TFGL2021 - S2 - Ep3 - Grayscale Fail

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

Joining Bex on the show this week we have TFGL regular Greg Ashton and making a second appearance on the podcast, our special guest is Sarah Miguel.

Transcript

Bex: Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Tech for Good Live podcast. We're still recording these episodes remotely on Plague Island. Things are looking up though. This week has seen my garden bathed in both glorious sunshine and festive snow showers. Living in the UK is now like living in a Lord of the Rings movie but with more death and misery. Today though, we've got a great episode lined up for you, filled to the brim with stories like fake news on Facebook. Don't worry, though, I'm pretty sure it's a one off. YouTube decides to favour white supremacists. So where black lives matter. So yeah, it all sounds fun, right? Hopefully we've got a fun story in there too about I don't know, an adorable robot saving a puppy or an advanced piece of tech or even magic that successfully helps Greg reattach his soul. So sorry, Greg. I just read these things. I don't write them. Well, let's find out together. Joining me today we have Greg Ashton. Hello, Greg.

Greg: Hello. I'm not sure there is a soul to reattach. And if it is, it'd be some sort of small, black shrivelled thing.

Bex: Awww. And me. I'm Bex Rae-Evans. For some reason I've been full named today. So that happened. And we’ve also got a guest, which is the most important thing. Sarah, you're a return guest. Thank you for coming back. You’re Head of Business Development at People’s History Museum. But you're also a trustee of MASH Manchester, which is a great organisation. And you're joining the board of Future Everything. So lots of good things. Do you want to tell us more about those things for people who didn't hear your previous episode?

Sarah: Last time I was on the episode we were recording physically and I was in a room with you, so it's not the same. But yes, I work at People's History Museum in Manchester, which is the National Museum of Democracy. At the time of recording, we are still closed, but very excited to be working towards reopening. The last year has meant a lot of really rethinking of fleshing out our digital offer, which has been good, though. And I'm at MASH Manchester, where we support women who sex work. And yeah, I'm joining the board of Future Everything. So quite a small art tech society organisation and describe themselves as meeting at the intersection of those discussions around technology, art and society. So that's really exciting. I’m joining their board from May. 

Bex: Talking about the challenges of working in the museum space in a pandemic. Like what, was any of it kind of fun because you were pushed to kind of consider stuff you hadn't before? Or was it all just completely stressful?

Sarah: So going into the lockdown, I could see it coming as it was coming across Europe that we were going to have to close and apart from like bank holidays and Christmas and things like that, in 30 years the museum has never booked its opening time. So it was a really big decision to like close before the government told us to, which we did do. At that point, we were panicking because we didn't really have remote working setup. So all of the text talk wasn't much about audiences but it was about internally getting everything set up for remote working that has led to like good conversations about how we will remote work in the future and flexible working and pushed that agenda forward, which is great. Then as we were working from home and everybody was in lockdown, the team were just really creative and thinking about how do we still serve our audience, how do we still engage people. And loads of random ideas and things came out and were tested and tried. And at first, it was all a bit of a mishmash and now we've neatened up and tidied up our offer. So much so and really benefiting from that online audience is a key part of our future business plan to always have like an audience journey online.

Greg: That's brilliant. That's really cool. What are the kind of things that you're going to be continuing afterwards?

Sarah: So we worked with the University of Manchester to develop a 3D tour that's like a virtual tour of the galleries. And that's really good and really high quality. But we are working with them to think about how we can take that to the next level and explore immersive technology and its application or theme tours. Then working on a radical relationships tour at the moment of using that technology but with sort of curated content. That's nice to have a product and then think how do we want to up it really.

Greg: Yeah, I really like that. I mean, yeah, I mean, you've got your like your hall of protests and I just think like, you've got some great opportunity there to really put people in that action and show them what it was like to be there.

Sarah: Yeah, we're thinking about sort of quirky storytelling and social media in the future as well. And so, like really quirky objects in our collection that people won't know about. So there's microphones and hearing aids and there's like a lollipop and a biscuit and so all these kinds of things people don't expect us to have. 

Greg: Oh, I love it. I'm excited. I'm really excited about that. That's gonna be so good.

Bex: I think this is just like a really personal thing. Because I know loads of people have been going to loads of online, cool, amazing things and I've been watching everybody do these exciting online things, and I just cannot do it. I just can't look at the screen anyway, it just wasn't my job that I just spent so much of the day on a screen, but like, I've just had zero fun the whole entire time, because I won't have all do screen based fun. So that means I just don't get to have any fun. So I'm looking forward to going face to face. And some of the things are carrying on, so that when my head is back to normal, I can do some fun, virtual stuff and not hate it [laughs].

