because as long as it's doing something that's beneficial and you can make money out of it, somebody will say, “Oh, yeah, well, our company is ‘Dogs for Harry’ too!’, like it’s too...you cannot avoid it. Unless you come up with a name that's like ‘We create technology that only has a great impact and the intent is also positive’...you can’t possibly have both a catchy phrase, a catchy name for a community and also exclude the bad doers within that community...
Bex: [chuckles] I remember when I just first read this and Harry you walked up to me just as I’d stopped reading it…
Harry: Yeah you were just off on one!
Greg: [laughs]
Bex: I was FUMING! I was like, I have to talk about this to you Harry because I’m so mad! I'm really sorry Harry.
Harry: No, no. You erm, yeah you vented and then you felt a bit better. And then I think you wrote something about it and made notes about it after that [laughs] but yeah, you were a bit upset. You’re still a bit upset now…
Bex: Well, a bit upset but...
Harry: I think you’re rightly upset as well because... it comes back to the kind of shades of grey. It sounds like she expected it to be more white. You've got to be on the right side of this, otherwise it's not...it's not worth doing, whereas some people are actually... it's just about moving in the right direction, it's a journey...
Greg: We live in this horrible confluence where it's like...words are equally both really, really important and also completely meaningless.So, like words really do have power. But at the same time, if the meaning isn't there behind those words, they don't have power. So, yeah, you know, I have heard many arguments about what, like why we need to worry about this, but this isn't the first thing to have this discussion where it's constantly about “yeah but we need to use this word”...You see it with, like….
Bex: The design industry, constantly!
Greg: Design industry constantly, LGBT community, where we’re like, you know, plus QI. And I get that those words have very, very strong meaning for the people that they represent, but at the same time, it’s not the word that represents you, it's the meaning behind those words. And if you spend all the time worrying about the words and less time about the meaning, people lose interest and they don't care anymore. And those who benefit off it, go off and do that. And the people who could benefit off the meaning don't, because we spend more time worrying about that. Because the people who do... care. They're the ones who care about the meaning. So they spend a lot of time talking about it, but they forget that they actually need to do some shit as well so...
Harry: I guess the alternative is to gate keep isn’t it? It’s to come up with a set of expectations before you can take part in the thing and then you have to create the set expectations and document them and then you have to make it some kind of ‘badge’ that you can achieve.
Greg: And we did that! We have done that. We've talked about what ‘Tech for Good’ means for us. You know, we talked about it multiple times. There was an effort to define what Tech for Good was a few years ago, when we discussed our own kind of definition, which was around intent and impact, you know, you could have good intent, but your impact is shit...so that's not tech for good. You could have terrible intent but actually your impact is good, so there's like a… it's never about, like, whether you're like a white hat or a black hat, it's literally, you know, like it's a combination of those two factors. So we've outlined it from our own perspective, there are others, but yeah, I think that's really important. You gate keep, you set those kind of guidelines and then you hold people to account for that.
Bex: We definitely hold people to account on this podcast...
Greg: [laughs]
Bex: It’s just whether people actually care...
Greg: Yeah…
Bex: [laughs] or feel accountable!
And finally…
Bex: Let’s end on a nice note! So we've actually got two ‘and finally’s’... Do you want to do one? Do you want to do the other? Or shall we do both!?
Greg: Let's go! Because we keep missing the ‘and finally’ so let's rip through them both.
Bex: So this one sounds quite good...Children in China got out of doing homework by giving the app they use enough bad reviews!
Greg:Yeah, yeah…I love this...
Bex: ...to get it kicked out of the App Store! Amazing! I mean...Bad(!) Naughty children…(!)
Greg: [laughs] yeah, but also like, problem solving there, like, fantastic demonstration of problem solving and collaborative working. Because they realise that the app that they've been told to use in audited….
Bex: The app is also called DingTalk too...which I just think is funny…
Greg: [laughs] Yeah, they realised because it was in the app store, if they gave it enough bad reviews, it would get removed from the app store. So the developers had to beg for the app to be put back in, which I think is just... yeah, fantastic thinking from the children.
