Short abstract:

Digital technologies are not always good for societies. However, there is increasing appetite to consider how digital technology might do social ‘good’. We may never arrive at a settled definition of a good digital society, but we contend that discussing what it might look like is essential.

Long abstract:

Digital technologies aren't always good for societies; even the most well-intentioned technologies can end up doing harm. Algorithmic decision-making can introduce bias under the guise of fairness; policies to make social media safer can be experienced by users as doing the opposite. It is in this context that Ruha Benjamin exhorts: ‘Remember to imagine and craft the worlds you cannot live without, just as you dismantle the ones you cannot live within’. Yes, we should challenge how things are. But we must also identify how we want them to be. To this end, in this paper, we speculate on whether the notion of a good digital society helps us do that.

We confront the complexity of the word 'good', reviewing philosophical traditions, computing and design ethics and political economic analyses. We consider who gets to decide whether/how/when/where/for whom digital relationships are good. We explore current debates about the relative merits of fairness, accountability, transparency on one hand, or justice, equity and rights on another as evidence of how contested the notion of a good digital society can be.

The paper acknowledges the scale of the challenge. Nonetheless, thinking about what a good digital society looks like is essential. We need to hash out differences, disagree with each other. We may never arrive at a settled definition of a good digital society. To imagine and craft worlds we cannot live without, though, we need to talk about what kind of digital society we want to live within.