Defending Human Rights in Technology

Welcome to family policy matters in engaging and informative weekly radio show and podcast produced by the North Carolina family policy Council hi this is John Ralston, presidency, family, and were grateful to have you with us for this week's program is our prayer that you will be informed, encouraged and inspired by what you hear on family policy matters and that you will fold better equipped to be a voice of persuasion for family values in your community, state and nation, and now here's our house to family policy matters.

Tracy David Griggs, thanks for joining us this week for family policy matters, like me, you love and hate technology in the same way that it can make our lives easier.

It can't make us more isolated from others and can be and is increasingly used as a tool for great evil will rescind this malicious intent, played out, especially in other countries. As the growing sophistication of technology is bringing with it increased attacks on human dignity, human rights and freedoms.

Well, there's a name for that it's called digital authoritarianism or the use of technology to suppress human rights. Will Jason Thacker recently wrote an article entitled what is digital authoritarianism, and he's written a book called the age of AI artificial intelligence in the future of humanity always here with us today to discuss this very important topic. Jason Thacker is creative director at ethics and religious Liberty commission, the ER LC at the Southern Baptist convention, where he also serves as chair of research in technology, ethics, Jason Thacker, welcome to family policy matters. Grabbing Tracy, I will first of all I think it's important for us to establish that the Internet can look quite different in other countries. Right exactly right to the Internet. We think of something that everyone has access to that we have full access to information whatever we search for will find that you simply not true. In certain countries throughout the world, especially in China. China had become of the intimates, what they call the great firewall which they actually filter Internet access by only allowing led the Chinese Communist Party considers acceptable content for their people to see. So they Google things like Tiananmen Square or democracy. All of those type of things are filtered out of their Internet and that control by becoming a party and this is where they will have access to certain sites that access to certain types of information or even third type of application because the party wants to have a tight control over the word sharing control over their people what they say where they go, what they can do and this leads to really concerning issues surrounding human right freedoms, especially places that might be familiar with lightning Shandong where you have that Uighur Muslims who were in detainment camps because China wants to have his heavy hand control over their people and control every aspect of life.

So, of course, authoritarianism is not new, but why do we say that the way that it has been digitized is new technology is a very powerful tool can be used for good be used for evil and in the hands of those who are seeking to maintain power and control over other people or other image bearers. The truth is that these technologies can be incredibly powerful to be used in most ways think of facial recognition technology were were having a lot of debates over the proper use of facial mission technology, policing, surveillance, government use here in the United States and China.

The Chinese government uses facial recognition to round up dissidents to round up those who don't agree with the Communist Party or even those who are being profiled basically because of their religious beliefs.

Like that Uighur Muslims should be rounded up to be tracked and detained, and this is not just happening in Muslim cases is also happening in the Christian church in China where the state tries to have a high level of control and authority to really maintain their power for steed government. Not that authoritarianism is that these authoritarian governments are abusing technologies that are incredibly powerful to demean and to diminish human rights and human dignity of their fellow citizens. How pervasive is this around the world to have other examples Guyanese outside of China. Certain countries like Russia had a really tight control over their Internet structure what their people conveying what their people do you see in places even earlier this year in the country of Belarus where the president Alexander Lukashenko basically shut down the Internet for his entire country. He pulled the plug on it, which might sound like wow is that even possible.

One may not take this incredibly difficult. I should shut down the Internet but in these countries that are based on authoritarian type regime. They built their Internet systems and the way the government can officially just pull the plug and shut it all down. Lukashenko specifically did this in order to crack down on dissidents because the election was not fruit. It was not fair was not a democracy rig to the election order to maintain power in that country.

You see this in Iran last year.

This increasing role of digital technologies in the hands of authoritarian governments is very conservative national front and something that not only American but really the wider world needs to be aware of the way these tools are being used and abused to violate human rights. So sure of shutting down the Internet a little bit about the fact that this has on people. When the government controls everything that they see and hear talk about what that daily life is like and how that influences what people think maybe think of, even in the mornings when you wake up in the morning you check your email or you check social media.

We have a free open Internet where we have dissenting opinion to see that a lot of the division that we even have in our nation today, but in other countries you see as much of that you see words, propaganda talking about the state how well the state doing how perfect and how everything is going really well. They don't have access to information and talking about dissenting views you see that even when they can leave their house where there might be facial recognition cameras throughout their cities not only tracking their faces but tracking where they go and what they do and what they look like in order to maintain heavy-handed controlled iron fist over these people and so you see that not only to facial recognition technology access to information but even the ability to gather and specifically in faith, services or faith gathering.

