Code is Not Neutral: The Ethics of Web Development
summary
Argues that code causes real harms with concrete cases: a Volkswagen cheat device that raised emissions enough to cause about 59 premature U.S. deaths and led to a 40‑month sentence for an engineer; a Hawaii emergency alert system that takes 38 minutes delay to retract a false missile warning; Facebook ad and moderation algorithms that exclude protected groups and delete pages; healthcare triage software that cuts thousands of home‑care hours from disabled people after coding errors. Calls for designing for worst‑case scenarios, accessibility, diverse teams, and refusing harmful contracts.
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chapters (30)
- 0:00Intro
- 1:30Title
- 1:48What is ethics
- 3:20Auto emissions
- 4:13How this happened
- 4:43World Car of the Year
- 5:10Air Pollution
- 6:45Hawaii Missile Alert
- 9:42Internet of Things
- 10:16Backup Key
- 12:07Algorithms
- 13:31Facebook
- 15:23Human moderators
- 15:49Facebook moderators get wrong
- 20:21Holding Your Employer Accountable
- 21:32Alcohol Ads
- 22:27Algorithm Cuts Health Care
- 23:04Tammy Dobbs
- 23:39No explanation
- 25:25Accessibility
- 27:06Diversity
- 28:07Google Photos
- 28:49Facial Recognition
- 30:45The Workplace
- 31:47The Rooney Rule
- 33:12People of color and women are not applying
- 33:57Corey Foley
- 37:52Microsoft
- 39:19Montana
- 40:09Reni Carmy
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