Hacking Liberation: Building Safe Platforms for All Genders

Morgen Bromell at Affect Conf 2017

Transcript

1. Hacking Liberation: Building safe platforms for all genders
2. Hey!
3. My name is Morgen. I’ 25. I’ also the fou de of Thurst.
4. Thurst is a dating app for queer people of all genders. The beta had 15k user signups. We’ e elau hi g a o e comprehensive version in 2 months. Rad, right?
5. Thurst was featured in TechCrunch, HuffPost, USA Today, etc etc before it even launched. The support was real, ’all! (Blessings! *DJ Khaled voice*)
6. How did I get here? I went to Business School in Boston. I also worked at an MIT startup. Then I went to art school in Brooklyn. (and came out! Yay!)
7. I wanted to find a easier way to date – but I was now queer af! SO. SO. QUEER. (and OkCupid + Ti de e e ’t that uee ’all)
8. I also realized that other dating platforms consciously allow for various abuses and violent behavior that made dating unpleasant as a black queer non-binary person. Every founder of a dating app was white. Very few where queer. None where nonwhite and not class privileged.
9. How could they know what dating (or living) was like for me? I also wondered how folks who were more marginalized than me navigating dating. So I decided to build my own dating platform.
10. First, I had to imagine (or reimagine) what safety and security looked like and felt like. Who has the privilege of inherently being safe?
11. Then, I had to visualize love. Who gets to love? Who finds love most easily? And for what reasons? Who is excluded from being loved? Who is seen as worthy of love, especially on digital spaces?
12. Was I invisible online? Data from all platforms said no. (Black users over-index on content creation and interaction on Twitter, Facebook, etc) But how about dating apps? Do marginalized users, especially black and brown trans folks get a say?
13. There are algorithms for love and finding connections, both platonic and otherwise, and none of them included me. Unless it involved trans and non-binary users being objectified, oversexualized, propositioned, harassed, or banned. Ridiculous, right?
14. Thurst hopes to continue to solve these problems. We prioritize safety and community accountability above normative dating culture. Through allowing users of all genders to love more freely, we are decolonizing ourselves and our communities. Love can take many forms and we hope to make the space for each person to experience love in the ways they need and desire.
15. My 5 tips for prioritizing safety and security: (this is tailored for platforms centering trans and gender non- conforming users but can be applied to almost any space that requires users to interact)
16. 1. Care a whole fuggin lot Empathy as a developer/designer goes beyond imagining problems. Empathy is existing in the problem and collectively creating a solution.
17. 2. Considerate research comes first Ask, test, survey, and also figure out what a s e s ou’ e ot e ei i g a d f o ho . The most harmful issues on platforms centering marginalized users can also be the most difficult to communicate.
18. 3. Desig should ’t e opp essi e Is your UI ? Our beta screens were very basic but our design choices reduced binary gender preference. Each design choice can make a user feel safe or excluded.
19. 4. Use tools and services by companies that support your vision for greater inclusion We found awesome startups and even enterprise/larger companies that wanted to see us thrive and thus, helped tailor services to meet our needs.
20. 5. Hire and collab with your ideal users Our team is all black and queer. The majority of folks who have contributed are queer and/or radical allies. You’ll sa e a lot of ti e if ou sol e f o ou li ed e pe ie e. If ou do ’t li e it, fi d so eo e ho does and pay them to solve it.
21. Thank ’all! @MorgenBromell @morgencb morgen@thurst.co (hit me up, especially if you have good memes to share)