In June 2020, the year of the pandemics and collective awakening, a trio of emojis started trending on the Twitterverse. 👁👄👁 aka It Is What It Is aka a mysterious group of young technologists released what appeared to be an invite-only beta.

The internet scrambled to sign up for early access to the new app, club, network, whatever-it-was.

As the next few days unfolded, it became clear that it was not what it was. 👁👄👁 had tricked Twitter into frenzied action by building faux hype for a faux product that was never to be. The internet had been played. The mayhem was ultimately channeled into donations to the Loveland Foundation Therapy Fund,The Okra Project,The Innocence Project, and other racial justice organizations. All’s well that ends well. Or was it?

There were critiques, and rightfully so, that 👁👄👁 made a meme of a very serious human rights issue. A cringe-worthy education in ethical action unfolded. The next-gen learned an important lesson in how to receive critique with humility.

In the aftermath, 👁👄👁 released a statement:

We’re a diverse, ragtag group of young technologists tired of the status quo tech industry, and thought that we could make the industry think a bit more about its actions. Despite calls-to-action like that “It’s Time to Build” essay we’ve all read, most of the industry (from product teams to VC) still stays obsessed with exclusive social apps that regularly ignore — or even silence — real needs faced by marginalized people all over the world, and exclude these folks from the building process. As an industry, we need to do better.

It is what it is. In all its imperfections, 👁👄👁 is a sign of a larger change of tide in tech and design. Of a louder call to critical consciousness about what we build, why we build it, and how we get there.

For a long time, tech has worshipped the false idol of ‘build fast and break things.’

But breaking things can (and often does) mean harming health and wellbeing, equality, dignity, security, and safety. These days, it seems more and more as though we’re living in a dystopia of our own making. We are witnessing the real, human consequences of our actions in pixels and code. We’re prying our eyes open… and we don’t like what we see.

👁👄👁 are just a few among many who are challenging the status quo. Organizations like the Center for Humane Technology, Design Justice Network, and the Algorithmic Justice League are building communities and spaces to critically examine the role of technology and design in society. Movements like post-tech and ethically aligned design are advocating for innovations that support well-being and technology in service of humanity. And new products like Makespace are seeking to build a different kind of digital future.

A creation of Aza Raskin of the Center for Humane Technology, Jason Yuan, May-Li Khoe, Weiwei Hsu, and other luminous minds, Makespace centers a different value system than traditional tech in their organization, product, and process:

We prioritize people over profit. We are against extractionism, unsustainability, materialism, and militarism… We commit to anti-racism and inclusion in every aspect of MakeSpace: outwardly in everything we create, inwardly for those involved in the creation, and across with our partners… MakeSpace commits to involving and benefiting communities normally not associated with “high tech” development, in particular, Black and Indigenous communities.

It’s a powerful example of what our future could look like in practice and principle… if we so choose.

Eyes wide open, we stand at a crossroads.

As an industry, will we favor capital and notoriety over human and planetary consequence? We must re-examine the parameters of success and value. It’s time to move the ethical conversation out of the margins into the active practice of every product manager, designer, engineer, and strategist.

What next?

Get involved with the Center for Humane Technology, Design Justice Network, the Algorithmic Justice League, or Data & Society

Read a book from the Ethical and Humane Tech Reading List compiled by Alexander Steinhart

Read Design’s lost generation or the delightful rant Ethics and paying rent by Mike Monteiro