TFGL2021 - S2 - Ep 8 - Bothsidesism

Welcome to this episode of the Tech For Good Live podcast.

In this episode, we’re talking about a global movement that is putting people living with disabilities on the business leadership agenda. We’re also talking about how the online world is responding to asks for support for charities in Palestine. We also chat about how algorithms on Facebook and Twitter may be further suppressing marginalized voices around the globe.

Transcript

Ankur: Hello and welcome to the Tech for Good Live podcast. Today on the show, we'll be talking about a global movement that is putting people living with disabilities on the business leadership agenda. We'll also talk about how the online world is responding to asks for support for charities in Palestine. And we'll be talking about how algorithms on Facebook and Twitter may be further suppressing marginalised voices around the globe. All that and more coming right up. So sadly, all our friends have left us today and it's just a two person show. We have me, Ankur Asthana. And Greg Ashton is back on the podcast. Greg, why do you think they've left us?

Greg: I think it's probably my fault. You know, I'm on this every week, extolling my hatred of everyone and I think it's probably just finally got to them.

Ankur: It is pretty depressing. I agree. [laughs] 

Greg: [laughs]

Ankur: I can see that. Personally, I think it may have something to do with the fact that neither of us have really changed our clothes since we went into lockdown last year. I think the first episode I did you were wearing that same jacket. I was still wearing the same shirt so....

Greg: I’m totally into the slow fashion thing now. 

Ankur: The slow fashion [laughs].

Greg: Yep. Buy and worn, you know, clothes that you can wear every single day.

Ankur: Yeah. 

Greg: That’s my excuse. 

Ankur: Yeah. You’re really just taking it to fast fashion. It's good for the environment. Yeah. 

Greg: Yeah [laughs]. 

Ankur: Not so much. But Greg, do you want to share the stat of the week?

Greg: Yeah. So yeah, positive, positive story. I thought this was really good. Basically, two years ago, there was a campaign launch to get 500 national and multinational private sector corporations to sign up to a campaign around inclusion and accessibility and help unlock the social and economic value of people living with disabilities across the world. And they've just become the valuable 500. So it's this organisation called The Valuable 500. They've got organisations like Apple, BP, Coca Cola, Google, Deloitte, Nestle, all signed up, to kind of get involved with this push towards producing more accessible products and things like that but also improving the workplace and getting more people with disabilities into the workplace.

Ankur: Yeah, I think that was, I really thought that was interesting in terms of their kind of two pronged approach and reading some of what they have on their website. You know, on the one hand, it really is, like you're saying about, you know, improving the workforce, and the environment for people living with disabilities. And they have it on their website, you can go and kind of see all the different ways that companies can take action. So they have everything from governance, appointing a board level champion who is accountable for disability performance within your organisation, which I think is a really cool idea and representation, which is something we've talked about in the past. Right. So reviewing media and advertising, consider how you can speak to a broader spectrum of people. But I think the other side of it and this is also the consumer side, which is, which is really cool. And I hadn't fully thought about, but you know, we talk about accessibility and inclusivity in tech, and I think an initiative like this has the potential to advance that because it forces businesses on the board and people who are designing products to really all the question, like how accessible is what we're what we're developing to our consumer base. So yeah, I think it's a really cool, cool thing to just be focused on both sides of the equation. And it's awesome that they've gotten so many, so many companies. Have they actually gotten like, 500 companies?

Greg: Yeah, yeah. So they, their aim was to hit that 500 and they've hit that now. So they've, you know, launched this thing, The Valuable 500. And it is, yeah, it's huge. They've got some big ones. I'm hoping it's more than just lip service. This springs from Caroline Casey, who's the founder of it. I think she was a CEO, and she was hiding a disability. So it wasn't like a, you know, a visible thing. I think it was something to do with her sight. And so she hid it for years. And she was just like, why am I doing this? Why am I hiding this? And they released figures. So there are no executives or senior managers at FTSE 100 companies who have a disclosed disability, and only 12% of firms report the number of their employees who are disabled. Which is just huge, and it really, it ties into that whole thing about having a voice. If you've got someone on a board who has an accessibility need, that agenda is just gonna totally change dramatically.