Sarah: There is also a lot of talk at the moment about hybrid events and how that's gonna work. So that's exciting. Plus, like, before we closed, we’d just finished our Match Girl strike game, which is like a tactile button game in our galleries, so we will finally be able to have visitors play with it, which is great, because it's been placed for a year, give or take a couple of weeks last year. And so it's been ready, ready to go. And it should be really good. It's really fun.

Bex: Yeah. I'm looking forward to it. On to Stat of the Week. So this is about fake comments in the Facebook posts. Greg, do you want to tell us more?

Greg: Yeah, this is a fantastic article from the Guardian that that's just come out. It relates to an investigation and some work from Sophie Zhang Varma, data scientist at Facebook, into fake posts and comments. And in particular, in relation to governments and it being politicised and how it's used by governments across the world to kind of spread misinformation. So one example, in particular, was looking at an article from an independent Azerbaijani news outlet about an activist being sentenced to eight months in prison for writing critical things about politicians. And they found that of the 301 top comments, 294 of them were fake. And they were fake as in, they were posted by Facebook pages, rather than individuals and those pages were owned by specific individuals, because you can set up as many pages as you want and this is a loophole that exists on Facebook. And what they found, what Sophia has seen and kind of come out and said is that Facebook is aware of this. It was something that happened during the 2016 election and it's being weaponized, but they are prioritising Western issues, Western governments, because it's more risky to their brand if there's an issue there, and they're ignoring other more smaller, more marginalised and potentially more risky countries where the press won't, they won't really get hurt, because who cares about as Azerbaijan, is their view? So yeah, pretty shit.

Bex: Is that Facebook spokesperson called Liz Bourjois?

Greg: Yes [laughs] Yeah, I'm sure the irony is lost on her.

Bex: I shouldn’t comment on this story.  Sorry. That’s all I can contribute. [laughs]

Sarah: I read the article and thought, this is why you should not read the comments. Like usually I avoid the comments, because you don't want to get riled up by idiots. But in this case, you don't want to read them, because they're actually not true. So yeah, that's even more reason for me to not read comments in future. And if I'd seen comments, for example, like on an MEN news article, I would just trust that they were true, and that they were real people and sometimes I do read down the comments and think, oh I'm definitely in my bubble. These people don't agree with me. And yeah, now I'll be a bit more critical in my thinking about whether those comments are true. It does make me think about like, the wider the net, the fact that there haven't been repercussions to Cambridge Analytica and the wider implications for democracy. Not just for non Western countries, but as if we haven't got enough threats to democracy to think about that in the mix is just mind blowing.

Bex: I was gonna ask Sarah. I was gonna ask you but it does feel like an expert in this and I don't think anyone has the answer. Never mind you.  So I’m asking you anyway. It feels like a lot of stuff is happening lately and it's been brushed over and no one's really doing anything about it. Phones like masking about protests and people power really. But like, as you said, nothing was really done about Cambridge Analytica. This is like cool evidence to say that Facebook is doing this sort of thing deliberately and is choosing to like, work on wealthy fees and ignore the rest of it and let that just happen for its own personal gain. I just see it as absolutely awful. Like, I can't imagine anything worse, and it's just people keep ignoring it and letting it happen. Like, I don't know, is this something? Is there like a vibe of well we can't do anything, so we won't? 

Sarah: I do think there's a level of apathy and there probably was before COVID but now everybody's had to ride out this massive wave of a pandemic. But do people have the energy to think back when they're trying to think about when their vaccine is and if their family is okay. So I do think that's going on in the mix, but there isn't as much opposition as I would hope to see on this whole kill the bill policing bill, which is also putting lots of our rights at risk and discriminating communities as well. So why isn't there a level of opposition to that? I guess, because the government can control mainstream media and people don't know about it. If I asked the next person that walks past my house on the street if they know about it I bet they wouldn't. It is my concern. I watched a documentary a while ago that was about the rise of fascism and how the Nazis got in and it is just terrifying that it only took a couple of years and things were chipped away at and chipped away at. So I think we need to be very cautious and not complacent. And take action. 

Greg: And the problem is, you know, it's these countries where people like, well, Facebook's like, well, we don't have to care about them. Like there's a quote, which Sophie Zhang included relating to a conversation she had with Guy Rosen, who's Vice President of Integrity at Facebook, where he basically says, they start from the top. Guy Rosen, not Liz Bourgeois [laughs]. And yeah, he says, start from the top. So like the top country's top priority areas, things driving prevalence, and then work their way down and if you take that approach, you're never going to get to that point. But the problem is, these things that seem irrelevant now can grow to become huge issues if those countries topple over and you know, there are areas in the world where things are so interlinked with countries that have a lot more power in it, it really can shift things. And Look what's happening in the Ukraine, at the moment. You've got Russia massing on the border. Like it is just waiting for this, this tinder point where things are just going to flame up. And the fact that we've got a company in the middle of this, a company doing stuff that the CIA and KGB back in the day would have, like, paid billions of dollars to be able to do to spread this kind of misinformation and control the population. And they're not even trying to do it. They just don't care enough to do it, which makes it even worse.

