Hacker News Reader

Comment by dgellow | Hacker News Reader

How is ethical defined here? I cannot see a definition and I don't see what is the common denominator between all those tools. For example why isn't Telegram considered ethical but Signal and Wire are? What is unethical about Word or Excel (given that OpenOffice is mentioned as an alternative), is it the ownership by Microsoft? Or the use of proprietary format in the past? What is more ethical about Steemit or Mastodon than Twitter? I would understand if the focus was on privacy and taking back some control/ownership, but that's not really something I would consider to be an ethical argument.

View on HN

I assume it's a mix of:

open source > proprietary

based in jurisdiction that respects freedom and privacy > based in authoritarian country

empowering users > empowering corporations and governments

privacy > no or compromised privacy

recycling > no recycling

paid by users > paid by targeted ads based on analysis of your behaviour

I know it's a sensitive topic, but they are also doing:

vegan > not vegan

In South Africa, I refuse to buy (vegan) margarine. It contains palm oil, whereas our own butter is locally farmed in the Eastern Cape. TLDR: I've been on said dairy farms and it's way better for me to buy that butter than the (vegan) alternatives that contain palm oil.

The second issue I have is that they seem to have a book advertisement section.

Apart from that, there seem to be useful links there.

I feel similar about Organic (or "Biologisch", as it's called here). If I eat meat, I prefer it to be from an animal in a local field than meat that has all the right certifications but was shipped from the other side of the world (which happens).

Palm oil is a similar issue. It was supposed to be very environmentally friendly, but it's not if they're cutting down rain forests to grow it. Direct knowledge of where it comes from still beats having the right names and certifications; if that's all that matters, companies will cut corners to tap into that market.

> Organic (or "Biologisch", as it's called here)

Indeed a similar topic. Many people don't realise that "organic" is a marketing term. You cannot equate it with "ethical" or anything of the like from a terminology point of view. It (organic farming) has formal definitions in the countries where the products are sold and these are not always sensible or honest.

This is wrong, in the US and abroad in many cases.

"All Natural" is a marketing term... "Organic" labeled foods are certified and (in the US) must meet specific requirements set by the USDA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_certification

I would agree that the GMO component seems overblown, but this also includes controls that protect the environment (reduced pesticides, reduced antibiotic use, more specific dumping regulations) and keeping better audit trails.

It's a certification, yes, but in practice it is arguably more effective from a marketing perspective than it is from a farming practices/audit perspective.

You may be surprised by how many people think Organic == pesticide free, for example.

So how do we know if vegetables were grown in toxic soils containing pesticides?

Good question.

I think there are a few ways to do this e.g.:

1) multiple certifications as mentioned above;

2) brand recognition / brand responsibility (the analogy is myself with the South African butter); and an option that I have suggested which amounts to

3) an/multiple environmental quotient(s) that would score higher if you have a nature reserve on the farm, use less pesticides, use compost, etc.

But, unfortunately, unless you are remarkably well informed on all the suppliers, you simply can't always know. There is an app in France that tries to do this, but I am sure that also opens the door to corruption. In the next 10 years I expect to see more such apps.

I plan on growing most of my vegetables when I'm settled down and/or joining an organic farm vegetable co-op where I can meet with the farmers and be reassured it's all grown in using safe methods and materials.

I had the pleasure of being in an organic vegetable co-op in Oregon, it's such a great idea wish it was easier to access in California.

Well, one dead swallow does not break a summer. Vegan > not vegan is still a good first-order approximation; if you want to be more precise, vegan+avoiding palm oil > vegan > not vegan.

Exactly. You add on top of that that many of the Vegan spreads are moving to "Sustainable Palm Oil"[1] and you are really just left with the unsustainable and unimaginably cruel Dairy Industry.

[1] - https://www.triplepundit.com/story/2015/earth-balance-switch...

I understand this sentiment, and the drive behind it to do good.

Unfortunately one can also perhaps justifiably say:

eat insects > eating vegan > ...

And that makes it all the less romantic. Ideology to me has some merits, but I personally prefer to attempt to optimise at each point (including the meat production pointset).

EDIT: The Netherlands is setting some precedent towards this, especially for animals and improving their surrounds.

Vegan is by definition more ethical than non vegan. And yes, palm oil is a controversial good. There are vegan butter alternatives that do not use palm oil (they are usually a couple dollars more expensive). But honestly, how badly do you need a butter substance in your diet?

interesting, one of the first apps is firefox...yet most of their funding comes from as this page would characterize as 'unethical sources' so wouldn't they then by guilty ?