Ankur: Yeah, that's, that's, that's really wild. And it does. I think that's a really interesting thing too, about there being more openness for people to be able to disclose their own disabilities, you know, and in that case, I think, seems like this kind of initiative actually allows for that to be happening and be part of the conversation rather than this taboo thing, or a part of yourself that you have to hide, which I think is super interesting. Yeah, it kinda reminds me of the classic example, right of the, you know, we talked about in tech, where you can have different colour contrasts can really make a big difference in terms of accessibility and for folks who have visual impairments. And so it just got me thinking of, you know, how many things have I even been a part of designing or, you know, creating whether it was like a graphic on social media or something where I didn't really consider that. So I think this is really cool, where it's both people who are in these tech companies themselves or these companies more broadly, but then also the consumer base and making it part of the open conversation for everyone.

Greg: Yeah, yeah. And I think part of that is that open conversation. So I'm disabled, but I would never have said that until last year. So I suffer from migraine. And, you know, the actual definition of somebody who's disabled is inability to live a normal everyday life, you know, normal in the little bunny ears there. 

Ankur: Yeah. 

Greg: But that can be persistently or periodically. So somebody who breaks their leg, you know, is disabled during that period where their leg is broken. When I have a migraine attack, I literally can't do anything for a few days. So I am, you know, periodically disabled. And I think, you know, part of me was saying, well, I'm not disabled, because I'm not, I'm nowhere near as bad as anybody else. But it's like, it's that kind of level of degrees, where we're kind of thinking, well, you have to be in a wheelchair to be classed as disabled. And I think getting out of that mindset, and having it as a normal part of the discourse and understanding that, you know, everybody has that opportunity to be disabled at some point, can really change, you know, shift that focus to say, it's okay, and let's talk about how we deal with that. 

Ankur: Yeah. Yeah, that's really, really powerful. It also reminds me of this, that I was reading this book by someone who did kind of a study of the disability movement in the US. Disability rights movement in the US. And they talked about this idea that living with disability is a life experience that everyone is touched by whether it's directly at some point in your life or a family member. And so, you know, one of the quotes there is that this is leaving any business leader might be leaving behind 15 to 20% of the global population, if you're not gunning for this right in your business. And so I think, yeah, it just speaks to how, and this is part of how it happened, part of human society. And this is just making it more open. So like, what's free?

Greg: Yeah. Could you imagine another situation where you'd say to someone, yeah, we're just not going to produce anything that this group can use. Your managers would be like, what? Like, what excuse do you have to leave a fifth of the population out of this. 

Ankur: [laughs] 

Greg: Oh I couldn't be asked. 

Ankur: Exactly [laughs]  Well, so that's some positive news. But shifting gears, as we always do on the podcast a little bit. We've got some charity news of the week, which is, which is interesting to say the least.

Greg: Yeah, yeah. So the next, you know, charity news and tech news are really going to focus in on the fighting between Gaza and Israel. And this story. I don't know. It was one of those things where it just sparked a thought in my head where I was like, I don't know what the right answer is here. So it's great for a podcast because we can just chat about it forever. So the gaming network, IGN, has faced a staff revolt after a senior management stepped in to delete and apologise for a post linking readers to charities and organisations in Palestine. So they had posted a link to Doctors Without Borders, United Nations, Relief, Works Agency and basically said that Palestinian civilians are currently suffering in great numbers in Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank due to Israeli forces. And that led to other gaming sites kind of doing the same thing. But then that was removed and they're not sure by who. The staff aren't even sure by who. And basically they said it, you know, the instinct to help those in need was not in line with our intent of trying to show support for all people impacted by the tragic event. And they went ahead and donated $25,000 to save the children to aid those civilian lives impacted across the entire area. And as a result, these 70 staff members have written an open letter to complain about that. Yeah. What do you think?

