It's giving Tuesday
Hi there everyone. For a special Giving Tuesday edition of Arachne, I wanted to point you in the direction of some organizations in the tech and democracy space for you to consider donating. If you're not ready to make a donation today, all of these organizations have excellent resources that I've used to help guide my digital life. So lets get to it.
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Aaron Jue
Mission: "EFF's mission is to ensure that technology supports freedom, justice, and innovation for all people of the world."
EFF is a longtime defender of digital rights. You can engage with them via their podcast, How To Fix The Internet, and several other typical avenues. Much of their work focuses on legal challenges, things like free speech restrictions, unlawful search, and police overreach.
Algorithmic Justice League
Mission: "...to raise public awareness about the impacts of AI, equip advocates with resources to bolster campaigns, build the voice and choice of the most impacted communities, and galvanize researchers, policymakers, and industry practitioners to prevent AI harms."
AJL was founded by Dr. Joy Buolamwini, the author of Unmasking AI, to build an ethical AI coalition to challenge the mainstream AI evangelism. They advocate for four primary pillars: affirmative consent to how humans interact with AI, transparency from companies and government bodies about the use of AI, ongoing oversight and accountability measures, and actionable critique.
National Association for Media Literacy Education
Mission: "As the leading voice, convener, and resource for media literacy education, NAMLE aims to make media literacy highly valued and widely practiced as an essential life skill..."
As commitment to the arts and humanities has waned around the country, so too have literacy skills necessary for an informed, engaged populace. NAMLE seeks to provide resources to educators and professionals across fields to encourage more innovative creation, more rigorous analysis, and more equitable access to quality news, information, and entertainment.
Open Technology Institute
The Open Technology Institute "promote[s] universal access to communications technologies that are both open and secure, using a multidisciplinary approach that brings together advocates, researchers, organizers, and innovators."
As a project of New America, OTI aims to uphold pro-democratic ideals by targeting policy and regulation that is more citizen focussed.
Center for Democracy & Technology
Mission: "CDT works to promote democratic values by shaping technology policy and architecture, with a focus on the rights of the individual."
Similarly to the Open Technology Institute, CDT seeks to address big issues in technology. Their work covers a lot of ground, including AI, elections, and government surveillance.
That's it for today. I really encourage you, even if for just a moment, to open up these websites and click around! Who knows what new thing you might find to get upset about. Lol.