Even the Christian church in China has had to go underground. Because of the type of surveillance technologies that have been used but any zoom out on you see this play out in elections. You see this play out in international affairs and world affairs where these chain regimes are bent on retaining power and specifically in China. You see this where in the United States. We have a separation between private entities and government entities in the line where there might be partnerships and things like that but they're very separate but in China that's simply not the case, the government has a heavy-handed control even in private businesses about the information they gather being able to not just request it but just take the information and use that for nefarious purposes.

This was a lot of the controversy surrounding the use of tick-tock here in the United States where the United government was concerned and raising the alarm about the way that China was in many ways with tick-tock parent company and being able to harvest that data and use it for nefarious purposes and so it's a very broad kind of way that these authoritarian governments go in and use these technologies but in many ways just control every single aspect of someone's life, because the ultimate goal is not human freedoms and liberties.

The ultimate goal is to retain power and authority tight control over all image figures. I will speaking of access to information.

Let's talk about that in regard to the pandemic because some people got very upset when social media platforms began censoring discussions that social media people considered to be bad science or conspiracy theories they were alarmed that these companies were setting themselves up as filters of truth for the entire nation. Is this something you feel like we need to be concerned about.

Yes and in many ways.

We have a lot of really healthy debate going on in America right now about the role of social media companies and Internet platforms and the role of the digital public square and so there's lots of questions that need to be answered by her is considerable debate about the role in the ways that these companies enact certain policies for their platforms in a free society. They are private companies and so they can in many ways control the type of things that happen on the platform, but as a grown in size and the ability for many millions of people to connect there really a legitimate question about what should these policies look like what certain types of information should be allowed and should be allowed and a lot of this dinner around what scope section 230 that listeners may be aware of which is a part of a 1996 communications decency act says that platforms have certain types of immunity or they take away liability for information posted on the platforms, but that was to encourage them to have safe online platforms to keep issues of child abuse or pornography away from those minor undertakings, legal acts. Also, these platforms and so there considerable debate that need to be happening surrounding the role social media in our society, settling something that we should be a part of and having this conversation because I would say that this is digital authoritarianism per se because the government isn't mandating but we do have legitimate questions need to be answered about the proper relationship between private companies, governments, and individuals rights.

So besides participating in some of these conversations on a public policy level. What can we do personally, do you think to break or limit the effect of technology in our own lives. Yeah, I think first and foremost is recognizing how were using technology and how technology being used. One of the best ways to combat a lot of this is just through education is realizing the power and ubiquity of technology in our lives as we recognize those things being thoughtful about how he pushes so even our own families or our own personal use of social media 80 it slowing down a little bit and just sharing information that we see because it confirms may be a position or belief we had made really slow down and read the entire story before just re-tweaking it or sharing it to make sure that we understand the full context of what's being said and how it said on the people who send protrude. Or maybe we should be the ones who are slowing down and not treating the person on social media is simply not a chart but to recognize that their flesh and blood human being, a fellow image bearer, just like God and dignity, value and worth in the digital age it so easy to treat the person on the other side of the interaction online as simply an avatar is just simply combatant someone that we can argue with say whatever we want, because it just digital. It doesn't really matter, but in reality is Christian not only dark, our relationships with our family and those in our community very important. Leave our relationships online are also important and we need to make sure that were recognizing the value dignity and worth of every single human being, digitally or in person and to make sure there were upholding were proclaiming the truth. The truth of the gospel that we can only be saved through a relationship with Jesus Christ and that changes us to changes the way that we interact not only in person but also digitally in this new, digital first world that were proclaiming Christ everything wow Great point and of course there are organizations such as URC, RLC that does a great job of staying in informed on this and keeping people informed on this and tell us how people can connect with you for lumbar technology works. Easiest ways to go to my website which is Jason Dr.com. There we host a weekly contact: we contact, we also have the weekly newsletter will try to keep people up-to-date on technology issues technology such a wide-ranging issue that can become overwhelming for folks submit all of the other pressures that we have in our daily lives. So this is a way in a resource that will get your seat put together a newsletter podcast euros deductible thing up-to-date our videos are podcast articles all surrounding one of the difficult questions surrounding technology so that was Jason Thacker.com and E RLC.com Jason Thacker with the ethics and religious liberty commission. Thank you so much for being with us today on family policy matters listening to family policy matters. We hope you enjoyed the program employment to them again next week to listen to the show own lawn and to learn more about NC families want to inform, encourage and inspire families or crosspost a lot of our website it NC family.award that's NC family.org.

Thanks again for listening and may God bless you and your family