Thanks! I’ll chip away at these.
I was thinking I would write a short essay going into this, and then linking it from the front page. But if I can describe it briefly that will assist with folks understanding.
I’m on the fence of presenting this way, because it seems more personal, so for now I’ll keep it. Basically it comes from this fact that if I don’t mention “ethics”, no one will. I want it to be the first barrier to folks, so they will pass me over if they would want me to do creepy things for them.
I’m sensitive to this, most people who approach me for work, their actions are compromised, and I want to flag myself as unavailable. Also, when I say something like, “I can’t do that”, I want it to have been clear from the beginning why.
It basically means, when I work I consider the ethical implications of the systems I build. These days that means not complying with surveillance capitalism, not gathering invasive data on users, not deploying anti-patterns for “customer capture”, etc.
Taken all together, if I proceed with this designator and want to produce a niche for myself, I’ll probably need to produce a page that explains “ethical technology services”, with more details…
Sadly, there is no real definition for an “ethical technologist”, according to my research. I’m claiming the term before it has been formalized in academia and industry.