Making Tech Accountable: Reflecting on 2020. With Martha Dark

Response-ability.Tech

In this episode we catch up with Martha Dark. Martha is the co-founder of Foxglove, a new NGO that exists to make tech fair for everyone. Made up of lawyers, technology experts and communications specialists, Foxglove believe that governments and big tech companies are misusing digital technology, and that this is harming the rest of us. Their aim is to fix this situation.

We interviewed Martha in Episode 2 ahead of her talk at the 2020 conference. What better way to end the year than by celebrating the ways in which Foxglove has held tech accountable in 2020.

During our conversation, Martha shares Foxglove’s successes:

• Calling for transparency around the U.K. Government’s secretive deals around the transfer the personal health information of millions of NHS users to private tech firms during the pandemic such as Amazon and Google, and controversial AI firms Faculty and Palantir.
• Calling out Google profiling children who are watching YouTube videos in order to deliver targeted ads to them.
• Calling out the U.K. Home Office’s “racist” visa streaming algorithm which reviewed applications against a “suspect nationalities” list.
• Fighting for fair treatment for Facebook’s social media content moderators, and for safe working conditions during the pandemic.
• Challenging the U.K. Government’s devastating use of algorithms to grade A-level exams.

Martha also shares with us what Foxglove will likely be working on in 2021. Lastly, Martha explains why Foxglove needs our help and how we can all support Foxglove’s work in holding tech accountable.

We loved talking to Martha and we hope you enjoy the episode.

You can follow Foxglove on Twitter and find out more about them at foxglove.org.uk

Visit us online at anthtechconf.co.uk and sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Mentioned our conversation:

• Behind the Screen: Content Moderation in the Shadows of Social Media by Sarah T. Roberts.
• Ghost Work: How to Stop Silicon Valley From Building a New Global Underclass by Mary L. Gray and Siddharth Suri.
• Open letter to Facebook's leaders signed by over 200 Facebook content moderators from across the world
• Facebook moderators forced to work in Dublin office despite high-tier lockdown, 23 October 2020.
• Leo Varadkar to press Facebook on working conditions for its content moderators, 15 November 2020.