Sarah: The profit above everything else just comes across all of the time in their decision making and they've got trillions, so they need more. It's madness.

Bex: I like the idea that it's taken a year to take down one network and fourteen months to take down another. This is something that takes seconds to do. Just flip a switch. And like I don't know what reasons or excuses they're using as to why it's taking so long. Probably something about you know, like free speech or whatever. But it's a switch. And actually, it's really easy to make these decisions. Like is this causing harm? Probably. Flip the switch. I always think this about like, using language. And you know, we've all been making a lot of changes over the last few years with the way we use words for very good reason. So like, something I've been trying to do is hey, guys. Like I don't do that anymore. I use something like folks. Actually, that took me seconds to do. And you know, there's people out there saying, Oh, so watch just language. But if it upsets one person, and it takes me seconds to change, then why not? Like I just don't see why you wouldn't. And I think they're not relevant at all, but it kind of is the way that I think the thinking is like if it harms somebody somewhere a little bit, just turn it off.Just do it.

Sarah: Yeah. It's the same with the objection to using gender pronouns. Like why not? It takes a few seconds. 

Greg: Yeah. 

Sarah: Add it to your bio, no harm caused.

Greg: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think Facebook's like the messy housemate. It’s that person that that just creates loads of shitty mess, but then just refuses to do anything about it and continues to do it until you and your other housemates, you get so fed up that you start tidying it up. But then you set a precedent and it's like, well, you tidied it up once, so you're probably going to do it again, so they just continue to create mess. And that's what Facebook's waiting for. They're waiting for the government to come along and clear up their mess for them and take on that responsibility. So they can go well, that the government's done that, so we're just going to carry on creating this mess because it's not not our responsibility. And that's what they're waiting for.

Sarah: I guess like, if this wasn't an online platform and this was 200 years ago, the story we tell is that people would boycott and people would rise up against this thing. And so really more than governments, the way Facebook makes its money is through as all having Facebook accounts. And that is the way that in masses, we could make the change. 

Greg: But we won’t. 

Sarah: But I just love Facebook [laughs].

Bex: Actually, like, I've still got Facebook. I bang on about how much I hate Facebook all the time. I've reduced the amount I use it and deleted all personal information on it. Not that that matters, because they've got that already. But I can't help it because I just like to find local plumbers easily. That’s actually the reason. Which is a terrible reason but if I can't come off Facebook, like I really I'm really sceptical about most people in the world coming off it and I’m the one complaining about it and I'm still using it. It's absolutely terrible. But this year, I got some co-play with the whole Facebook thing. We've talked about that WhatsApp thing we've thought about this like, actually for the third time, I've seen loads of people coming off a platform and actually doing something about it. Like, to the point where it actually made a difference, and they may change off the back of it. So we can get there. I will come off Facebook this year. That’s my plan.

Sarah: I guess it's also the fact that, yeah, we're remote and we're not able to see each other and hang out. And so it might change. Like, the dependence on these platforms is greater now. Hopefully it reduces.

Bex: There's no segue into Charity of the Week so I’m just going to bluntly move into it. The RNIB calls out misguided memorial for Prince Philip. I think everybody's heard about this now. Alright, everyone in my graphic design and accessibility bubble has heard about this by now. But yeah, for those who aren't in that bubble, Greg, do you want to tell us a little bit more?

Greg: Yes. So this was the result of an attempt at creating a memorial to Prince Phillip following his death last week. So Network Rail, National Rail and a bunch of others as well actually, decided to turn their websites greyscale. And this led to a number of complaints both to I think it might have been National Rail or Network Rail, I saw one tweet where they were like, what can I turn it back? And the person manning the Twitter from Network Rail was saying, yeah, I can't read anything on the website, either. I'm going to speak to them and hopefully they'll fix it tomorrow. Yes [laughs]. RNIB, obviously so Robin Spinks, Innovation Lead for RNIB, Royal National Institute of Blind People said, as someone who is registered severely sight impaired, colour contrast on a website is incredibly important. A lack of this makes it difficult for me to read the content and causes headaches and eye strain. It leaves me feeling unwelcome as a customer. 

Sarah: You know what gives me hope about this story is the fact that people do know about it. It has been a trending story and that there is outrage finally. Whereas previously like, able-bodied people that don't have visual impairments would think it doesn't affect them and passes on by whereas this has caused outrage and that is a good thing. Being able to undermine accessibility standards isn't okay. I also just think the national mourning, it's fictional. Well certainly within my world and my bubble, there isn't national mourning, there is some sadness about the fact the Queen has lost her lifelong partner. But beyond that, like there's a lot to mourn nationally about and it isn't Prince Philip dying at a ripe old age.

