02.22.21

Controlling the Conduct of Large Corporations (and Monopolies) Would Help Tackle Disproportionate and Asymmetric Power Structures

Posted in Deception, Free/Libre Software at 2:44 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: A “CoC” (Code of Conduct) is often crafted or drafted with good intentions; but with enforcement put in the wrong hands it is a tool of corporate oppression instead of protection of people’s dignity

EARLIER today FOSSLife published a piece entitled “Codes of Conduct: The Devil’s in the Details”. My personal view is that if we’re to have such rules and if we truly wish to impose good manners, then we should also have “Codes of Conduct” to exclude corporations that profit from bombing people or other unethical practices. In practice, there tends to be an emphasis on silencing the powerless, not the powerful. And so it’s hardly surprising that those viciously insisting and outright demanding a “CoC” for each project/events tend to be large corporations/monopolies, via a bunch of people working directly or indirectly for them. The piece in question is actually not bad and I walk through it in the above video. We wrote about this subject many times over the years, even more than a decade ago. In no particular order, here are some prior (but recent) posts/articles regarding Codes of Conduct, even the EPO‘s equivalent of these:

A “CoC” isn’t negative per se, but what happens in practice typically disappoints due to selective enforcement. █

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