Ankur: I think it's, yeah, it's, it's interesting, because there's two, at least to where I read the story, there's two layers to it. So there's the one side of it, which is the way, you know, kind of news, media organisations, which is because IGN is basically, you know, reports on gaming news, right? It's kind of the fourth thing off that I would know, as an obsessive tend to flare and you know, but there's this question of, can your editor or can your whoever just step in and, you know, completely kind of make a unilateral call on what's posted on your social accounts for a company or organisation? And obviously, they can, because they did, but, you know, what does that mean, from the kind of journalistic integrity side of things. And then there's the actual question of, you know, the situation, right, and, you know, what is the right thing for tech organisations and charities to be saying and doing at this moment. And I think, you know, one thing I've seen on that front is, on the second point, in some ways there is this, like confusion, even I've seen amongst charities, you normally will be kind of at the forefront of making statements in these kinds of situations. And, you know, at least in the US, I think it's, they're struggling oftentimes to name what I would consider state sanctioned violence, because the government and political leadership is refusing to name it clearly. Right. And so, you know, the US government and the Biden administration just blocked the UN Security Council statement calling for a ceasefire for the third time this week, which is mind blowing to me that anyone would ever block a resolution calling for a ceasefire. Like, regardless of anything else, like why would you not call for stopping violence. So that to me, is I give you know, IGN and organisations some slack, because they're not seeing any kind of moral leadership from anyone else. And so then it's like, gets into this whole question. They had an interesting thing. In the letter that the 70 employees wrote. I think what their critique was, they said, we feel the latest statement that IGN put up dangerously turns what was a matter of supporting innocent civilians facing humanitarian crisis into a harmful case of both sidesism. And I think that's their critique and that's where the tension really is. But yeah, I don't know about the other piece around journalistic integrity and how you scored that with, you know, a position on the situation.

Greg: Yeah, it's for me, I was like, because it is about the civilians and the people that are being hurt. So does support in one or a set of charities say that you care about another set of civilians less? You know, it'd be like donating to a dog charity, does that imply that you hate cats? Like, I don't know, does funding a particular charity indicate that you side with them on a particular topic over somebody else? Or is it just saying, these people need help, so let's help them. And I just found that was a really, that was a difficult line to draw, because then we're turning that that charitable good, which is about, you know, civilians, innocence, children, mothers, fathers, that then gets turned into a political hot potato, where it's like, well, you can't indicate support or provide support for these people because that then, in turn, means you're supporting terrorism, or you're supporting them over them. And you're saying that their rights are better than theirs. And that whole conversation for me just was really, really murky. When you start thinking about like, the charitable sector.

Ankur: Yeah, there's something, I was talking with another friend about this. And they were, they were saying, the world is always burning to some extent, right. And, you know, there's, there's some question of, when do you use the argument of, well, you know, why aren't you helping those people over there and over there. Like, and so if you're not helping everyone, then don't help anyone at all, which is what it can sometimes like reduced down into. I think, in this case, it sounded like what IGN did is they, because they are supporting Save the Children, which I guess works in some kind of region, more broadly, and it’s a global organisation, they went around it that way and said, hey, we're supporting organisation that helps everyone. But I think that there is something like a little bit, I don't know, I questioned the idea of, well, if you can't help everyone all the time, then don't bother at all. Which is where some of the underlying thinking I think sometimes comes for this stuff. Yeah, I'm curious. I am curious about the just like, you know, regardless of this particular situation, the, your thoughts on the idea that, you know, the IGN editor or whoever, whoever the person was that made this decision could come in and just change with a tweet. But you know, change this kind of statement?

Greg: Yeah, I mean, I can totally see somebody somewhere higher up has seen this go out and as you that, like, you say, that both sideism thing has come through, and it's like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, they're particularly put support in Palestinians here and they're referencing Israeli forces, but there's people dying on both sides. So we need to crawl this back right away. And I can see that that, that both sideism process has just really come through. And I kind of get it from a, you know, they staked out a particular position there and many organisations are very nervous about showing support for one side or another, because you don't know who your readers are. So, you know, in a way, I can kind of understand that. But at the same time, it's politicising and bringing in charitable work into, you know, into that sector where actually it should be about the civilians, you know, and that's, that's the bit that's awkward.

