Ethics: how far are we as software developers responsible?

Yesterday NOS wrote about countdown timers and how misleading they can turn out. Internally that raised tough questions. As software developers, to what extent are you liable for how what you build is used?

Misleading consumers is not allowed

The headline was telling: 'This offer expires in 3 hours': webshops mislead with countdown clocks. The Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) points out sharply that online shops often act as if an offer has a hard deadline while after that supposed expiry time nothing changes at all. At 10KB we regularly set up countdown timers on webshops. Our clients decide entirely themselves which text goes in them and what exactly happens when the clock hits zero. Those timers, technically speaking, are not exactly a feat for us. But how far does our responsibility reach for the meaning of what we put in place? And what do you do when your code helps with illegal or unethical practices?

Where is the line?

We build software that gives companies a push in the right direction. Sometimes we translate deep technical wishes into workable code, sometimes we bring fresh insights from a completely different sector, and everything revolves around that one goal: an end product that knows not a gram of waste. About extremes we have no doubts. Whether we want to deliver a calculation tool to an arms dealer? We do not take part in that. Illegal practices, we stay far away from those. But very often it is of course not that simple.

Different facets

In itself such a timer feels fairly innocent. There are so many 'dark patterns' that hit much harder. You have plenty of topics where ethics play a solid role. Privacy for example: which data do you actually throw around, who stores that, and with whom is it all shared? Invisible trackers and cookie walls that cheerfully keep letting cookies through. Security too: one weak spot in software can easily lead to data breaches or really nasty attacks. Discrimination is another hot topic, because an algorithm with a built-in bias only pulls existing inequality further askew. Even software with the purest intentions can turn out badly for how people interact, think of addiction. And we pay more and more attention to the power use of software: some languages gulp energy and sloppily written code pulls unnecessarily hard on hardware.

"Yes but the client…"

It is tempting to dump everything on the client. Honestly that would be 'nicely easy'. But we find hiding ourselves is not an option. So yes, we also carry responsibility ourselves. Via the ACM countdown timer you can ask targeted questions and that way find out what the real goal of an assignment is. Sometimes you then have to steer. It is shared responsibility: we stand in the middle with companies, users, developers and policymakers, and together you should tackle ethical dilemmas.

Conclusion

Such a NOS report hits home at the lunch table straight away: tough discussions, fierce opinions, sandwiches going cold. Ethics is simply not something like a control panel you set once and then leave alone. We want to build beautiful things, absolutely, but never at any cost. Ethical awareness lives here in the office, and we take our role as developers seriously every day. So we keep stimulating that open dialogue and stay aware of our social responsibility.