Glad ⁦ @Linkletter⁩ story is getting out there. Just want to comment on a few things... https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/22/21526792/proctorio-online-test-proctoring-lawsuit-universities-students-coronavirus

This is a really pervasive, and really destructive framing. When marginalized people say “this tech is actively harming us” tech companies say “look over here at all the people we aren’t harming.”

This is fucked up.

When people say that your product is harming them—a product many of them are required to use—there are many responses, but among the worst is any attempt to shift the focus to the people who didn’t say they were harmed. It sends the message that those harmed don’t matter.

And here a librarian—who is speaking up for students who don’t have reliable internet—is afraid to provide a name because the company has a reputation of coming after people. This is textbook intimidation.

And what does the company say to a student who is having trouble connecting?

“Have you tried connecting to better WiFi?”

Of course, the company’s rationale for aggressively targeting critics makes no sense. How is posting a link to the company’s own instructional materials making students less safe? (It’s not)

Of course, CEO blithely dismisses the widespread concern and critiques from instructors and students. I guess the less said on that, the better.

But I take issue w/this last part—the assertion that remote proctoring “isn’t going anywhere.” We can & should say that harmful tech should be dismantled, abolished, discontinued. There are actually ways to assess, even remotely, that don’t require this tech. We don’t *need* it.

I’ll end by reminding people that we will continue to see this justification—that what we did during an emergency is what we should keep on doing because it has become entrenched. It’s shitty logic in service to surveillance.

It doesn’t need to be this way.