From Tech Lash to Tech Fash: Strategic Reflections on a Decade of Collective Organizing in Computing

Abstract

Computing is a field plagued with presentism, oriented towards the new in ways that limit our design and research practices - as well as our capacity to understand and collectively respond to emerging crises. To improve our sensemaking and strategizing about today’s crises, this workshop explores what Tamara Kneese has deemed the last decade’s shift from “techlash” to “tech fash.” What have we learned from the era of misinformation and bias, of “surveillance capitalism” and tech worker organizing that can inform our struggle against the increasing power of a techno-fascist oligarchy? We will also look towards previous generations of computing professionals and activists, who likewise sought to address the harms of emerging automated systems and the complicity of computing within violent, imperialist projects. This workshop will create space for participants to explore these questions collectively, bridging past and present moments in an effort to devise strategies moving forward.