The BHR Group Digital Rights Careers Newsletter - Issue 10

Jan 30

Dear Colleagues:

Welcome to the first newsletter issue of 2023. You may have noticed we’ve switched the platform to Substack from Revue. That’s because Twitter shut-down the newsletter service Revue two weeks ago, after acquiring the scrappy start-up in January of 2021. Thanks again to my colleague Rebeca Joy West who took my old-fashioned email list to former students and turned it into a careers newsletter with 1500+ subscribers ranging from students to academics to tech policy folks to human rights activists to diplomats.

Want to see previous issues and the advice from our guest practitioners or check if a position listed in last month’s newsletter is still open? You can find all previous issues, and the latest one too, on this Digital Rights Careers Newsletter landing page. We’ll continue to explore ways to make the newsletter more useful for you; suggestions welcome. Since many of you have written regarding the career advice given by our guest practitioners, we’re planning to put together some of the insight highlights periodically for you.

One of the small lessons I learned during a decade working inside a tech company is that we, as employees at least, often anthropomorphize corporations, attributing values to a singular inanimate body. Companies, through their leaders and rank-and-file, can indeed espouse, memorialize, and practice values. And we should remember that the decisions, the good ones and the bad ones, are made by people, not by a mysterious entity with a catchy brand name and cool logo and colors. People live and practice values. Sometimes we in the public know their names, most often we don’t. In a sort of publicly unitary executive model, Elon Musk is the decider on most everything inside Twitter. Other tech companies (though not nearly enough) have cross-functional teams that follow international human rights principles, create operational guidelines for day-to-day decision-making, conduct human rights impact assessments, engage with internal and external stakeholders, and establish accountability frameworks. One of our goals of the newsletter is to highlight the thinkers, do’ers, and deciders at tech companies who create and implement responsible decision-making frameworks.

One of those leaders in digital rights inside a company is this month’s guest practitioner, Fadzai Madzingira. I met Fadzai years back when brilliant friend and colleague Ebele Okobi told me that she’d hired a star thinker, writer, and team member. Oh, and Rhodes Scholar. Fadzai is all that and more and now a Director in the Office of Ethical and Human Use at Salesforce. Here’s an excellent Trust & Safety Professional Association interview with Fadzai about her work. (Note the guest appearance by her new puppy.) Read Fadzai’s answers in the Q&A and I promise you’ll learn a lot and also be inspired by her journey, values, and approach. I did and I am.

Michael Samway
The Business and Human Rights Group
Website: www.thebhrgroup.com

Guest Spotlight: Fadzai Madzingira

Fadzai Madzingira is a Director in the Office of Ethical and Humane Use at Salesforce. Her team is responsible for writing policies to ensure Salesforce technologies are not being used to facilitate harm and uphold basic human rights. Prior to this, she was the Global Hate Speech Content Policy Lead at Meta in the team responsible for writing and interpreting the Community Standards. Her work is shaped and led in wanting to keep people safe online, especially historically targeted communities who are often the targets of abuse. As a Rhodes Scholar from Zimbabwe, she read for a Bachelor of Civil Laws and a Master in Public Policy at Oxford University.

What are some of the most formative periods or events in your life that shaped your work in technology and human rights?

In hindsight, it's realising the impact of technology in my life then the privilege of having travelled extensively and seeing the good that people use technology for is likely why I am so committed to trying to keep these spaces safe. By that I mean watching how my mother's church group organised informal sales on WhatsApp or the fact that I have cousins who I have not seen in decades that I am connected to via social media or at the height of economic turmoil, my grandmother learnt how to receive and spend mobile money. The biggest impact of technology is often in groups that are often under-served, under-resourced or forgotten - in places where people have to be highly creative to stay connected and drive forward. Seeing that growing up and then realising there are also ways that those same groups can be harmed maybe is why I landed in Trust & Safety. I say this often but working in tech really does need you to be a tech optimist. You have seen why tech can be good so you want to protect it from infringement by anyone. So growing up Black, growing up Zimbabwean, growing up African and watching the creative and innovative way people engage online is probably the biggest reason I have ended up in my current field.

Who are some people or an individual you’ve met during your work in this field who have had a profound influence on your work? And in what way?