Ankur: Yeah, yeah. Challenging. It makes me think a little bit about, you know, the power that the Quote Ranking File workers in media organisations or, you know, even tech companies can have and should have and, you know, there's something interesting about, you know, being the person that is in charge of the social accounts are in charge of writing the articles or whatever and then, knowing that at any moment, if you say, a certain thing, or a certain line, or the people higher up, don't like it, that can just be erased. There's something, yeah I don’t know. There's something about that power dynamic, which is, which is kind of interesting, especially because, you know, these platforms, these organisations have such a large reach. And so, it really does matter what you're, what you're posting, when you're now running these accounts, and I'm sure, I'm sure that's part of the frustration is, you know, it's not just this particular situation, but in general, the concern that, if it could happen now, like, there'll be another situation, you know, a year down the road where the same thing happens.

Greg: God, yeah, I used to train, like, small charities on using social media and the big thing was, like, you don't want to create a bottleneck, where every single thing you post has to go through the CEO. Like, that'd be a nightmare. So you create a framework that allows the, you know, the social media managers to make decisions about what's right and what isn't. But I guess that job has just got so complex now. You're going to have to have internal conversations about which side you fall on and certain topics fit for so many different things. Because brands, do you know, they've, I think they've made a rod for their own back, but they do, you know, they see the benefit of calling certain things out in society. But now they have to then have much, you know, much broader frameworks that cover all these different topics. And I think what's happened here is someone's made a call thinking, well, you know, this is what we would do as an organisation and management have gone woah, that's not, that's not what happened, that's not what we do. Yeah, crazy.

Ankur: Yeah. That's a great point, though, too, about the fact that there is the cynical part of me makes me think that part of this could just be about, you know, brands wanting to use issues and moments, right, we saw this wrong Black Lives Matter in particular, to ultimately advance their brand and like, bring in readership or show that they're, you know, acting in the right way. [laughs] And the cynical part of me is like, they don't, they don't really care. They're just using this as another moment thinking that you'll get more attention and eyeballs and whatever.

Greg: Yeah, I mean, you see loads of large protest groups across the UK getting out there supporting Palestinians and there's not really that many out there supporting Israel. So they're probably looking at that and thinking, well, the buy-in groups here are much bigger. Let's go with the Palestinians because they can, you know, clearly there's a lot more buy-in power there.

Ankur: It's a cynical, cynical side of us. Yeah, this is exactly why they left us [laughs] This is why we're alone on the podcast, Greg [laughs] 

Greg: [laughs] Yeah. slowly fading into the dark.

Ankur: [laughs] Well, this ties pretty cleanly into this next section on tech news of the week. And yeah, just all the different issues that have been popping up on Instagram and Twitter and these platforms around what's been happening.

Greg: Yeah, so depending on where, you know, like wherever you look this there's some there's some issues here with tech. So let's start with Instagram and Twitter. So they've had a couple of issues with posts being removed for various things. So Instagram and twitter blamed technical issues, technical errors for deletion of a number of posts talking about eviction of Palestinians from East Jerusalem, and a nonprofit was involved and they focused on social media, and they got like 200 complaints that all these posts have been deleted. Basically, what Instagram said was that they'd done an update, and it caused content that was reshared by multiple users to appear as missing. So it affected posts on Sharrah, Columbia and US and Canadian indigenous communities, which just seems really weird. Like the spread of the accounts that are impacted all seem to be like things supporting indigenous communities. And I'm like, that's a really specific error to have. 

Ankur: Yeah, yeah

Greg: Yeah, I was gonna say, I don't think there's like any bars or, you know, theatres in the UK that have suddenly had missing, you know, post. So it just seems to be these humanitarian groups, which is weird.

Ankur: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the flip side of it to get thinking about the profit side of things, they had this quote in the article that said, there's this idea that the markets in certain locations, right, I think this might be later on, but there's markets in certain locations will be less than in other locations. And so, you know, the calibration of the algorithm is towards places where there's more money to be hadand  more money to be made, and where there's kind of smaller populations or, you know, indigenous communities, you know, there may not be that kind of, the algorithm will be biassed against that and more likely to flag it as violating community standards, or whatever the thing is, which I thought was interesting.