Greg: Yeah, the BBC got like a huge amount of complaints for their coverage on Friday. And it wasn't so much that they were covering it, it was like the extent to which they covered it. It was like every single BBC channel. 

Sarah: They reached their cap, I believe. They either took it down or couldn't take further complaints because they reached the cap because they had 100,000 which is mega. And Channel 4 had the highest viewings they've ever had because everybody was driven away from the BBC. So hopefully that speaks volumes.

Bex: Don’t we normally get like two complaints and that’s classed as a lot of complaints. I’m sure it’s something like that. 

Greg: Yeah, the previous highest number was 63,000 complaints that they’ve got. 

Sarah: I was on a sort of like, National Tourism body email, and one of the webinars about the recovery of the economy was cancelled because of this and I'm just like, this is really important that we recover the economy. Why are we cancelling it and my sister is a civil servant and also had internal meetings cancelled as a result. Just very bizarre.

Greg: Yeah. There was another comment from a designer, so Mikey Stillwell, who said he didn't necessarily agree that accessibility was the issue. His belief was that and I think he said as well that he is colour blind, so the contrast was fine because there was enough. But his view was because they've made it grayscale a lot of the things like call to actions and buttons and things like that was then gone from that contrast because it was all very similar. So he didn't have trouble reading it. But actually using the website, he found much more difficult because of that gre scale aspect of it. But as somebody colour blind, he wasn't too bad actually reading it.

Sarah: I can't help but wonder if this mistake and other similar mistakes wouldn't be made if we employed more disabled and diverse people in those teams that look after the websites. I don’t think you’d overlook it then.

Greg: I think that definitely would help but also, so there was a tweet that Bex you shared.

Bex: Harold Balken. Yeah. He creates something called a beta blocker, which you can install which blocks tracking and stops surveillance, capitalism sort of tool. And they noticed that that app blocker, if you have it installed, the website didn't promote greyscale. because he found out that the way they've made it grayscale is by using Google Tag Manager, which what, why. And I was going like what you said, cause you were saying oh, that's probably because it's the marketing theme, like bypassing the design, the web design team.

Greg: So for anybody that doesn't know how Tag Manager works, it's a container that you load onto your website and then you can plug stuff in, like normally supposed to be for Google Analytics, but you can do other stuff through it as well. It's basically if you miss, it’s a powerful tool. So if you misuse it, it's like a backdoor for coding. So the idea was that you could do all the changes, and then publish it rather than getting a developer to do it. It was also a way for marketers to do all the tracking without having to bother developers. And this is exactly, what I'm seeing is, the marketing team have gone ‘we need to do like a memorial, what can we come up with’. Oh we can't go through the development tea because if we want to do that, it'll take too long.

Bex: Oh, yeah. And they'll say no, they're always like saying no.

Greg: They've not asked design. They've not asked Dev. The guy that knows how to do a little bit of coding to get rid of the colour from the website through Tag Manager and come Monday morning, the design team and the dev team have probably gone, what the duck have you done. 

Bex: Obviously, we are making a story up here and making a lot of assumptions. However, if you are from the National Rail website team and would like to come on to the website, we can shield your voice and this is true. Please share your story with us.

Greg:Yeah, and it is exactly that. That's what terrifies me most about this. Not that they've done it. I can kind of from experience, fill in the blanks. And I can imagine how this happened and how people who should have been involved in the conversation have been missed out, let alone people who have a disability, you know, a disabled background. So it's just, I can see that there's probably some really heated conversations going on in their offices this week.

Sarah: I didn't really understand how Google Tag Manager, so now it makes a bit more sense. But there is a lot of like bad talk about Google Tag Manager. And from my experience leading marketing team like, well, Google Analytics for charitable purposes, like this is great. But hadn't thought about when that gets into their own hands.

Greg: Yeah. And it is it because it is such a powerful tool. You know, there's lots of cautions about it being used for hacking. But the biggest caution that you need is when your team start using it to circumvent the development team and change the colourings of your website. It's just crazy. Absolutely crazy.

Sarah: I feel very grateful we get on with our developers now. That doesn't happen.

Greg: Yeah, somebody is not going to be getting on with the developers this week. [laughs] Oh guys, I feel for you.

Bex: Talking about blocking advertising. Anyway, different types of blocking advertising now. Into News of the Week. So YouTube has blocked advertisers from targeting Black Lives Matter terms but allows white supremacy term targeting. This does not sound good, Greg. Please tell us more.