Harry: It’s definitely outside the box. It does suggest you could do some damage if you can get control of 10,000 reviews, fake or real...on other peoples app’s
Greg: Yeah. Yeah, a really good indicator there that you could...
Bex: They should form like an app rating farm now, off the back of what they've done with their app...
Harry: Monetise it! Yeah.
Bex: And monetise it and say, if you want an app removed...we will all….on mass...as real people as well...not bots...
Greg: Could we do that for Facebook?
Harry: I’m assuming you would have to be millions or even hundreds of millions rather than thousands. But yeah,
Greg: I’m sure we could get that (!)
Bex: [laughs] There's also a Science of Happiness course at Bristol University…?
Greg: Yeah, University of Bristol have started a course called Science of Happiness, designed to teach students a set of science based strategies for living a happier and more fulfilling life. Which I think is great.
Bex: What are those science based...why….I want to know what this is!
Greg: I haven't bothered to read it! I just read that far and was like, great! I thought that sounded lovely.
Harry: I think that's amazing. And I think general practitioners in the UK should be trained in this stuff.
Greg: Yeah!
Harry: Because... I'm not suggesting all general practitioners are...but when it comes to happiness, when it comes to emotional, mental health, a lot of it is seen as “oh the solution is counselling” or “the solution is drugs” and yes, in some cases or many cases or most cases, maybe it is, but there is also opportunities for changes in lifestyle as a...either a part of that, or even the first step that can have huge impact.
Greg: I think that...That's very true, actually. And we were talking about this on the podcast a few weeks ago when we were looking at press coverage of suicide and how... the responsibilities therein, of how they have to protect. They have a duty of care to protect the lives of people that they report on but does that now need to shift more towards protecting the mental health of people that are covering? Do we, as society need to think more broadly around how we protect the duty of care? How we have a duty of care of people that we are working with, in any walk of life and mental health services are seen as a specialist service that you have to be referred to. Is there a case now that it's no longer that? And actually it's something that you should be going to see a GP about?
Harry: Yeah, I love those. People have been talking about having first aid trainers in organisations obviously, but why not have mental health first aiders?
Greg: We have them at Reason Digital
Bex: Yeah they do exist, you can go on training for that now...
Greg: I think one of the biggest challenges around that is not about training the people to be mental health first aiders...it is about changing the culture, around being open to going to someone in your workplace
Harry: Yeah, spot on Greg, I agree
Greg: And that's a real challenge. One of the things that we found that really help that is about people in management positions coming out and being really honest about their own challenges with mental health and speaking openly about it, to get other people to feel confident…
Harry: So interesting! Because that's exactly what happened in one of my previous organisations where it was like a moment in time where all of a sudden, everybody felt safe again.
Greg: Yeah…
Harry: Because they knew that it was okay to talk about it. It changed the organisation, quite fundamentally actually.
Greg: Yes. I do realise now that I work with a lot of really broken people so... (!) Yeah, swings and roundabouts.
Harry: That's why I always jump in and defend people straightaway, like, if people use things like ‘weird’, ‘odd’, ‘strange’...like if people use those as describing words about people then I'm like “But WHY do you think they’re like that?”
Greg: I love being described as strange.
Bex: You just don't know what people are going through. You just don't know what's happening
Harry: No clue.
Bex: You can't judge anyone. They might be five minutes late...you might be mad at them for that...but you just don't know what they've literally just done and why they're five minutes late. Why not change the tone there to “Why are they five minutes late, are they okay? Do they need anything from us?” instead of “Why the hell are you five minutes late!? God!”
Harry: [laughs]
Bex: We should just all look after each other. I was in..., and I'm not very good at that. I'm not naturally a caretaker, I don't think. I'm really awkward deep down, and I think that that leads me to be quite aloof and not really check on people as much as I should... that’s something I need to work on. But I was doing an interview for a conference I’m speaking at, and they sent me a list of questions in advance and one of them was “How do you look after those around you, in a work perspective?”...and actually, that's really pertinent to what I do because, you know, working in the social good sector, you can often, especially in user research, you can often be reading some really grim stuff, or speaking to some people that could maybe trigger you, or affect you in some way.