Greg: Yeah, cuz that really raises that question of well, is it an Is it an error? Or is it don't exactly what it's supposed to do? You programmed it in a way that meant that it removed all of this, this content that, you know, was genuinely posted by people and wasn't in any way kind of causing any harm? It was sharing information about pretty despicable things. So yeah. Is that an error? Or is it just done exactly what he was supposed to have done?

Ankur: Yeah, exactly. I'm curious about this, this other piece around the hashtags because that is particularly specific. And I hadn't heard about this.

Greg: Yeah. So this. So I think part of the triggers for the events that are happening there now was around Al Aqsa Mosque, which is the third holiest site in Islamic faith. And there was, you know, a gathering of people there to celebrate Ramadan. And then there were clashes with police. And people were sharing posts about Al Aqsa Mosque, and, you know, kind of saying that the police were attacking them and those kinds of things. But all of these were blocked, because the term Al Aqsa is designated as a violent organisation. So, I was like wait, what, I've never heard of this but interestingly, so in the news, following on from the violence, you know, you always hear reference to Hamas, and that they're kind of front and centre, but apparently there are other groups and organisations and Al Aqsa is another militant group, who are apparently now having a resurgence because of all the violence and becoming much more active. So there is, you know, there is a group under that name, who are operating within that area. But again, it's that nuance isn’t it, of understanding, you know, what, what is there just, it's a blunt tool really, to kind of remove anything that references that and in this case, it wasn't referring to that group. So it'd be like, removing any reference to St. Paul's in London, like, you know, because a group called St Paul’s something. It's just a very, very blunt tool. Like in the US, it'd be like removing something like the Empire State or yeah, anything like that. So you have a very blunt tool in this case.

Ankur: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, especially during Ramadan. Right. I mean, that's been part of the part of the thing is, is, you know, is these you know, police attacks during Ramadan in particular, and then to see that. I think I've talked to some folks who've either directly been blocked or seen their posts taken down. And there is something particularly It stinks to see this happening. And then on top of that, not being able to speak about it or share about it is the frustrating part and it does seem like there's, this is another case where, you know, having more, you know, more diversity, having more cultural context in your workforce really makes a difference because I'm sure that If you have, if you have that built in, you can write the algorithms and design the algorithms in a way that understand the distinctions here. But if you don't have that, then it’s skewed too in a certain direction.

Greg: And it comes back to that power of tech and the position that they hold, and that cross border power that they hold, you know, we talk about freedoms of speech, but each, each nation has their own rules and laws around that. And because they've taken such a central role in our lives, I think we spoke about this last week or the week before, you know, it really is they desperately don't want to be involved or in charge of ruling free speech, but they do. They do. They've removed these people's ability to kind of communicate what is a horrendous act. And, you know, you look at any kind of incident in any of the other more Western places, and it would have been all over social media, with posts from people. The news would have been referencing and interviewing these people that are posted from the event. And you just don't have that here because the tech companies hold that power, that ability for people to communicate what is happening to them and their community. And it's just crazy.

Ankur: Yeah, the power is terrifying. I, there's also, there's something about, just going back to your first story, you know, of who these kind of algorithms are seem to be affecting. You know, even looking at the Canadian and US indigenous communities and situation in Colombia. I do wonder, what is it that seems to be affecting like, you know, marginalised communities more than, say, other communities? Is it truly the kind of profit motive piece where, you know, these groups are just smaller, you know, population wise, and so, you know, the algorithm is kind of both designed by, designed for, you know, the majority or, you know, kind of whatever, larger groups? Or is there more of a sinister thing, like, what is it that causes this? Because I don't, it's hard for me to, yeah, it's hard for me to believe that there's, you know, some Facebook engineers somewhere that's like, haha, or like, you know, I'm gonna, you know, yeah, block your hashtags. But clearly, there's some pattern here that keeps showing up.