Greg: This is from those absolute legends at the markup who are trying to hold big tech to account. So you know, it's gonna be really, really well researched and backed up by lots of lots of evidence, which is great. But even though YouTube has come out as saying they are committed to supporting black voices and perspectives, their CEO Susan Wojcicki even announced 100 million funds to support them. The investigation by the market found that YouTube parent company Google blocks advertisers from using social and racial justice terms, including black lives matter, to find YouTube videos and channels to advertise on. But at the same time, they allow advertising using white supremacist terms like white lives matter and all lives matter.

Bex: I mean, like, the Black Lives Matter a bit on its own doesn't seem too worrying because like maybe they're trying to stop anything, anyone being weird. Or being a dick, like they always are. Like that makes sense on its own. But then when you like, say all the are allowing the flipside that suddenly like clouds matters, and I don't really know what they’re playing at.

Sarah: Yeah, I thought like, oh okay, Black Lives Matter like that is politicised. And even if you are anti racist, you may choose not to support that specific movement or you might. So that bit I thought, okay, well, maybe they're trying to get around the politics of that, but to not allow black and beautiful as a phrase? Like that isn't social justice. That's just like a woo self care empowerment logo. You know, brand, what? Plus I’m obviously a Trustee of MASH so it’s not cool to see sex work there. There's every good reason to campaign around sex work.

Greg: Yeah, it's, I mean, even down to things like Muslim fashion is blocked but Christian fashion and Jewish fashion were not. Muslim parenting and Jewish parenting are blocked. But Christian parenting was not. What Google's response to this was basically, they took no no issue with the investigation, our findings, but what they've done is block all of the terms. So they've now blocked the white supremacy terms, but they've also blocked a load of the terms that were from social justice terms and racial terms that weren't being blocked before. They're also blocking those now. So it was like a nuclear option. They were like, right, fine, you've caught us out, we're just gonna block everything. It's just crazy how they've responded to that. But basically said, while we weren't doing anything wrong in the first place.

Sarah: It's a strange assumption around not wanting to monetize social justice, because social justice charities need money and need to monetize. There's this whole sort of government and sector and way of thinking about charities should learn to stand on their own two feet and be resilient and generate their own income. But hang on a minute, how does that sit if you're not allowed to generate income on the grounds of social justice?

Greg: Yeah, and that has been decided by a private organisation?

Sarah: Yeah, it reminded me as well of that whole Charity Commission investigation into the National Trust. And the fact that they want to explore history, including the colonial and bits that people don't want to talk about. And then so the Charity Commission investigated them and their findings were that they were compliant with their charitable objectives. Which was a huge relief, because if they'd been overturned, and many other charities would have been affected. But to think about that neutrality and social justice, like charities exist to make the world better. You can't just block them all.

Greg: Yeah, I think what worried me with this as well, was the fact that in 2017, there was a campaign by lots of big brands, because they found that their ads were being posted against, like hate videos and things like that. So there was a campaign in 2017 and then obviously, they were boycotting YouTube and then they were straight back on YouTube. And the article makes reference to brand security tactics now, where people have learned what keywords to avoid, and things like that, so that your ad ads are posted alongside potentially brand damaging things. And it's the fact that the brands who probably have a lot more time and money, and people to do this, have, instead of getting YouTube and Google to change their practices, have chosen to work around them, which is just appalling from my perspective. Especially in the case of something like this.

Sarah: What sorts of organisations are out there sort of lobbying those platforms? Because I know that Glitch is a really good charity that thinks about abuse on online platforms, but I don't know anything in terms of lobbying the platforms to change their practices in that sense.

Greg: Yeah. Well, I mean, as seen by the action in 2017, and you know, what happened with many others, where we've had brands kind of coming out and calling out these organisations, they haven't done, it hasn't done anything at all, because they continue to act in this way. And you shared with us an article as well, which I think is a great example of why this is really important. Do you want to talk us through de-platforming?

Sarah: And so this article on Kotaku, who actually I haven't known, so I can't say it's a reliable source necessarily. But they talked about where the platforms aren't allowing white supremacists to use their platform for discussion and to rally a sort of campaign or cause. And as a result, they were able to make it so that the white supremacist voices weren't getting much traction and much noise, which has led to sort of protests turning out, and not many people being there and beginning to see that if the tech companies play the game, well, then they can have a really positive influence and quiet these voices of hate speech. Whereas if they don't, obviously, then they're complicit in them. So it was quite quite a nice story to see that actually, you know, de-platforming can work. There should be the pressure there. 

Bex: Yeah, and this is the second story we've heard around this where de-platforming has worked. It worked when Trump was de-platformed as well, didn’t it? But there’s like quite good stats around how hate were chilled during that time.

Greg: Yeah, I think what was interesting in that article, as well, as they were talking about, one of the criticisms of de-platforming is is well, they'll just go somewhere else, and potentially somewhere that's harder to find, sopolice and other bodies can't keep track of them. And actually, what it was demonstrating is that when you de-platform, a lot of them just lose interest because they're not getting the reach and part of it is down to that reach and that response from people. That kind of ego thing and when they haven't got they lose interest in it.

