Fair Tech Choices

IMPAKT Principle #6: Fair Tech Choices

Ethics, Terms and Conditions

A lot of platforms and services provided by (big) tech use extractative and exploitative business models. Many do not respect our privacy, or extract a lot of data from us.  Do you want to support Big Tech, or rather opt for smaller tech producers that use and develop open source. Proprietary and ethical concerns are both at stake in these questions. Use the technologies that you and your audience are happy with.

(Un)Familiarity

The main benefit of using big tech options is the familiarity that many people have already built up with these platforms and products. Some of more ethical choices might be less familiar to the general public, and therefore somewhat daunting. Deciding who the target audience is for your event and what they would feel most comfortable using can help decide what will work for any given event. Keep in mind, you can also create (or use existing) tools that guide your audience through the process of using big tech alternatives– don’t underestimate the strength of a wiki how-to or a video tutorial.

Low Bandwidth and Low Tech

By organising your online events in a way that allows for participation with low bandwidth or easy and generally available software and hardware your event will be inclusive and open to all participants, regardless their budget or the region they are in, but these technology choices might be at odds with the artistic experimentation you want to do.

Sustainability

Digital technologies can have a big footprint. Consider doing your project in the most sustainable way.

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