From exploding Ford Pintos to racist algorithms, all harmful technologies are a product of unethical design. And yet, like car companies in the ’70s, today’s tech companies would rather blame the user.
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From across the ditch, the news that the Christchurch terrorist was an Australian was accompanied by a sinking feeling. The way in which our everyday public debate is steeped in concepts of white superiority made it all too predictable that such a horrendous crime should find its origins on our shores.
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Scott Morrison has called for the G20 to regulate social media companies in the wake of the terrorist massacre in Christchurch last Friday. The knee-jerk reaction to the mass shooting proposes policy responses that won’t work, and fails to address the real challenges of combating the spread of hatred in our society.
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Australia will soon be relegated to the backwaters of the global digital community. We will no longer have a functioning security software industry, nor will we have faith in the safety of our telecommunications systems. Our elected representatives in Canberra have passed into law an obscene bill that will have long-lasting impacts on the infrastructure of the digital economy, and they don’t even seem to care.
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We’re in the midst of a worsening democracy deficit, and you need look no further to see this on full display than within the shambolic process around the Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment (Assistance and Access) Bill. This Bill will introduce unprecedented new powers for government and law enforcement, and Coalition politicians are treating the public, and our concerns about it, with utter contempt. The Liberal/National strain of ’tough on crime’ has mutated during the never-ending war on terror, the most recent result being yet another trampling of democratic accountability.
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A state’s capacity to spy on its citizens has grown exponentially in recent years as new technology has meant more aspects of our lives can be observed, recorded and analyzed than ever before. At the same time, much to the frustration of intelligence agencies around the world, so has the ability to keep digital information secret, thanks to encryption.
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