Thread by @alwaystheself, This is going to be a quick rant, but I just want [...]

This is going to be a quick rant, but I just want to register my deep discomfort and displeasure with the fact that almost all "options" for remote teaching at this point are funneled through tools of surveillance capitalism that are vulnerable to hacking and malicious harassment

This is not good for students, not good for instructors, not good for the integrity of the learning environment, not good for privacy, not good for civil liberties and not good academic freedom.

Already anticipating the need for instructors and unions to have to protect the right of faculty to refuse online platforms that are insecure, invasive and repressive in form and function..

We should be thinking about this not only for the current semester but for the fall and the future beyond.

It was already a Very Bad Thing when universities, colleges and other organizations forced Google products like Gmail onto their employees. With the precipitous push for remote teaching, faculty may now be seeing a slippery slope of coerced software adoption. We must be vigilant.

The right to refuse Zoom / Google Hangout / [fill in the blank surveillance platform] must be protected. The autonomy of instructors to devise our own options for remote learning must be protected..

I would love for colleagues to think about and share alternatives/strategies for remote teaching that have strong protections for privacy and/or somehow subvert the agenda of surveillance capitalism.

If universities are going to ask/force us to teach online, we should be able to securely communicate with students without Google, Zoom and unknown others surveilling, collecting and monetizing data. If such conditions cannot be met, then our classrooms no longer belong to us.

Posting this here as a relevant resource https://twitter.com/wolfewylie/status/1245059943041990659?s=21 https://twitter.com/wolfewylie/status/1245059943041990659