Technology Ethics in Action:
Critical and Interdisciplinary Perspectives

A Special Issue of the Journal of Social Computing
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Full Issue

Ben Green (ed.). “Technology Ethics in Action: Critical and Interdisciplinary Perspectives,” Special Issue of the Journal of Social Computing. 2021.
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Abstract
This special issue interrogates the meaning and impacts of “tech ethics”: the embedding of ethics into digital technology research, development, use, and governance. In response to concerns about the social harms associated with digital technologies, many individuals and institutions have articulated the need for a greater emphasis on ethics in digital technology. Yet as more groups embrace the concept of ethics, critical discourses have emerged questioning whose ethics are being centered, whether “ethics” is the appropriate frame for improving technology, and what it means to develop “ethical” technology in practice. This interdisciplinary issue takes up these questions, interrogating the relationships among ethics, technology, and society in action. This special issue engages with the normative and contested notions of ethics itself, how ethics has been integrated with technology across domains, and potential paths forward to support more just and egalitarian technology. Rather than starting from philosophical theories, the authors in this issue orient their articles around the real-world discourses and impacts of tech ethics—i.e., tech ethics in action.

Contents

Ben Green and Kathy Pham. “Editorial.” (Welcome Note for the special issue)
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Ben Green. “The Contestation of Tech Ethics: A Sociotechnical Approach to Technology Ethics in Practice.” (Introduction to the special issue)
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Jasmine E. McNealy. “Framing and Language of Ethics: Technology, Persuasion, and Cultural Context.”
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Lily Hu. “Tech Ethics: Speaking Ethics to Power, or Power Speaking Ethics?”
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Anonymous. “Beyond Thoughtfulness: A Student Perspective on Ethical Engineering.”
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Ben Green. “Data Science as Political Action: Grounding Data Science in a Politics of Justice.”
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Elettra Bietti. “From Ethics Washing to Ethics Bashing: A Moral Philosophy View on Tech Ethics.”
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Salomé Viljoen. “The Promise and Limits of Lawfulness: Inequality, Law, and the Techlash.”
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Luke Stark. “Apologos: A Lightweight Design Method for Sociotechnical Inquiry.”
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Aden Van Noppen. “Creating Technology Worthy of the Human Spirit.”
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Joanne Cheung. “Real Estate Politik: Democracy and the Financialization of Social Networks.”
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Jonnie Penn. “Algorithmic Silence: A Call to Decomputerize.”
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Jenny Ungbha Korn. “Connecting Race to Ethics Related to Technology: A Call for Critical Tech Ethics.”
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Maya Malik and Momin M. Malik. “Critical Technical Awakenings.”
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