Ethical Posting on Steemit - based on the Ethical Design Manifesto by Ind.ie

I have written and published my views about design ethics as a professional working in the design industry (somewhat of a neglected topic given recent issues relating to 'dark patterns' in digital design) outside of steemit which I don't intend to rehash or promote here.

However, I do think that there are some excellent references we can borrow to help define our expectations for what would be acceptable as the minimum level of ethical posting behaviour that we want to encourage on steemit. I think this has a lot of relevance for newcomers to the community and those that want to help improve the quality of content we can expect on the platform in the future.

The one that I believe is of most relevant, and which I will base my discussion in this post, is the Ethical Design Manifesto (https://ind.ie/ethical-design/) created by the people from Ind.ie (https://ind.ie/about/).

I believe that we are here on steemit to design a better social media of the future, and the most direct action we take is by creating or posting content to share with others, so I think the ethical design manifesto already incorporate many elements that we can extend and apply to steemit.

Under Human Rights they talk about:

Technology that respects human rights is decentralised, peer-to-peer, zero-knowledge, end-to-end encrypted, free and open source, interoperable, accessible, and sustainable. It respects and protects your civil liberties, reduces inequality, and benefits democracy.

I think the fact that the steem blockchain is designed specifically along these principles means that there's not much we really need to add to this.

Under Human Effort they talk about:

Technology that respects human effort is functional, convenient, and reliable. It is thoughtful and accommodating; not arrogant or demanding. It understands that you might be distracted or differently-abled. It respects the limited time you have on this planet.

I think if we apply this to posting content then we should consider the implications of plagiarism and how it shows disrespect of human effort, inflammatory language as it is not thoughtful or accommodating, and also authoring using the appropriate tags and curating by carefully reading the promoting content that add value to the users.

Under Human Experience they talk about:

Technology that respects human experience is beautiful, magical, and delightful. It just works. It’s intuitive. It’s invisible. It recedes into the background of your life. It gives you joy. It empowers you with superpowers. It puts a smile on your face and makes your life better.

I think if we apply this to posting content then we should consider the tone and language of our posts so that we are helping to spread a positive message with our words/images/video; we should aim to encourage and promote people who are contributing to a better community; we should balance the digital and physical experience of the platform and empower others to also share in the value and benefit of steemit

I believe if the majority of our posts and comments follow and incorporate these ideals, we would see a dramatic different in the quality of the content and make steemit a social media platform unlike any others out there, not because of the technology but the foundations on which the discussions and contents are based on.

Wouldn't this be something worth aiming for by all of us?