ETHICS OF TECHNOLOGY AND ETHICS OF ORGANIZING
THE CYBERACTIVISTS’ STRUGGLE FOR MORAL VALUES IN CYBERSPACE
stefania milan
tilburg university / citizen lab
stefaniamilan.net
@annliffey
collective action in
cyberspace that
addresses network
infrastructure or
exploits the
infrastructure’s
technical and
ontological features
for social change
something new in the realm
of “organized civil society”
• from professionalized and
membership-based networks
into temporary actionoriented coalitions
• disembodiment of
resistance and physical
presence
• “connective action”
• role of individuals
tech activism is concerned
with creating and shaping
digital technology
infrastructure to facilitate
communication and networking
for social change activists
a form of social
organizing
• tech-savvy activists
put their skills at the
service of social
movements, and, e.g.,
set up activist servers
• a movement within the
movement that brings the
critique of mainstream
communication platforms
to the next level, that
of the creation of
alternatives
cyberspace as object of
contention: infrastructure
is not neutral
activists embody moral
norms and alternative
narratives of cyberspace:
ethics of organizing ßà
ethics of technology
“the so-called grass-roots 'social
movements' needed new networks of
communication that could not only
work as a platform to project
discourses and practices to the
'wider world', but also that the way
these networks were created, run and
developed, mirrored, as much as
possible, the direct, participatory,
collective and autonomous nature of
the emerging social movement(s)
themselves”
• rejection of top-down
power: autonomy of the
individual (no
representation and
delegation) and autonomy
of the group (as selfgoverning unit)
• rejection of
hierarchical structures:
decentralisation,
horizontality,
participation, consensus
• ‘the way is the goal’
• recruitment based on
trust and loyalty;
learning (‘affinity
group’)
• knowledge sharing,
division of labor rooted
on individual skills
(‘community of
practice’)
• horizontality but
‘dictatorship of action’
• the group is invisible –
action is visible:
groups as functional
units oriented to action
• policy-sceptical: no
interaction with
policy processes, no
dialogue with
institutions
• 'by-pass' regulation
and expand
unregulated spaces
• focus on prefigurative
action: creation of
alternatives here and
now
internal code
tech code
• regulating interpersonal
relationships and group dynamics
• equality (no hierarchies, direct
democracy, consensus;
‘dictatorship of action’)
• participation (first-person
engagement and individual
responsibility; communitarianism,
shared ownership, collective
improvement)
• autonomy (hands-on; DIY; users,
self-organization, selfdetermination)
• regulating how technology and
networks should look like
• equality (e-commons; bits/code)
• autonomy/self-determination
(built-in privacy; no state
interference; nuisance
campaigns)
• openness (accessibility,
malleability, transparency of
standards and architecture;
knowledge sharing, collective
improvement)
• freedoms (of access, dissent,
expression, sharing, ‘hack’)
design of technology (both process and outcome)
“DIY media projects are in the lucky position
to define their activities themselves, therefore
they can be very utopian, very experimental.
They don't have the pressure to present an
outcome at the end, and they can afford to be
radical in their practice and analysis, without
the need to find consensus with more established
organizations. As such, they might have the
function of some utopian 'guiding star', the
star that provides a fix point of navigation for
sailors, who use it for orientation without
attempting to reach it”
alert! shameless self-promotion
Social Movements and
Their Technologies:
Wiring Social Change
Nov 2013 | 240 pp. |
9780230309180