Essay

SSIR: Disrupting the Gospel of Tech Solutionism to Build Tech Justice

Ruha Benjamin, Greta Byrum
June 15, 2022
Essay

SSIR: Disrupting the Gospel of Tech Solutionism to Build Tech Justice

Ruha Benjamin, Greta Byrum
June 15, 2022

Virtually every new technology tied into the massive, interconnected web of data and machine power undergirding the global internet has potential for both social benefit and social harm. And communities that have been overpoliced and surveilled are more likely than others to experience the negative capabilities of new technology. As the world struggles to reckon with ongoing legacies of systemic discrimination and racial injustice, we must resist the assumption that the solutions to the problems created by technology are to be found in technology – and instead invest in the people, ideas, and frameworks that can deeply transform sociotechnical systems. Now is the time to build toward radically imagined tech futures that celebrate and manifest hope, joy, justice, and self-determination.

Read the full article, by Ruha Benjamin and Just Tech program director Greta Byrum, at the Stanford Social Innovation Review.

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