Sarah: And the good guys in this particular rally were GoDaddy, Google and Amazon, who you wouldn't necessarily look to as ones to be the good guys. But obviously they’re such a massive, like, organisation, that it probably just depends which team you get and which team you're asking, but it's not all joined up. Yeah. So even if you've got some really good teams that are thinking about social responsibility. It may just not be across the whole organisation.

Bex: I really want to talk about this Intel thing, though. Like, I don't know which one of you shared this. But there's this weird thing. Greg?

Greg: Yeah. So Intel gave a presentation at GDC and they presented this thing. It's like an AI monitor that sensors hate speech in an online voice chat, and lets users toggle how much they want to hear. So to give you an idea, they have like sliders with name calling, going from none to all. They have another one for racism and xenophobia going from none to all. They have a toggle on and off for the N word. If you want to hear the N word. 

Bex: Yeah, like body shaming, if you want to hear any of that in your conversations. No, I don't want to hear any of that. But then, yeah, I just find it a very strange answer to a problem. I don't really know.

Sarah: I agree. It's very strange. So I thought about it. And so I quite like the fact that you've got a degree of choice and you can think how resilient am I feeling today? Am I ready to hear about it or do I want to be like in a safe little bubble, and to choose to be in a protected world or choose to be in the real world. It's quite a nice, like, luxury, but I do think it is worrying if you're always in that safe space, that you might not think there's a problem and then nothing's gonna change if you're not fighting against a problem and it just goes unnoticed.

Bex: Yeah, I guess. Like, yeah. So would it be like this in this conversation? All of a sudden, what would I be like? Just go quiet because I was swearing at Greg? 

Greg: Probably the other way around.

Bex Yeah. I don't know why I chose to be the other way around. How does it know? Like so there's some more ambiguous stuff like and aggression, like how does it actually know whether it is or isn't and how does it define whether it's some or none and like, what are the practicalities? Like if we were in this conversation now and Greg just went quiet for a little bit while he was talking. He could have either been just body shaming someone or he could have been like, being completely absolutely awfully racist or just wearing a little bit like he normally does. Like how can it know what Greg is doing when he's gone quiet? It could change my opinion of Greg.

Sarah: I’m thinking about the tech for good application. This on its own is a bit strange, but the technology behind it could be really good for safeguarding.

Greg: Hmmm. 

Sarah: Like, if you applied it to a whole network for young people great. 

Greg: The way that they write about this, it sounds more like it would be used for like gaming. So like, if you're in an online chat while you're gaming, and you could hear, and quite often you do get people who were, you know, there's a lot of kids kind of using offensive languages. It's been written about before. But yeah, I was all over this one. I kind of swung back and forth from it's an interesting idea, it’s a terrible idea. You know, if you've got like a, like a white middle class snowflake who's just like, I want to live in this bubble and pretend like none of this stuff is going on, it is kind of a little bit concerning around, you know, like putting the blinkers on. But also if you’ve been a victim of that language consistently, the idea of being able to just like mute people seems quite tempting, really. If you can't hear it, it's not going to have any impact on you. 

Bex: So you can’t hear it but what if like, I can't go back, I keep going back, but like, how much of my swearing like might be blocked out and somebody thinks I'm saying something really awful? But maybe I guess that just makes me reflect on my swearing more. But I guess like Sarah said, it's not really necessarily going to be used in situations like this. Like that used case actually, has brought me around. Like, from a safeguarding perspective, I can see how this might be helpful. 

Sarah: I guess my preference would be for it to be applied to the right things, not just to protect everybody. Yeah, and thinking about a problem and the problem is like hate speech or abuse online, you're just silencing the problem, but there's a root cause and they're doing nothing about that root cause in this. So great that it could protect some people. I just wouldn't overlook that root cause.

Greg: I don't know if people if you've removed their ability to say…

Sarah: Is it de-platforming? Throwback.

Bex: Hmmm. 

Greg: Is it de-platforming?

Bex: On that note, we have some nice things to share at the end of this podcast. There's no rant for a change. It's just nice, non-depressing stuff. Thank you to Sarah for bringing us back to a positive note. Yeah, I'll let you go for it. You've got a really nice little Instagram account.

Sarah: Yeah, so this Instagram account. I discovered him only a couple of weeks ago, I'm gonna spell it out so people can find it. So it's Amii.illustrates. And this artist, he is quite a minimalist artist, only I think about 12 weeks ago, started like a series of Instagram posts where she shares some positive stories of the week. And given everything that's happening in current affairs and the world at the moment, I stumbled across it and thought, oh this is what I need on my feed. And the posts are usually so good that they make it onto my story, which I think is like an indicator of yeah, this is good content, but they're also just really cute and they're not sort of UK centric. They are global stories. They're not just about people, but they include the environment and climate crisis. It's really broad. And her other artwork is really good as well.

