Ethical Concerns and Internet Content
Content strategists and creators need to be more mindful about the ethical concerns that come with creating software for an online space.
In Chapter 5 of Sara Wachter-Boettcher's book Technically Wrong, the author elaborates on certain scenarios that can (or have) occurred thanks to ignorance when crafting something for an internet audience. One example that stuck out to me was her explanation of negging. Negging, though normally a term used by pick-up artists, refers to using negative (hence the name) language to lower a person's self esteem and enhance guilt, thereby making them more likely to be "picked up." It's very gross, yet many internet browsers and websites use this tactic to, as Wachter-Boettcher puts it, "manipulate our emotions so that companies can collect information, without doing any of the work of creating a relationship or building a loyal following" (92).
Negative language can be just as bad as the overly nice, teeth-rotting sweetness of something like Tumblr's "what you missed" feature or everything involving the creation of Mailchimp. As designers for a broad internet audience, strategists should be avoid manipulating people's emotions just to get them to click on a link or to be put on a mailing list.
However, ethical concerns might not in the cards for many of the people (mainly white men) currently in the top postions in these tech companies. Wachter-Boettcher writes, these people have "embraced the idea that they're truly smarter than the rest of us. That they do know best" (116). It will take a lot of change for these companies to start caring about ethics and people over data and profit.