And I didn't have a good answer for that. Other than, you know, like generally...be nice. Like how you normally be nice to people and check in on people, like I didn't have a really good answer for it. But we should all be thinking about that
Greg: I was mentoring a Masters student who did a research piece on compassionate design and her argument was that we talk a lot about empathetic design and things like that and I think a lot of designers would say that they work with empathy, but her argument was that compassion is completely different and is something that needs to be trained and honed and improved. And actually, if we had more of an open discourse about doing that, there’s opportunities, not just to create products but also to reduce strain on people who are doing... working in sectors like her own, where it can…
Bex: Yeah I think that's like, really far advanced thinking though, the first point of call, like, empathy is hard actually, and I think it's a really big skill, but I don't think you need to actually walk in people's shoes to be able to understand them...
Greg: That's where the strain comes from…
Bex: I think actually you just need to respect the person that you're interviewing or talking to and go “I respect your view. I agree. I believe it. I believe your story. I respect your story”. You don't necessarily have to like, meld into their way of thinking or anything. But actually, I think we just don't even practise that first level of...I don't think we're even respecting each other. Like that idea of “what the fuck are they doing, why are they five minutes late?”
Harry: Yeah, ‘Tribalism’... “Oh, they're different from me” or “they're different from the people who work here” “Why are they different? Why is that okay?”
Bex: Yeah, just this basic... respect that other people are different, that's okay. You don't know what they're doing. You don't know what's going on...
Harry: Yeah
Bex: Basic shit man!
Greg: Yeah
Bex: Oh why did positive into negative!? [laugs]
Greg: [laughs]
Bex: Thank you, Positive News…[laughs] for our...
Harry: AGAIN! Positivity into negativity on Tech For Good Live...
Greg: [laughs]
Bex: ...for our ‘And Finally…’ [laughs] We’ve ruined your nice publication/article again. Any final thoughts before we wrap up, everybody?
Greg: No, no, I’m feeling fairly positive after that negative rant
Harry: My only final thought is that I'm gonna find a positive news story about Facebook at some point in the next 6 to 8 weeks, then shove it in Greg's face.
Bex: [laughs]
Harry: Compassionately!
Greg: They do! They do positive things! But it’s completely outweighed by all the shit that they do so…
Harry: Yeah, agreed yeah…
Greg: It’s literally like….there must be some poor teams at Facebook who are like [small voice] “We’re doing good stuff!”
Bex & Harry: [laugh[
Greg: Like, from somewhere deep in this well that they work from. Yeah, I just think you poor fuckers. Get out.
Bex: [laughs]Well, that is all we have time for today.
Thanks for listening. What did you think? We'd love to hear your thoughts. Get in touch on twitter @techforgoodlive or email at hello@techforgood.live. We love it. We’d love it if you gave us a nice review and told your mates about this podcast. [pause] Sorry, I needed to swallow!
Greg: [laughs]
Bex: [laughs] If you want to get more involved in our community, you can join our Slack channel or subscribe to the newsletter. Just visit the Tech for Good Live website to find out how. Thanks to the wonderful Podcast.co for hosting us on their tech platform thing. If you want to create your own podcast, why not? Everybody else has. You can find everything you need at podcast.co
Greg: Yeah they really need to stop helping people create podcasts now…
Bex: [laughs] Just don’t make any more podcasts...
Harry: It's full!
Bex: [Cliche presenter voice] We’d also like to thank Happy Porch for their sponsorship which will allow us to have our episodes transcribed, helping us be more inclusive and accessible. Happy Porch provide strategy (I don’t know why I’m talking like this!)...
Greg: [laughs]
Bex: [laughs] Happy Porch provide strategy, technology and development for purpose driven organisations. You can find out more about them at happyporch.com [laughs] Sorry! I had to finish! I started so I finished! Okay. Bye!
Harry and Greg: Bye!