Greg: I thought I had a quick look at this, I thought it was great, because it's quite stripped back illustration. And I think for the topic. So she'll do like a post of good news stories and it's just like a gallery of headlines, and then shows you the links for where to find the actual stories. But I like the way it's just very stripped back and it's kind of like, here's some nice stuff. And it's not like really in your face lots of information. It's just peaceful. I like it.

Sarah: The final post on all of them is that slight reference point about where the sources of the information are, which is useful, but also like in the world of fake news, important. 

Greg: Yeah, really important. 

Sarah: And they seem to be reputable sources. So that's good.

Greg: Unlike us. 

Bex: [laughs] Unlike us, especially fake news Fay is on the podcast. We apologise for allowing that. You also wanted to mention this place of mine project. 

Sarah: Yeah, since I'm joining Future, everything's bored, I thought I'd just shine a light on the relatively new project called This Place of Mine. And it's just been nominated for an award, which is really nice, but it's like a co produced project with young people, where through this online platform, young people are invited to think about and redesign their high streets. And I'd imagine that when the project started being developed for it to be online means something completely different now to delivering co-production during a pandemic and makes it even more relevant. But going into the platform, you can see people's contributions to it and what young people think is important on the high street. As we're looking ahead to reopening and the high street is starting to come back, it's about  reimagining what that could be when we know that like High Street shops are declining. The High Street is going to change. It's how do we want that change to look and my hope is that those sorts of ideas can feed into a sort of civic planning to make sure that young people's voices are heard. 

Greg: I think, yeah...

Bex: I'm really excited. Sorry, Greg, I'm really excited to look at this just because I’m quite, you know, I'm living much of a long time and have very much a love hate relationship with it. Mainly love. That's why I hate that stuff is bad about it. So it can be better. And I think I always mourn the loss of the Northern Quarter that I knew. And that's really mean because I do like the Northern Quarter that’s there now. But before, I think what I miss about it was that it was quite affordable. So you had like a real mixed bag of stuff going on there. And because it was affordable. So you had loads of stuff going on there. And because it was affordable you had lots of artist stuff happening and they could afford the space. And yeah, it's all polished and lovely now and I do love what's there now, but that cheap space did not go anywhere, and it was kind of shoved out and I'm not 100% sure if there's a space like it really anymore in Greater Manchester. And I'm sure it's happened in so many other cities as well. But yeah, I suppose I would imagine that a lot of these young people imagine what the dream house thing might look like. Probably looks a little bit more like that. And how do we move back to that because that would be wonderful. Like a high street made of independents and artists and great stuff would be so fun. But how do we make that happen? I don't know.

Sarah: I did a city tour of Manchester a while ago. And it was really interesting to think about, like the sort of 70s to 80s when nobody wanted to live in Manchester and rent was dirt cheap, and it was really too grim and crime was through the roof. And so loads of artists came to Manchester because they could afford to live in it. And it is them like taking over mill spaces and setting up things that led to the hacienda that has led to like Manchester having such fame it has today. I think that's really interesting. Like where do these artists go now? I just found some really cool places on my walk this week. And I thought yeah, love and shame as it is now but that will change as well. Because love and shame is gentrifying. I think it's just keeping on top of where is it now? Where can I get that? 

Bex: Where did it go? 

Sarah: Where can I get cheese on toast, that isn't grilled cheese with kimchi? 

Bex: Oh, yeah uurggh. And doesn’t cost like £7.

Greg: Tastes so good though.

Bex: Sorry, Greg, I interrupted you as well, when I got excited about them. The old northern quarter. 

Greg: Oh, it's fine. Very similar kind of threads for me. But I think yeah, it's that challenge of balancing, improving an area because the Northern Quarter did used to be a shithole, but also, you know, maintaining the bits that we like, and not losing to the big, bland, polished appearance of other areas that gentrification brings with it. And also what I love about this is, often a lot of these decisions are made by counsellors and businesses, and hidden people who have a lot of power within the city based on well, this is what people want and you know, they make claims of doing engagement but there's always you know, limitations to it and voices get hidden and young people are very notorious for not engaging with these things because they don't see the value in it.

Bex: Also, they're really dull to engage with. I don't engage with those sorts of things. Yeah, I guess I suppose those people with vested interest on these boards as well and they want the most profitable thing for themselves and they build something that will be used by people with a lot of money which isn't the youth and that doesn't cater for them. Like you know, Spinningfields is very pretty and shiny and lovely, but I don't think you’d want to hang out there and spend time there, and that's not exciting. So I suppose what is exciting for them is probably like, not very profitable and super low cost and maybe even just a park. That would be nice.