Greg: Yeah. And I think that's what's really good from the the groups that have been caught up in this, they haven't called for, like, oh, my god, there's a conspiracy and, you know, like a Muslim conspiracy, that you're, you're against Islam. Like that kind of thing. What they've said is, there needs to be more transparency about these processes, so that we can understand where the issues are arising. And isn't there like that internet rule, like where you suspect conspiracy it’s probably just people being stupid. I can't remember what the rule is called but yeah, there's like an internet law where it's like, every time you think there's a conspiracy there, it’s probably just being people being incompetent. And yeah, it's like you say, smaller markets. They say, well, this is the market we're going to target and everybody else will just have to make do with a slightly less good product. People do in many cases. But, you know, I guess the reason it kind of stands out there, you know, they have apologised to, you know, like the other areas that were impacted but I think because this has happened at such a point of a flare up, it really kind of was pronounced for people in Palestine. So compared to maybe Colombia and Canada, it’s just yeah, Facebook timing things perfectly, right. 

Ankur: As they do. 

Greg: Yeah, as they do. 

Ankur: Well, this last story was also interesting. This is tied to Google Earth imagery, which I hadn't even thought about in the political or the politics behind that.

Greg: Yeah, yeah. This was a particularly interesting story from the BBC. Like, they get a lot of stick for not necessarily being the most respectable news outlet, but I thought this was very, very well pitched as an article. 

Ankur: Is that true?  I didn’t actually know that about the BBC.

Greg: Yeah.

Ankur: I always had them down as this paragon of journalistic integrity, public funded like, is that not true?

Greg: Yeah. Well, it depends on who you speak to. But the left believes that their right wing and the right believe they're very left wing. And they do try to toe that line a little bit too much and I think he gets them in trouble from both sides. But this was a very well balanced article and it basically talks about the fact that until, I think it was 2019, there was a law In the US that meant that you couldn't have any high resolution images over Israel and the surrounding area. Which meant if you went on Google Maps, you could zoom into areas of China and get like, you could literally see the cars and the people. If you zoomed in over Israel, and obviously the West Bank, things would be foggy, and you wouldn't even be able to see buildings and stuff like that. So that kind of drifted away because as tech kind of got across the world and other organisations got involved, everybody else started doing high resolution images. And these were available from satellite organisations. But because of this KBA law in the US, it meant that some of the biggest map providers like Google and Apple weren't producing these high res images. Now that law has been removed because it's almost defunct because there's so many other organisations producing them, it kind of seems irrelevant now. But Apple and Google still haven't updated their images. And they update their images pretty regularly. So it's just, yeah, seems a little bit weird that they've kind of not caught up with the curve there to update them. And this is really important, actually, because when you're looking at things like war crimes, and you're trying to track from both sides to see where things have been impacted, you know, they've used this in Myanmar, looking at whole villages that were burnt to the ground and massacres were committed because you can see this on the maps. So, you know, it might seem fairly inconsequential, but actually having that detailed view of what's happening from outside can be really, really important. 

Ankur: Wow, yeah, I'm just looking at the images in the article. And it's, I mean, it's so stark, because they have the higher res dimensions of this kind of these burnt areas in Myanmar over the villages. And yeah, I do I remember, when, you know, the news stories, were first coming out there about what was happening with the Rohingya, you know, and there was this kind of back and forth of is this actually happening as a nod is that, you know, there was all that kind of questioning, and clearly these these images, you know, show the reality. It's kind of incontrovertible proof. It makes me think about the power that this has, and in some ways, it ties back to the bigger discussion around just the power that being able to share information on what is happening accurately, really can have, and, yeah, the power of images. I think, in particular, there's something powerful about, you know, there's words for sure, but seeing things, I think, as we've seen, you know, the matter, right, and the whole, the whole reason, kind of their protest last year is because there was a videotape of what was happening. Sadly, I think, if it had just been bystanders reporting out on what had happened, and there wasn't a video, I don't think there would have been the same kind of outrage. And if there was this, you know, there’s clear proof. So, you know, clearly it is important. It doesn't make me wonder, what the, like, yeah, how you can have a framework that is the kind of international standards or something, so that it doesn't just become this kind of, well, this country has more power and says they don't like this particular way of sharing information. So therefore, we're going to blur out these images, but these other images are going to, you know, be very high resolution. I don't know what the solution is to that but it feels like there's a need for some kind of global standards around this.