So so so many people that I know I am going to fail to name as I go along.
Ebele Okobi - my first boss in tech and an incredible Black woman and mentor. When she hired me I was convinced that I was going to mess up and she gave me such structured guidance and space at the same time - which is incredibly hard. I think she also showed me that there is a version of corporate engagement that can be value based and thinking about the most vulnerable. I have taken that to heart.
KICTANet (and other African based orgs) - The tech space in Kenya is electric and some of the best cross-stakeholder engagement I have seen ANYWHERE has been in Kenya. There is a lot of the continent I have not seen so someone will say I need to see more but regardless. KICTAnet is a multi-stakeholder tech forum in Kenya that is TRULY multi-stakeholder. Tech companies, govt, activists, students and the general public have equal engagement and space to ask questions, raise concerns and build trust. I spent a lot of time engaging with them early in my tech career. Engaging with activists across the continent allowed me to see what it looks like to really have honest conversations with groups who have good reason to be uncertain of your motives. It dramatically changed how I think about public engagement and transparency.
Academics in this space like Evelyn Doeuk or Daphne Keller or professionals like Charlotte Wilner at the Trust and Safety Professional Association who are building frameworks and professionalising this space. Just SO MANY WOMEN who are really trying to bring frameworks and truth to the work in this industry that I obsessively learn from and engage with.

What are some of the values that guide you in this field or in life more broadly?

I believe so strongly in protecting and positively supporting those that have been the most historically targeted systemically. This is both professionally and personally. So that means thinking actively about how I engage in the world that doesn't perpetuate harm. I know that sounds academic but it is as small as buying from small or minority owned businesses. Or supporting artists and writers of colour. It includes calling out unequal pay at work or stepping in when misgendering occurs or even deciding to stick up for yourself in a world that tells you that you shouldn't. It means voting thinking about everyone and not just your own pocket.
I also believe strongly in the value of community. Community in my personal life really kept me going and I rely on it heavily. Community at work that I could reach out to and share ideas with as well. I believe strongly in relying on others to move forward in any capacity, you can't operate otherwise. I have organised my life to have community in it and to foster it. I am so grateful to everyone who has listened to my streams of consciousness.
Lastly, I really believe in joy and rest. I know people talk about these as 'things' but I think they are values in that you have to intentionally practice them. I haven't always done so but now I prioritise surrounding myself intentionally with joy and then taking rest. If you don't already, I recommend following The Nap Ministry on social media. A brilliant Black academic who focuses her research on revolution as joy is what I needed on my timeline as a constant reminder.

What are some ways you think the technology, policy, and legal fields can become more diverse, inclusive, and equitable in composition, policy topics, and advocacy?

Of course, ideally these organisations should just hire more diversely. In this day and age, we can't be having "one and only" conversations. Otherwise, my advice is we need to draft our initial policy questions a lot more clearly and consider equity right at the beginning. By that I mean often the question is "how do we solve X" and then trampling into the forest to start fixing. Maybe we need to ask "is X actually the problem? why do we think X is the problem? who is most impacted by problem X? who is most impacted by NOT solving X? Is this actually a problem WE need to work on or should we be capacity-building some other partner at a grassroots level who may be better suited?". I think asking these questions at the beginning before doing anything means we can be more certain to engage the right communities, we can run a policy process that has the right voices included and relies on the right data to make the best decision at the end. Yes it is slower but the results will be better.

For undergraduate or graduate students reading this, what type of course or activities (e.g., internships, summer jobs) do you think might be most helpful as they contemplate careers in technology, public policy, and human rights?

I don't have any courses I can think about but I will say that people should be open to getting this experience from anywhere. Companies have human rights commitments now across the board and there is reputational risk to not doing them. You don't have to work for a big tech company to do fantastic work in public policy and human rights in tech. Find a company that wants to do good and help them do that if you are still new in the field. I think it is a great way to get experience and work on the big questions. Join networking sessions and communities that talk about these issues. Learn as much as you can.

For current practitioners in this field, what are some considerations when deciding whether to change sectors, say from civil society or academia to the private sector? Or from the private sector to government or civil society?

All your skills are transferable skills! I think the thing I find most difficult when I am interviewing people from other sectors is that they don't couch their current skills as being relevant. Our field is brand new - few people can say they have more than a decade of experience. Academics are brilliant because they are good at breaking down big questions into smaller tangible ones. They have had to project manage through the form of a dissertation or research project. I do those things. If you work in civil society you are likely well-connected to grass-root organisations or have to engage publicly on difficult issues. These are all relevant skills in tech that are framed properly. So not considerations as such. I just think we overthink transitions sometimes.

What are some of the non-mainstream sources you turn to when building knowledge or keeping informed on tech, policy, and human rights related issues?

The BHR Group Digital Rights Careers Newsletter

The BHR Group Digital Rights Careers Newsletter - Issue 10

Guest Spotlight: Fadzai Madzingira

Positions in Policy, Law, and Digital Rights

Civil Society/Non-Profits

Press/Media

Academia

International Organizations

Think Tanks/Research Institutions

Multi-Stakeholder Organizations/Initiatives

Government

Industry

Industry Associations

Firms/Consultancies