So what you are saying Firefox is bad and instead it is better to use Chrome that is owned directly by a company they are trying to avoid?

Creating and maintaining a web browser is not simple, Firefox is the freeest usable browser.

i'm definitely not saying it's better to use chrome...where did i say that? What I'm saying is you can't label something ethical, if it gets all its money from what this site would label as 'unethical'. I don't know what the alternative browsers would be, dillo perhaps? I don't know they're the ones searching for 'ethical' alternatives. So what I'm saying is, I expected to see something different, not firefox.

Lie I said, it's probably a mix of things. If Firefox ends up offering better privacy and user empowerment than the alternatives, it's still the better option. I suppose Opera when it was still a paid product might also be in here, but that didn't survive.

Many would also consider the inclusion of Brave in the browser categories as dubious. Their business model comes very close to being a shakedown operation.

Can you expand on why Brave is "close to a shakedown operation"? My impression was that they were on the up-and-up. Plus, I'm all for just about effort being made to move away from the current ad economy. I'd rather pay for services directly.

I too support development of an alternative to the ad economy, but I don't support using the threat of income blocking to force a website to use a particular solution. This is in effect what Brave is doing.

Brave deprives the website owner of income by blocking or replacing ads while at the same time pushing the website owner to sign up to Brave's rewards program, which Brave generates income from, instead of ads for funding.

It is useful to compare ethicality among sets of alternatives; an absolute scale would be more of an abstract philosophical exercise. They are taking the practical, decision-informing approach and have put using the least-guilty browser near the top of their list.

But what if I don't want those things? I have never once personally edited the code in libreoffice. Open source isn't necessarily better than closed.

Monetization models are even less clear. What if I'd prefer to not pay with cash?

I have never once personally written for a newspaper. Freedom of the press isn't necessarily better than censorship.

That's a petty argument. Plenty of times open source projects lack resources, quality or maybe have a different focus than a non open source solution. You can't just assume open source is better than the other

I didn't assume any such thing nor does my comment even suggest it.

If you find your own strawmen "petty" I suggest you try to think more clearly. It would likely improve the quality of your HN comments.

it would probably help to assume an implied "all other things being equal" unless you have a specific unequality in mind that significantly reverses the balance of ethics in some common context.

A good example of such a reversal elsewhere in this thread is the "local butter better than imported vegan margarine made from palm oil grown in clear-cut rainforests" argument.

Personally, I extend that argument further, mostly for health reasons, but I'm not vegan.

But what if I don't want those things?

When I see articles that don’t interest me, I close the tab, don’t go post contrarian comments to the originating forum, and then get on with my day. This technique has worked well for me over the years, you might give it a shot.

Then this page is not for you. If you think a lot of people would prefer your definition of ethical products over the one OP linked, then feel free to make a competing page.

How exactly does this kind of snark help change opinion? Open Source is wonderful. I’m not a developer, but I use it and contribute in ways that I can. These sorts of replies fill me with rage! Replies like this categorically do not help further the cause. The GP of the whole thread has a point; whose ethics?

The post is about a website declaring that some software is more “ethical” than others. They offer no real criterion as to what constitutes “ethical”. The burden of proof lies with the publishers and those that fully support the notion. “Go away” neither helps or positively affects others views.

> whose ethics?

But is that not clear? The ethics of the person who made that list. You may not agree with it, and that's fine, but it's still useful to people who do agree with these ethics, or even with just some of them.

I do agree it'd be better if they offered some explanation about the basis of their selection, which would make it easier for people to determine if they agree with it or not, and it would certainly form a better starting point to discuss these ethics and suggest improvements. That they didn't include that explanation is absolutely very valid criticism.

But ultimately, if you don't agree with it, then this selection is not going to be relevant for you, is it?

Great points! Short answer: it's an imperfect mix of open source, privacy centered, indie projects vs proprietary, mainstream corporations, VC funded etc. Hope that you and others interested in this topic will get involved with criticism ans suggestions here on on our forum in order to improve the list, devise a clearer "checklist" for listings, submit more stuff, etc: https://community.ethical.net/t/suggestions-for-our-ethical-...

You shouldn't use the term "ethical" without very clearly defining your definition of ethical upfront.

If someone proposes to me that murder isn't ethical, I can more-or-less get on board with that without a bunch of defining and qualifying. You're talking about software though. To suggest that Open Office is ethically superior to MS Office is not at all self-evident or the general consensus of most people.

It comes off as you being oblivious or close-minded to competing ideas of ethics, which doesn't lend credibility to your use of the term.

I really don't see the problem here. This is a single list, curated by one source. It doesn't need to be credible, it's not a standard.