Greg: Yeah, yeah, totally because imagine Trump gets back into power, it all goes tits up. You turn into this walled nation where no one can answer and they just shut down all the Google Maps over the US and it's just a horror show in there. And, you know, because the biggest organisations like Apple and Google are there, they'd have to, they'd have to do it. And yeah, so everybody on the outside would be like, I don't know what's going on. Because we don't. And I think there is growing interest around global legislation like taxes and data and things like that, because there's that realisation that it's just across borders now, so we need a way that we can join together and tackle these things. I doubt it'll ever happen in our lifetimes but you know, maybe one day.

Ankur: [laughs] Another hopeful prediction. 

Greg: [laughs] Yeah. 

Ankur: Well, do you want to close this out with this, we'll call it a nice of the week on the whole 

Greg: Yeah, yeah. This is a really positive one. Yeah, it's a sad but very positive story, I think and I put it in the nice of the week. We had it as an and finally, but I think there's a bigger story here, which I think is really, really interesting. So Kiyan Prince was a young man who tried to break up a fight outside his school. He was stabbed and killed as a result which just happens to so many young men in the UK. You know, you get the usual thing of ‘he had his whole life ahead of him’. It's like, well fucking duh, but he, you know, he had a really promising early football career and his father has kind of gone on to fight knife crime and to really promote positive attitudes within the community. And FIFA have chosen to immortalise Kiyan as a Queen's Park Ranger player in FIFA 21. So you'll be able to play as Kiyan. And what they did was they got this photo realistic artist and some of the developers together. And they did like an ageing thing. So they took pictures of him, modelled what he would look like if he was 30. So what he would look like now if he was still alive, created this 3D model and then put him into the game. So you're playing you're not playing as the young him you're playing as him as he would have been older. And just like the power of that, like his father, like seeing this is what your son could have looked like, is just both weird and amazing, but also the power of saying like being able to present to young men and say he stood up he tried to stop the fight and and look at what's happened to him. He's been immortalised because he did the right thing. And I just think the power of that statement to say you can do the right thing. And you could be, you know, featuring in FIFA, that's the way you know, you want people to think. So it looks cooler to be the good guy rather than cooler to be the bad guy. I just think that that whole story is just really, really powerful.

Ankur: This is like a classic example of tech for good, I think. Such a cool, you know, powerful, powerful idea that, yeah, in the same way that you can use imagery to lift up horrific things that happen in the world, or at least expose those things, you can also use technology and show people really positive things. And I hadn't known about this story till I read it. But it seems like you're saying people seeing, seeing, you know, someone being held up as a hero, you know, in this game, I think is just really powerful. And even folks who might not know the story for the or the, you know, younger generation might go, who is this player and they Google them and they, you know, find out the story, I think will be super powerful. So, yeah, really amazing.

Greg: Yeah, I also like the fact that you could have just stuck a statue of him and that would have been great and probably would have lasted longer than FIFA 21 because there'll be another one out next year. But I'm sure they'll still be people playing 21. But I just think like sticking a statue up whilst the family and friends and things like that would remember it and maybe people who walked past would be like, what's this? But I think a lot of young people who this could have a real impact with would just be like, it’s a fucking statue man, what do I care? And I just think like, positioning this, putting it in something that a lot of young men love to play and will pay attention to, I think that that really stands out for them. That's going to hit home. Maybe we want to, but even if it does hit home with just a handful of young men and changes things for them. It could have a huge impact. So yeah, I love the idea of changing the channel and doing something different.

Ankur: Oh, Greg, what do you think? Did we salvage it? Do we end on a positive note getting folks to come back? 

Greg: It was the best one yet I think. When do we ever end on a happy note? 

Ankur: Exactly. Well, hopefully hopefully we'll have more folks joining us next time. But that is all we have time for today. So thank you all for listening. Listeners, what did you think? We'd love to hear your thoughts. Get in touch on twitter at Tech for good live or email us at hello at Tech for good dot live. We'd also love it if you gave us a nice iTunes review and tell your mates about this podcast. Thank you to our producer Paul for producing this podcast. And thank you to Podcast.co for hosting us. Take care.

Greg: Bye.