(this is a copy of the newsletter sent by email to registered community members)
Dear Humane Tech Community,
We’re excited to share with you that our collective public pressure has made a direct difference: Google’s recent Digital Wellbeing announcement includes suggestions from the presentation Tristan gave in 2013 that began Time Well Spent:
We’re now seeing an important shift in the tech industry’s attitude. From ‘If you have a problem with our product just don’t use it,’ to ‘as tech companies, it’s our responsibility to design in a way that cares about people first.’ Whether the issues are fake news, mental health, loneliness, or addiction, this moment marks a turning of the tide.
These are just the first steps for the Humane Tech movement. It’s a 10,000-step road to fix all that is broken, but it’s also important to celebrate that Google has started the journey. Google’s embrace of digital wellbeing shows that there is strong consumer demand for features like these, and we hope employees of other tech companies will now feel empowered to advocate for more humane technology. We have reached an important point in time where these types of product changes are a novel competitive advantage in a landscape that’s largely focused on extracting the attention of users.
If you’d like to read more about this update and work we’re doing, here are a few more relevant articles:
This community has been a huge part of shifting the conversation to where it is today. Thank you so much for spreading the word, having these complicated and important conversations, and for thinking critically about the role of technology in our lives.
There’s a long road ahead, but we’re glad to share in this step forward with you.
Hi Arnold
I am extremely satisfied of your words. Really happy with the news. Feelin’ so good all of like you said “complicated conversations”. I feel that’s it was , it is !!! really time well spent. Happy with your emailed newsletter and hopeful with the long road ahead.
All the best for you, for all the team, for everybody in CHT.
The revolution has just begun
Have a great day !
In order for Google to be ethical, they would need to discard the company, its business model, and its ethos and start again from the beginning.
If anything gets us out of this mess we’re in, it will be new ethical startups that will displace the current evil companies like Google and Facebook. We need a real awakening and a different mentality to what is now quite stale, unliked and lame.
It will not be easy. Maybe not really an ethical change…sure , but they just need to move from their confort zone. This is the first step. Agree with both post , a real change for them is to born again and that’s no possible. But one thing is really movement . People changing their mind. Impossible come back from now and on !!
We are thinking , I’m seeking to be close to the news . This newsletter is a very smart tool…I am talking with a lot of people about our proposal , writing in different places. What do you think we can do further ?
Cheers
Thank you for your enthousiasm! Note that the newsletter that started this thread was not written by me, but by the core CHT team. I am a regular community member like you and not part of that team, but I just copied the email newsletter that was sent, so it is available for anyone to read.
I value too much your attitude that makes available for everybody this newsletter wrote by the core CHT team.
I am thankful about this post you sent to me .
I`ll we be reading it , to learn more and to be alligned and close to CHT team.
Best for you
“Apple’s iOS 12 digital wellness announcements today are another step forward for Humane Technology, and a reflection that public pressure works. Holding apps accountable for our time is the first step. Next we hope companies like Apple and Google hold apps accountable for affecting the quality of our relationships and all the ways we want to live. Apple and Google are competing in a new race: who will do more to improve their impact on users’ lives and society?”
Hi Bill. We announce major developments at the CHT but there are no 1 on 1 copies of all CHT newsletters, I think (there were not many of them). You can always make a copy yourself, like this one. Thanks for offering to help
