Engineering and Postmodernism
The following is from my response to a friend’s Facebook post about the value of postmodernism to engineers, and the role that education plays in introducing engineers to postmodernism.
Hello, Governor
9 posts
About Hello, Governor
A newsletter about technology, governance, and power — who makes the rules in digital spaces, who gets to contest them, and what more democratic alternatives might look like. Published on Buttondown in 2021.
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Code as Contestable Law
Read more → More from Hello, Governor →Last week I gave two short talks as part of the IASC Knowledge Commons conference, one on our ability to contest rules in digital spaces, and another on how, more generally, we can engineer more responsive governance. Those links go to YouTube, where you can watch the talks. (Update: you can now also see the panel discussions for these talks: code as contestable law, engineering responsive governance.)
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Three Governance Case Studies
Read more → More from Hello, Governor →One of my communities is choosing a new governance structure, and in preparation for our first conversation on the topic, I wrote up three governance case studies. I covered DisCOs (Distributed Cooperative Organizations), Enspiral, and Python.
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Facebook's Everything Problem
Read more → More from Hello, Governor →Facebook's 'Oversight Board' recently affirmed Facebook's choice to suspend then-President Donald Trump from its platform the day after the Capitol riots. Although many critics - including myself - support the decision to keep Trump off Facebook, we're not too pleased with the process itself. "[It's] a red herring, substituting a simulacrum of due process in certain high-profile cases for substantive reform," Will Oremus writes in a New York Times op ed. Oremus and others point out that while Facebook has promised to obey the content moderation decisions of the board, it can choose to ignore any policy recommendations. "[Facebook] did not empower the board to watch over its products or systems — only its rules and how it applies them."
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On Digital Disobedience
Read more → More from Hello, Governor →There’s not enough disobedience online. Yes, that’s right, you heard me: there’s not enough space for disobedience online.
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Collective Accountability in Digital Spaces
Read more → More from Hello, Governor →It can be a struggle to hold groups accountable for misbehavior, even when the group is structured through legal forms, with public membership and clear leadership. On social media platforms populated by anonymous accounts, with membership and leadership often informal and invisible, accountability feels like a pipe dream.
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Yo Dawg, I Heard You Like Tech Governance...
Read more → More from Hello, Governor →... so I put some tech governance controversy on the platform you were using for your tech governance newsletter.
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The Federal Trade Commission vs Facebook
Read more → More from Hello, Governor →Below, I summarize the FTC complaint against Facebook, citing the relevant paragraphs so you can get more detail as needed. This was a useful exercise in helping me understand the case; I hope it also helps you.
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Hello World
Read more → More from Hello, Governor →Hello, and welcome to the very first edition of this newsletter!