Roisin Markham

I’m going to trial uncoupling from Google and going with a Swiss alternative called KSuite. This has been something I’ve been thinking about and exploring but not knowing how to act on it. I need to align to my data ethics and make a stronger commitment to how I run my business digitally, software and to my values.

Finally someone, Orla Fitzmaurice has spent time researching it and is advising SME’s.

Orla and I have forgotten how we know each other possibly back in early days of Coderdojo, Women in Tech, blogging and the heady days of Microblogging. 

We got reconnected when I recently gave a lecture to TCD University a part-time postgraduate certificate in Climate Entrepreneurship, she was part the student cohort. The lecture was on Effective Climate Communication.

After Orla reached out to ask if I would participate in her research on alternative technology stacks for SME’s. 

Ethical tech is something I follow through networks like All tech is Human, Good Ripple, Climate Action Tech, Work on Climate, Women in Ai + Ed.
Orla’s enquiry has given me a lot of agency and I am grateful for her for sharing her knowledge. I’ve asked her to post about it on Linkedin so follow her there for more information.  

Synchronistical on the same day someone on Bluesky was crowd sourcing what people were using

• Proton mail is a strong contender
• EU Alternatives list other options

Factors influencing my action

• confidentiality
• business ethics and trust
• risk
• client confidentiality
• good and best practices
• being the change
• agency

Whats been stopping me

Practice vs. Practical

Ubiquitous – everywhere single sign on passwords

Commitment, ease of use, managing change

But I’m in the process now and looking at all the tech I’m engaging with.

Last week I heard people are jumping to Upscrolled, a Palestinian built app alternative to TikTok and Meta.

Tech for Palestine – Upscrolled

I did not know Payoner, etoro nor Fiver were Israeli tech ( don’t use them but still) – lots of AI enterprises and crap Monday.com – which I have used. You’ll find a link on Tech for Palestine to check Israeli software to avoid. Where we spend our business and personal money counts. As with Sustainability, vote with your purse don’t pay for a genocide.

I’m in the process of moving my tech stack to ethical software because it matters.

Last week I attended a webinar run by All Tech is Human on the slow violence of fast tech. Although a short session, Malika Saada Saar made clear that the ongoing hollowing out the UN Charter of Human Rights by tech companies normalises violence and harm to women, children and minority groups. The permission granted by modelling behaviour to undress, nudity apps are in violation of the terms of platform services. Malika asked what is allowed to thrive? Pointing to platforms and payment processors that we must hold to account.

The erosion of human rights and civil liberties is deeply concerning. When we give space to violence, hate speech and harm in the digital public sphere we diligence communities and hamper democracy. We need to stop socio-techno harm.

I had reported X to Apple Saying it was in breach of its service agreement – I got a response last week. It was not good enough it said it had “requested the content provider to take action to come into compliance”.

Is that really a strong enough response to digital sexual violence? Or the production of CSAM (child sexuality abuse media)?

There was some discussion around deep fake porn, synthetic media, creation of synthetic child sexuality abuse media (SCSAM) – these nudity apps are normalising this culture.

In the era of the Epstein files perhaps for some this is normal. But it is not normal it is obscene, demoralising, humiliates people and children. It has an impact on us. It has a more then you might know impact on people who have experienced sexual violence or childhood sexual abuse. The harm is a re-traumatising of a society that finds any of this acceptable.

Policy, human rights and the law have to protect children, women and girls and vulnerable groups in our society. There is a line we have breached in terms of social boundaries – we must work to pull humanity back into that safe justice place for all of us to thrive. It is after all up to us…

Malika asked “Can AI advance us?” I believe it can but only with proper guard rails which are seriously lacking. We have a rapidly advancing technology that is like this free falling degrading runaway train. We must rein it in.

In terms of tech for good I have started to think about Democracy as murmuration again and my Civic Listening project using Polis to bubble up commonality rather than separation or division. This feels even more important now.

I also attended Hope & Courage’s workshop last week on using their Something to Fight For research about how to tackle fear based narratives and extremist views in everyday conversations. When facts are used people feel their lived experience is being erased. There is some value in that for any type of communication or facilitation with people you don’t resemble. Emotional value based conversations work better. Be relational.

It’s back to Nuture Human Nature.

I’m thinking about putting together an IDEN webinar on public voice and active democracy in Ireland moving beyond PPNs and a few citizens assemblies. more on that later.

Work has been focused on qualitative research for a strategic review and for another client a community engagement lab. The later has organised my approach into 7 themes that I’ll be building resources, mentoring and facilitation around – this will be made available to clients in a retainer membership model. If that’s of interest to your business and your team