F*ck Engagement: Building a More Human Web
- Kisha Velazquez
- Mar 16
- 3 min read
Updated: Mar 17
This blog post is based on a transcript of David Dylan Thomas's AxeCon talk, No, Seriously, F*ck Engagement: Building a More Human Web, from February 25, 2025.
Content Warning: This article contains references to genocide, hate speech, and profanity.
The Mirror That Ruined Everything
Long ago, if you wanted to know what you looked like, you had to gaze into a still body of water. As mirrors became more accessible during the Renaissance, something profound happened - we became increasingly self-aware. This led to a surge in self-portraiture, first-person novels, books on etiquette, and even standing armies as nation-states became concerned with how they appeared to others.
Today, the entire web acts as one giant mirror, reflecting ourselves back to us. Most websites we visit are personalized, creating the illusion that the world revolves around us. Even when we're not logged in, our past behavior follows us through tracking technologies. This constant reflection of ourselves leads to viewing ourselves as products.
The Dark Side of Engagement
Personalization exists primarily in service of "engagement" - a term that, in the context of web metrics, translates to likes, shares, clicks, and other quantifiable actions. But what are the real costs of this engagement-centered approach?
The natural engagement pattern reveals a disturbing truth: content that approaches prohibited territory (misinformation, hate speech) generates significantly higher engagement. As former Facebook researchers discovered, the content most likely to be misinformation was often the most shared.
This pursuit of engagement at all costs has had devastating real-world consequences. In 2017, Facebook's algorithms amplified hate speech that contributed to the killing of 10,000 Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. When survivors sued Facebook, the company admitted they had traded lives for market penetration.
Reimagining the Web Through Indigenous Values
What would a people-focused web look like? David Dylan Thomas suggests looking to indigenous perspectives for guidance.
The Siksika (part of the Blackfoot Confederacy) believe that people are born "Nita" - completely developed, arrived, and inherently good. This worldview transforms approaches to parenting, justice, and wealth.
For the Siksika, wealth isn't measured by what you accumulate but by what you give away.
The wealthiest person is the one who has given everything to others.
Kondiaronk, a Wendat strategist from the 1600s, questioned European obsession with wealth accumulation. He observed that Europeans had created two contradictory systems: one trying to force people to behave well, while another (capitalism) encouraged the opposite by celebrating wealth and power.
The Just World Hypothesis: The Worst Bias
The just world hypothesis - the belief that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people - provides comfort but enables harmful thinking. It lets us believe we control our fate while justifying indifference toward others' suffering. Most dangerously, it prevents us from examining the systems that create inequity.
People Making a Difference
Despite these challenges, many are working to create more ethical systems:
Gabriel Weinberg of DuckDuckGo built a profitable search engine without collecting personal data
Will Reynolds of Seer made custodial staff full-time employees with benefits and established a salary floor 31% above market rates
Jeremy Miller created the Black-owned business layer for Google
Sadie Red Wing applies indigenous principles to design, considering the land, materials, and reciprocity
Moving Toward Interdependent Design
Thomas proposes "interdependent design" - design that prioritizes connection to the land, to other people, and to our values over connection to money, acquisition, and growth.
What if engagement were measured by the number of people helped? What if the web reflected back to us our true selves, our values, and the land where we live? What if it showed us people we could help?
The Power of Ideas
All forces that shape our world - for better or worse - began as ideas. Misogyny, transphobia, and capitalism were all ideas that made the world worse. The belief that everyone is born good is also an idea, one that made the world better.
The most powerful question isn't "What's your idea?" but rather "What's our idea?" - the collective concept we develop together with those who have been hurt by design. That collaborative idea has the potential to truly change the world.
David Dylan Thomas is the author of "Design for Cognitive Bias" and works to promote more inclusive design practices.
