Though a ceasefire has commenced – the third since the war began – Israel continues to kill Palestinians and to shell Gaza. And even if it holds, this cannot expunge the past two years of devastation and war crimes. These have turned the Gaza Strip “into a mass grave of Palestinians”. 

Here, we will explore the environmental dimension of the Gaza war and Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian Territories.

Human and infrastructural cost of the Gaza war

Two hundred and fifty-one people were abducted during Hamas’ October 7 2023 attack on Israel, and around 1,195 killed: predominantly civilians, and including 38 children.

Hamas attack was an atrocity, however, lurid reports of systemic sexual violence and mutilations taking place during the attack have largely been found to be false, have been contradicted, or have not been proved beyond reasonable doubt; video and photographic evidence cited by Israeli politicians could not be found to exist; investigations were blocked and co-operation with inquiries refused by Israel; and videos released by Israeli security agencies showing alleged confessions to these actions were likely to have been produced under torture and therefore do not constitute credible evidence.

This did not stop such claims being “used repeatedly by politicians in Israel and the West to justify the ferocity of [Israel’s] subsequent bombardment of the Gaza Strip”. (Much “media coverage has also often failed to provide adequate context to the Hamas attack, suggesting it was ‘unprovoked’”.) 

As a result, at the time of writing, at least 68,229 Palestinians have been killed during the Gaza war: 57 times the number of Israeli fatalities on October 7. This includes 463 deaths by starvation, as a result of the famine engineered by Israel’s deliberate blockade of humanitarian aid; at least 157 were children. 

The use of famine as a weapon of war is a war crime. (See more key figures from the war here.)

A report based on figures leaked from a classified Israeli military database states that more than 80% of those killed by Israel in Gaza have been civilians. Such a high civilian death rate has only been recorded in modern warfare on three previous occasions, one of which was the Rwandan genocide.

As journalist Alona Ferber notes, “It should be possible to say two things at once […]: that Israel’s violence against Palestinians is unconscionable and so is the slaughter of Israeli citizens.” Nevertheless, Israel’s disproportionate response to October 7 has used it as a pretext for wiping out or removing the Palestinian population, as has been openly stated by members of the Israeli establishment: 

• Aharon Haliva, former major general and commander of the Israel Defense Forces’ Military Intelligence Directorate stated that, “for every person [killed] on October 7, 50 Palestinians must die. It doesn’t matter now if they are children” 
• In a radio interview, far-right Heritage Minister Amihai Eliyahu declared, “The government is rushing to erase Gaza, and thank God we are erasing this evil. All of Gaza will be Jewish” 
• Ultranationalist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a self-described “homophobe, racist, [and] fascist”, was even blunter, asserting: “Gaza will be totally destroyed.” He is also reported to have said that the Gazan civilian population “can die of hunger or surrender. This is what we want.”

Israel has made good on these aspirations; as of July 2025, “at least 70 percent of buildings [in Gaza had been] leveled”. Roads have been severely damaged and “the healthcare, water, sanitation and hygiene systems have collapsed”. The majority of hospitals are no longer functional. By April 2024, almost 90% of “school buildings in Gaza ha[d] [already] been damaged or destroyed”. 

Israel–Palestine power imbalance

In spite of the totality of this destruction, the international mainstream media fails to adequately represent the stark and fundamental power imbalance between Israel and Palestine, and the way that this manifests as a “structurally asymmetric conflict”. 

This imbalance has been explicit in decades “of displacement and dispossession” for those in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. These “systemic structural inequalities […] were partly inherited from the colonial era and partly modified or created by Israel […] to maintain the control and power in the hand of […] the Jewish majority in [the country]”.

Israel is a socioeconomically Global Northern colonial power recognized by around 85% of the member states of the United Nations. Palestine is an occupied Global Southern state recognized by around 76% of UN members (in large part due to the US consistently blocking full Palestinian membership). In 2021, Palestine’s gross domestic product (GDP) was $3,464 per capita; in 2025, Israel’s was more than 16 times higher, at $56,435. 

Palestine has existed under illegal military occupation by Israel since 1967, within an institutionalized apartheid system of segregation and discrimination, where restrictions on freedom of movement are used to “enforce [Israel’s] regime”, with travel permits only being issued “through a lengthy, non-transparent and arbitrary bureaucratic process”. Just 600 Palestinians were allowed to leave Gaza between March and May 2025, and only “after months-long efforts by humanitarian groups and foreign governments”.