Greg: Oh God yeah. Just a park. Just a park.

Sarah: It used to be outside the airbase, were the young people would hang out. So it's really sweet. 

Greg: Yeah, they still do. 

Sarah: Oh great. 

Greg: Still have people skateboarding around there. They've not been moved on just yet. But yeah, I think we'll get that.  I think, you know, this will offer a view within a city that is spending a lot of money on redevelopment and changing spaces. It will give an opportunity for those people to have a voice and say this is what we want to see from our spaces, which is so important right now.

Sarah: I am seeing from the combined authorities that rejuvenation and return to cities and the high street is a big driver and a big push. I just hope that behind that isn't like return to how it was but like an opportunity to reimagine it and bring young people in. 

Bex: That leads really nicely into our and finally, which is about another youth board. An energy company has set up a youth board with environmentalists, which sounds good. Greg, tell us more.

Greg: Yeah, I thought this was really cool and does tie nicely into that. So good energy is one of these new independent, more kind of attempting to be good (it’s in the name) energy companies and they're doing something interesting which is they've set up this youth board bringing together environmentalists, young people or environmentalist from lots of different walks of life to to get their input in what they're doing and how they're operating. And I just find that really, really interesting and really great to see. Because you see it for like charities and things. We talked about NSPCC last week, but for an energy company to do it is really cool.

Sarah: It’s definitely not commonplace for that sector, so it's nice to see like that idea being applied elsewhere.

Greg: It’s really interesting, because obviously with Greta and all of the young people protesting over the last few years, for them to go, okay, let's have a conversation. Let's involve you in our work, I think is a real great example of how this should be done.

Sarah: Young people are the solution. Finally, people are hearing it.

Greg: [laughs] Mostly. A lot of young people are idiots as well. Much like people. 

Bex: Oh, yeah, a lot of people are idiots.

Greg: Just all of them. All people.

Bex: Yeah. People. Yeah, all people are idiots. I don't know why but I’ve been thinking that a lot the last few days. Like, oh, people are idiots. But then I'm an idiot, too. We're all idiots together. It’s great.

Sarah: Yeah. I always come back to a really different point in my head that wherever I am or whatever I am doing, I always think most people are good. I just try and remind myself like most people are good. That doesn't mean they're not idiots.

Greg: [laughs] 

Bex: Yeah, we’re probably idiots about different things.

Sarah: I was raised to think about fear and what risk people could have won you or like, obviously don't get in a stranger's car and all that kind of thing. But to see strangers and think they're probably good, I think it's a healthier position to come from.

Bex: More disappointment to be had.

Sarah: [laughs] That’s the story of my life. 

Bex: Awesome. Actually, I've got a really quick story on that. I read this really weird religious book a few years ago but it was quite sweet. Somebody told me to read it. It’s called the Celestine Prophecy. And whereas I'm not into weird religious stuff like that, there were a few little cute things I took out of it. It was all about making connections with people. And it led you to a divine place where you ended up floating. So the later chapters got weird. But the idea of making a connection with someone and that someone will always have something positive to share with you in some way or another and it's about finding that positive thing, like actually really stuck with me in my interactions with people. Yeah, they might have said something that maybe they already do on that particular point. But they probably know shitloads about something else that will be really helpful to me, and it's okay that they don't know about that. Because there's so much I don't know about as well. And we just need to like, try and yeah, try and see people as people who can bring some positive to a situation at some point, even if they didn't bring a positive thing to that particular point.

Sarah: This wasn't planned but it nicely wings me on to the fact that when People's History Museum reopens there's going to be a Morecoombe exhibition, which commemorates Jo Cox’s murder but also brings people together to find that common ground. Yeah, it's a polarised world. It would be good to come together, especially now. 

Bex: It feels like we planned that. 

Sarah: [laughs] I know.

Bex: We are over time, so I'm gonna have to cut us off. But thank you for listening, everybody. And yeah, Sarah, thanks for coming. That was a joy.  Any final plugs that you want to make or where can people find you on the internet.

Sarah: So I’m at sarahlmiguel on Twitter. I don't have anything specific to plug because I've already talked about most of it.

Bex: Excellent. Well, thank you so much. Listeners, what did you think?We'd love to hear your thoughts. Get in touch on Twitter at techforgoodlive. If you say something nice, I might even read it out [laughs]. I don’t know why you’d want that. And we'd love it if you gave us an iTunes review and told your mates about this podcast. Yeah. Thanks to our producer Paul, who does loads behind the scenes and the rest of the volunteer team. And thanks to podcast.co for hosting the podcast. That’s all. Thank you. 

Greg: Bye.
Sarah: Thanks.