In This Part

• Chapter 9: By the Law
• Chapter 10: By Algorithmic Influencers
• Chapter 11: By the Public

By reaching Part III: Governance, it means you recognize the influence, power, presence, and role of data on our lives and in our digital systems. There's also an optimistic hopefulness that society can off-ramp its current trajectory of algorithmic-based harms and carve new paths of inclusivity in data and tech. With a transparency push (Chapters 1–4) and by setting accountability as a requirement (Chapters 5–8), what's left to address is our action steps. We need to lay out a plan of attack on how to guard and defend transparency and accountability approaches. The digital space intentionally inserts a wedge between individuals using tech tools. And if we're not careful, our humanity will get erased along with our dignity. Those of us who have rebelled against tech-solutionism have managed in silos pushing for change, set off alarm bells with investigative reports, and published “controversial” scholarly articles. It has been little pokes to a well-established, well-funded web of systems and policies. No more.

To help operationalize your rebel tech resolve, I've shared a definition of governance as perceived by the tech industry's behaviors as well as my own adaptation. Reflect on how bureaucracy works against the will of the people while imagining tech that's anchored in putting people first.

• Governance (n): bureaucracy.

  —Karen Hao, in “Big Tech's Guide to Talking About AI Ethics,”

  www.technologyreview.com/2021/04/13/1022568/big-tech-ai-ethics-guide¹

  Governance (n): The administration of equity and decency.

  —Revised definition by Brandeis Hill Marshall

The red tape of governance as we are living it must pass away. Society, meaning all of us, have to stop giving it oxygen to blossom, replicate, and disseminate. Aligning our focus on equity and decency-building can break our bondage to the systems as is. The compounding influence of algorithmic-based harms can be combatted with a coordination of people, platform, and policy interventions. Chapters 9–11 discuss what has been done and what I envision can be accomplished with our collective, cooperative, and sustained engagement.