OP isn't trying to shame anyone for using other software or force companies to fix things; they're making a resource so you can find software that meets their particular criteria, even if their particular criteria is ill-defined. The point is to help people find software that they might not have heard of, not to form a definitive checklist.

Extrapolate this idea out -- if someone walks up to you and says, "hey, play Baba is You, it's really fun," it would be weird to respond, "Yeah, but what is your definition of fun? How can I trust you without one?"

The value in coming up with a list of ethical services is the conversation around defining ethical and how those services conform with that definition.

Again, extrapolate that out to other contexts.

Is the value of a Steam recommendation list the conversation around defining "fun" and how each game conforms with that definition? Or is it a way to quickly find good games you haven't heard of?

When you read an Amazon review, do you think, "well, this will give me some insight into the nature of quality in general?" Or do you think, "I wonder if Arnold35X subjectively liked this vacuum cleaner?"

Of course there's personal value in trying to narrow and understand your own definition of ethical -- you could read through a list like this and pick out the products you agree with, and then ask yourself, "why do I agree or disagree with them?" That would be great.

But OP themselves is under no obligation in this context to justify their decisions to anyone. Their opinion could be, "ethical software has to be written in Lisp." They're here to help you narrow down the software you know, and to find new software. That's it. Curation is not consensus.

This is the equivalent of showing up on an Open Source project and forcing the maintainer to justify their choice in testing libraries. The software is on the list because OP decided to put it there, and because OP is the one that made the list. In the context of this specific list, OP is God. If you think their definition is too broad or ill-defined, make another list with a more narrow one.

Every one of your comparisons is bunk.

Ethics are necessarily a consensus-building endeavor. Your personal ethics only matter in-so-far as they intersect with others'. None of your examples are subject to that same constraint.

>Curation is not consensus. Exactly, and that's why I object to it being labeled a list of "ethical alternatives" with no explanation of the decision making process. The list is the artifact and has next-to-no value compared to the process they went through to come up with the list.

>If you think their definition is too broad or ill-defined, make another list with a more narrow one. Or provide constructive criticism that expresses why I think their list is lacking.

My specific concern is not that this list "isn't correct", it's that I believe the idea of slapping an "ethical" label on a product as a guide to users is antithetical to the goal of having users apply ethical considerations when deciding which software to use.

You're working from a position that perfect consensus is necessary for curatorial value.

We agree that curation is not consensus, I'm taking that a step farther -- consensus is not necessary for curation. In fact, the entire point of a human curated list as opposed to an algorithmically curated list is that different humans curate differently from each other and have different perspectives.

If you feel like my previous examples were too trivial:

I don't believe that we've reached a consensus on the best way to teach -- and there might not even be a right answer. But I still like curated lists of books and courses.

I don't believe we've reached a consensus on what good and bad or biased reporting is, but I still like finding curated lists of reporters and newspapers.

I don't believe we've reached a consensus on what effective altruism looks like, but I still like reading charity rankings.

So my assertion is that curation is fundamentally a different kind of activity than you're claiming. There is a huge difference between slapping a label on something and making it a point of policy (ie, labeling news articles on Facebook) and having a list that says, "here's what meets my own personal standards, maybe it will meet yours."

If OP was claiming that any software not on this list was not ethical, I would agree with you 100%. If they were claiming theirs was the definitive list, I would agree with you 100%. But they're not. I think you're reading a claim here that doesn't exist.

> it's that I believe the idea of slapping an "ethical" label on a product as a guide to users is antithetical to the goal of having users apply ethical considerations when deciding which software to use.

I think I disagree. In my experience, people choose software based on what's easiest. I'm continually amazed by how little effort even professionals are willing to put in to their technology choices. In fact, I've never met a single human in real life (i.e. in-person) that considers ethics at all when selecting software. They choose things based on the path of least resistance, what other people are doing around them, what they can make work with the least effort, and what they think looks 'cool', and what they think will help them build skills for future job searches, but never ethics.

Because of this, when _anyone_ comes along and says "Hey, I made a list of ethical software alternatives!" my curiosity is instantly piqued. Ignoring whatever their definition of ethical is, the fact that they took the time to even make a list and publish it is enough for me to take the time and look through the list, giving me the chance to apply my own ethical considerations to each product in the list. Ultimately, when discussing ethics, I think I have to make my own decisions anyway.

A more appropriate analogy might be if a team had created a "healthy foods" website listing some foods they liked and gone to the trouble of promoting it on places like HN and ProductHunt

Would it be reasonable to suggest that it'd be helpful if the creators of such a website went to slightly more effort to define the health benefits they were focused on and substantiate the claim that these foods were relatively healthy than someone creating a list of games they thought were fun on Steam? Would the value of the service lie in them doing that? I'd say yes

You are missing a fundamental consideration. With ethics, there is a strong implication that others _should_ be acting in a certain away. This is not present in the same way with things like ones preference for fun activities or a choice of a testing library for a software project.

If someone is making an ethical declaration, it is very natural and normal to want to know their reasoning.

> If someone proposes to me that murder isn't ethical, I can more-or-less get on board with that without a bunch of defining and qualifying.

I think "murder" is an excellent example for making your main point. Because even that term would need further qualifications about euthanasia, abortion, capital punishment, etc.

Murder is by definition unlawful. Homicide is the term that would include euthanasia, abortion, execution.

Unless those things are unlawful. In which case they would be murder in addition to homicide.

Thanks for taking time to contribute to the cause :)

Also, taking a snarky, passive-agressive tone to people making legitimate criticisms makes me not trust the list at all.

By saying "this is ethical, that is not", you are assuming a position that must be defended.

edit: I am contributing to the cause. Ethics is necessarily a conversation. By minimizing and handwaving away the part of ethical decision making that actually matters, you're doing more harm than good.

We don't need users to blindly use services somebody has slapped the "ethical" label on, we need to inspire users to bring ethics into their decision making process when choosing software services.

> it's an imperfect mix ... others interested in this topic will get involved with criticism ans suggestions here on on our forum...

It's a great start! Lots of programs and services I wasn't aware existed. There are some services I'm familiar with that I don't think belong on the list (given my own interpretation of ethical as it relates to modern computing) and am happy to see that suggestions are welcomed via the community forums.

Surprised & delighted to see sections like Organizations, Magazines and Newsletters, Books and even Films - since most similar lists focus on applications instead of voices.

It's these extra sections that really highlight and bring together the larger community concerned with these issues and helps open my eyes to other issues that don't normally penetrate my bubble of news.

I can see most of these sections growing to include many more sites. The only immediate suggestion - short of separating the sections into their own pages - is a "detailed" list view to help make the information more manageable.

Damn, nothing like scrolling that forum to remind you of one simple fact: _there can be no ethical consumption under capitalism_. Though I still love the list, haha.

While we should certainly take care about the definition of ethical here, this remains a great list of 'alternatives to mainstream stuff' that mainstream users should be made more aware of.

I'm interested in this topic and still only aware of about 15% of this list.

From their home page:

> What do we mean by ethical?

> We know that “ethical” isn’t an objective word — it can mean different things to different people.

> But for us, ethical means moving in the direction of least possible harm against other people, animals and the planet.

This just moves the definition into the definition of "harm against other people, animals and the planet"

> But for us, ethical means moving in the direction of least possible harm against other people, animals and the planet.

Something that benefits humans is usually not good for the planet or for animals :-) It basically means nothing and everything.

The most basic ethical thing to do is simply being nice. Is that a popular thing on HN? :)

Is it nice to return to your neighbor his sword you borrowed when you know he is very angry with another person and wants to kill them?

Wait, you’ve borrowed the sword to peel off some gigantic potatoes right? That’s nice!

nah, I used it to untie the gordian knot oops... spoiler

That's a useless definition when it comes to software and software services.

It's easy to think of good arguments for Twitter being ethical and unethical.

Many projects like this one turned out to be paid by companies like DuckDuckGo and Brave to promote their products, look at their aggressive cheap way of advertising and you will understand

> How is ethical defined here?

Yeah, I'm not sure I follow this at all. Is it just being open source or not (directly) run by a huge company?

"too small to be evil"

"not yet evil"

Most of the services there (ddg, fastmail) are not even open-source at all.

How would you define "ethical" in a way that covers Word, Chrome, Twitter and Dropbox?

Creating tools that allow for rapid, powerful global conversation and collaboration by people of all technological skill levels.

It's funny how your comment answers all your own questions. You seem to be extracting the ethics of this list just fine.

> But for us, ethical means moving in the direction of least possible harm against other people, animals and the planet.

It would certainly be a more useful list to me if each choice was accompanied by a quick rundown of what factors make it the 'ethical' choice.

There are short descriptions below each service that explain just that.

Wage slavery and closed source code while companies invest in surveillance technology to work with an over-reaching government while also buying out US government to form an oligarchy is what isn't ethical about closed source products from large corporatioms.

If that's the criteria it should be included fairly prominently on the site -- so visitors can understand and choose whether or not to use and contribute to the site.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com