Distributing Responsibily

Overview

• Distributed Agency
• Sunil Tripathi
• The Question of Responsibility
• Responsible Redesign

Rhetorical Agency
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Englightment Notions of Autonomy
+
Bruno Latour & New Materialism
=
Dependent Rhetorical/Material Agency

Distributed, Posthuman Agency

• Agency is always both material and rhetorically constructed.
• Agency is a product of relationships among actors.
• Nonhumans are integral parts of agentive networks.

The 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing

The Digital Aftermath

For Victims & Loved Ones: Google's Person Finder

For Disbelief and Condolences: Twitter & Facebook

For Ametuer Slueths: Reddit and 4Chan

/r/findbostonbomber

Sunil "Sunny" Tripathi

A Tragic Misidentification

Misidentifaction pics go here

Terrible Results

• Threatening emails via information shared (though quickly deleted) on Reddit and 4Chan
• Hateful messages on the "Find Sunil Tripathi" Facebook page
• 58 voice messages between 3 and 4:15 am on Sunil Tripathi's sister's cell phone
• 100s of anti-Islamic messages directed at the Tripathis via Facebook, Twitter, and email

“The costs to somebody who is in a fragile state are immense and not undone by a casual apology.” – Sanjeeta Tripathi, Sunil’s sister

The Question of Responsibility

“The attribution of causal agency by humans to other humans is essential for social organization and control, because it is the basis for assigning responsibility, with credit and reward or blame and punishment, individually and collectively.”
- Marilyn Cooper

Holding Humans Responsible

• Reddit's General Manager, Erik Martin
• /r/findbostonbomber creator, oops777
• Tripathi classmate and Twitter source, @kmattio

Redesign as Nonhuman Responsibility

Space Shuttle Challenger

Reddit's Redesign

• moving on from "content agnostic"
• the deletion of /r/findnavyyardshooter
• algorithmic (and personnel) changes