TEDxHogeschoolUtrecht - Sebastian Deterding - Rethinking the Ethics of Design

Sebastian Deterding is a designer and researcher working on user experience, video games, persuasive technology and gameful design. He is broadly interested in how code shapes conduct -- and how to put that knowledge into practice. He is a PhD researcher in Communication at the Graduate School of the Research Center for Media and Communication, Hamburg University. He is also an affiliated researcher at the Hans Bredow Institute for Media Research in Hamburg, and works as an independent user experience designer.
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

[@SebastianDeterding]

What I wanted to do was to pull out implicit ethical tensions in people's goals and intentions: that they want to do one thing but also might not like it if other people do the same unto them. How people resolve that tension for them, I left deliberately open. I also did not intend to make any value judgement about either facebook or twitter.

[@rexdxiv]

You are brilliant! Thank you for all the wonderful work you are doing. You are an inspiring young leader in the movement of new age creativity. Leonardo Da Vinci would be proud of you. Bravo!

[@SebastianDeterding]

As I stated in the introduction, I didn't think the most valuable way for me to use the time of my talk and the best way to reach the audience would have been to pontificate "This is unethical according to my own values, this is not". :)

[@SebastianDeterding]

Put differently: I didn't want or try to imply an ethical *position* at all, my only intention was to awaken the ethical attention and sensitivity in the audience.