Israel possesses “one of the best-resourced militaries” and “some of the most technologically advanced defences in the world”, including, as of 2023, 1,300 tanks and armoured vehicles, 345 fighter jets, “and a vast arsenal of artillery, drones and state-of-the-art submarines”. 

It is also “one of the biggest exporters [of arms] in the world, selling […] to countries like Russia and the US”, while the latter – an ally with which it shares “strong historical and economic ties” – provides Israel $3.8 billion per year in military aid. 

In addition, Israel has “covertly” amassed a nuclear weapons cache of around 90 warheads. 

The Israel Defense Forces consists of 169,500 individuals, plus 400,000 reservists. The IDF estimated that Hamas’ armed forces in the Gaza Strip numbered around 30,000 prior to October 7. The weaponry Hamas forces possess includes “locally-made, improvised explosives”, with “the majority of its rockets […] [being] locally manufactured and technologically rudimentary”.

Drawing an equivalence between the two states and their respective military capabilities is clearly mendacious; the reality of the situation is that a highly militarised western state – which the International Monetary Fund ranks as among the 35 richest in the world – is occupying, oppressing, and decimating one which, by contrast, shares many characteristics with the world’s least developed countries (and where, by September 2024, “close to 100 per cent of Gaza’s population now live[d] in poverty, compared with 64 per cent before the onset of escalated hostilities”). As physician and author Gabor Maté has noted, “Unlike Israel, Palestinians lack Apache helicopters, guided drones, jet fighters with bombs, laser-guided artillery.” 

This is not to excuse either party; like Israel, Palestinian forces have been guilty of war crimes. Yet the severity of this power imbalance is all too evident in Israel’s ability to raze Gaza with impunity. (After Israel broke the second ceasefire in March, it “effectively dropped the pretense that the Gaza offensive [wa]s primarily about freeing […] hostages […]. Yet impunity still reign[ed].”)

Since the Holocaust, the slogan “Never again” has been used as an injunction against both a second Holocaust against the Jewish people, and genocides against any and all other groups. Nevertheless, genocides have been carried out “time and again” – occurring on around 18 occasions since 1945. (Differing definitions mean there is no consensus about this number.) 

Many organizations and experts in genocide law and international studies have asserted that Israel’s actions against Palestine meet the legal threshold of genocide, while South Africa brought a case before the International Court of Justice to this effect. 

More recently, a UN Commission also concluded that Israel’s pattern of conduct, “including imposing starvation and inhumane conditions of life for Palestinians in Gaza”, does constitute genocide. The Commission also found that the “clear […] intent to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza” comes from the Israeli authorities’ “highest echelons”.

Environmental impacts

All of the above is to honor and acknowledge the devastating human cost of both the current manifestation of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict – and, indeed, the cost of all the conflicts that have occurred since the Ottoman Empire was defeated during the First World War, after ruling the region since 1517. 

However, Israel’s actions have taken place within a broader system of violence, displacement, and exclusion overseen by Israel within its boundaries and in the Palestinian Territories which it occupies. This includes environmental impacts – and, in fact, damage inflicted upon the land goes hand in hand with the commission of genocide by Israel.

• Illegal Israeli settlements

Israel has militarily occupied the West Bank since 1967, when it seized the Palestinian territories from Egypt and Jordan during the Six-Day War: “the longest belligerent occupation in the modern world”. Settling this occupied land contravens Article 49 of the Geneva Conventions: legal standards for humanitarian treatment in war, making Israel’s settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories a “flagrant violation of international law”. 

In 2024, the International Court of Justice advised that the occupation itself is unlawful – a “historic vindication of Palestinians’ rights”. Later in the same year, the General Assembly of the United Nations called for Israel to end its occupation within one year, “both in law and in practice”. Yet the Israeli state “offers a slew of benefits and incentives to settlers and settlements”; in 2012, “every Israeli settler family in the Jordan Valley [wa]s given, in addition to an unlimited water supply, a free house, US$20,000, 70 dunnams (km²) of land, free health care and a 75% discount on electricity, utilities and transportation”.

Systemic violence committed by Israelis from illegal settlements, primarily in the West Bank, has been recorded since the early 1980s. From the turn of the millennium, that violence has steadily increased: a war that is “quieter” than that in Gaza, but which is nevertheless escalating due to “a confluence of ideological fervor, opportunism and far-right Israelis’ political vision for the region”. 

‘Rampages’ – including ones in 2008 which Israel’s then acting prime minister, