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the Week of April 13, 2020
Close-up of colorful spray can bottles.

We’re back for 2020! Make sure to follow us on Twitter, sign up for our mailing list and support on Patreon. We’re independent and fully reader-supported as always. This month we’ve got articles responding to the COVID-19 crisis, and how it’s affecting everyone from visually impaired users to Indigenous game developers. Take a closer look at the “culture war” going on in open source, white-washing of the newsroom and a fresh approach to how we conceptualize our work: society-centered design. Photo CC-BY See-ming Lee.

Eight members of the Palante team in front of a balloon rainbow, smiling.

Worker Coops: A Better Way to Make a Living in Tech

By building our cooperative upon these principles, supplemented by our politics and dedication to social and economic justice, worker-owners at tech coops are able to shape our own deeply rewarding careers in technology, unrestricted by the constraints and bitter compromises that characterize more traditional careers in the industry.

Protestors in Quito scatter from tear gas thrown at the crowd.

Flocos de Neve Aqui, Ali e nos Trópicos: democratizando as notícias internacionais do Brasil ao Equador

A máquina gigantesca da mídia convencional e ocidental mostra-nos quem é suficientemente articulado, realmente sofisticado, consciente e honesto para cumprir todas as demandas do jornalismo internacional. Tradução por Carlos Alberto Medeiros / Cultne.

Person in mask holding a sign that reads "Workers lives are essential! I stand in solidarity with Amazon workers."

#TechSolidarity: Tech and Warehouse Workers Need to Stand Together

The history of the labor movement shows that big business will go to great lengths to keep workers divided and maintain their power.

Photo of downtown Pittsburgh, the City of Steel. The land reaches a point where two rivers converge; large steel traffic bridges cross into the distance.

Tips on Unionizing Your Tech Workforce

Organizers on getting started, holding conversations about your workplace and building solidarity.

Engineering To Death in COVID-19

The sheer existence of the Tech solution creates the “normal” regardless of whether the disease is actually contained and regardless of whether treatment exists and is accessible.

by tante
Photo of Georgina Bourke.

Society-Centered Design Is A New Approach to Tech Development

"By recognizing that human-centered design is problematic in the way that it focuses on individuals, on consumers, we can recognize that we need a new framework to ask different questions."

Protestors in Quito scatter from tear gas thrown at the crowd.

Snowflakes Hither, Yonder and In the Tropics: Ungentrifying International News Reporting from Brazil to Ecuador

The mammoth machine of mainstream and western media at-large tells us who is articulate enough, indeed worldly, mindful, and honest enough to saddle the demands required of international journalism.

Photo of a large, locked safe in the grass.

A Six-Month Retrospective on Ethical Open Source

The open source community has a strong desire to evolve, and if necessary, to redefine itself, to ensure that it can address the magnitude and complexity of today’s social, political and technological challenges.

A gear in the shape of a flower.

The Culture War in Open Source is On

The challenges to open source's "noble neutrality."

Duke Ellington Square in Washington, DC in a vibrant sunrise.

Black Excellence in the Age of Pandemic

America’s Black creative class is busy both re-framing some parts and eradicating others, of the life, culture, and history that we have led.

Stones in a riverbed.

Re-Victimized: When Sexual Assault Gets Uploaded to Porn Platforms

The role that technology played in my attack not only immortalized the worst night of my life, but made it so that I had no escape from the trauma.

Pixels and Pandemics: Indigenous Game Devs Respond To The Virus

That flux is creating enormous changes in what might be little Indigenous-run studios, but it is these creatives who have been meeting those same challenges head on in ways that larger studios cannot hope to.

Close-up visualization of the coronavirus: an orb covered in viral spike peplomers.

In The Middle of A Pandemic, COVID-19 Information Remains Inaccessible to Visually Impaired People

Access to quality information, in addition to being a fundamental right, is what allows us to make consistent and informed decisions on the issues that affect us the most.