What is tech justice?

Technology touches almost every area of our lives. But most tech business models focus on profit and power. Justice, fairness and equity are rarely considered.

Typically, tech is designed and built by people from dominant social and cultural groups, who don’t always consider marginalised people’s needs. This creates tech that reflects our unjust and inequitable society. Tech that perpetuates discrimination.

We need justice around technology, just like we do in other aspects of our lives. For example, social, economic and environmental justice. Tech justice cuts across all of these.

What we mean when we talk about tech justice

There’s no common definition of tech justice in the UK. And, perhaps, creating one is not an achievable goal, because it’s a broad and complex area. The activity around it is being carried out by people in different fields and sectors, using different approaches. 

At the moment, we see tech justice as being: 

• an approach to creating technology that challenges structural inequalities and supports justice for marginalised communities
• a social movement - of people and organisations working to use tech to create a more just society
• an outcome - tech becomes fairer for people experiencing inequity and injustice.
  

People doing social justice work are leading this emerging field. But they may not necessarily label what they’re doing as tech justice. They may be calling it:

• tech democracy
• data justice
• digital rights
• AI ethics.

Catalyst’s Manifesto for a More Tech Just Society outlines what a more tech just society could look like. A society where technology liberates people instead of oppressing, or discriminating against, them.

Some of the thinkers and practitioners interviewed for Catalyst’s tech justice report see tech justice as being about:

Power: “... the way that power is distributed amongst people and governments and other special interest groups, that determines how tech impacts life, and particularly the public.” (Yasmin Boudiaf)

Interconnectedness: “...a wider social, academic, anti-colonial and anti-capitalist justice that cannot be disentangled from others.” (Emmanuelle Andrews, Liberty for Human Rights)

Accountability: “...holding Big Tech companies to account and challenging powers that speak truth to power. But also seeing tech as a tool that is used to achieve aims you want to see in the world.” (Debs Durojaiye, Multitudes)

There are also the issues of genuine diversity, equity and inclusion in the tech industry. And equitable access to technology and digital skills. 

What tech justice can look like in practice

Here are 3 examples of tech justice that we love.

Migrant Digital Justice

Migrants, refugees and asylum seekers struggle to protect their personal data. The Home Office can access this data from GPs, hospitals, schools and job centres. And it can use what it finds for immigration detentions and deportations. Not protecting the digital identities and information of people fleeing war, authoritarian regimes or other issues could lead to further harm. 

The Open Rights Group campaigns to protect our rights to privacy and free speech online. Its Migrant Digital Justice programme helps the migrants rights sector to challenge technologies used in immigration processes. The programme works with organisations that support migrants and refugees to address their digital rights and privacy issues.

I am not a typo

Names are an important part of people’s identities. But many aren't recognised by the UK English dictionaries used in digital products and services. Having your name marked as an error by autocorrect is frustrating, time consuming and othering. And it’s something that the UK collective I am not a typo wants to change. It’s challenging Big Tech to update their name dictionaries to make them inclusive. The collective has written an open letter to tech companies including Apple and Microsoft. It includes a spreadsheet of names (from the Office of National Statistics) to add to their dictionaries.

Glitch

Seyi Akiwowo founded the UK charity Glitch in 2017. She was motivated by the online abuse she experienced after a speech she delivered at the European Parliament went viral. Glitch’s purpose is to help make the internet a safer and more joyful place, and it's goal is to end online abuse. 

The charity has a particular focus on Black women and marginalised people, because they’re groups that experience a disproportionate amount of online hate. It educates people on how they can, “engage positively, respectfully and justly in digital spaces.” It also:

• carries out research
• runs campaigns
• presents policy recommendations to governments and tech companies to prevent online abuse.

Why tech justice is relevant to Catalyst

Tech justice is relevant to Catalyst because we are helping communities design and use tech that liberates people. Tech that creates a fairer and more just society. We do this by raising awareness of digital work that:

• builds collective power and shifts power from institutions to communities 
• involves impacted communities in design decisions
• leads to justice for marginalised communities
• is regenerative and reparative where harm has been done – to people or Earth
• uses ethical and well-principled tech to achieve its ends.

Our vision and mission reflect this: “shaping liberatory technology for just and regenerative futures”, and “centring community needs in design, digital and data decision making through building collective power."

Where we’re going with tech justice

Catalyst is becoming a platform for a range of content and activities focused on tech’s role in achieving justice for people who are usually disregarded by tech. This includes historically marginalised communities. We’re planning a Tech Justice roadtrip to build on the report and the learning event we held earlier in 2024. The road trip will bring the research findings directly to communities that are already working towards liberatory futures. We’ll work with people who attend to identify what we can do next. Through this, our definition of tech justice, and how we think about it, will evolve.

Where to find out more

Here are some articles focused on specific aspects of tech justice:

• The future is analog (if you can afford it): gives an overview of ‘analog privilege’, a term for wealthy and powerful people being able to opt out of one-size fits all AI systems
• The London School of Economics’ Justice Equity and Technology projects: explores the impact of new technologies on questions of social, racial, and economic justice
• The Algorithmic Justice League’s guide to the main features of accountable and equitable AI.

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Thanks to Nikita Shah for sharing her thoughts on this topic with us.

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Image credit: Visual Depiction of Tech Justice. Designed by Siana Bangura.

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