HACKER Q&A
📣 throwaway54342

How do you stop your creations from being misused?


I created a website and people died because of it. A butterfly flapped its wings and there was a tornado the other side of the world.

How do you stop your creations from being misused/abused? Those of you intentionally designing products to cause harm, how do you reconcile that ethically?

I know 'heavy moderation' is an answer but even with say Facebook or Twitch, it's not enough and their services are abused on a daily basis. Live streaming torture and murder etc.

I don't want to leave tech, but I also can't continue knowing I'm (indirectly) responsible for those deaths. And I am getting therapy. TYIA.


  👤 h2odragon Accepted Answer ✓
People died because someone killed them. That someone wasn't you.

People are responsible for their actions, and no more. The guy that pulled the trigger with the gun pointed at someone did the killing. the person who made the bullet, the gunpowder, the rifle, the clothes the killer and victim were wearing, are irrelevant.


👤 rektide
Leaving all obligations on the creators is not viable. No one, no entity can project it's usages. But the whole point of tech is to potentiate each other, to enable. We cant ever predict every dampening required to assure complete safety nor should we.

Information society needs more overlay. Just as there are feeds, we need moderation feeds. The singular authoritarian moderation model is folly, constrictive, is death. We need to be open but let each of us coach and council things towarda better, away from harm, with expanding reputation & reach.

The Web Annotation Model underneath for example Hyppthes.is is a great example of how to allow society to stake in, allow wider external input.


👤 Minor49er
What kind of a website did you make?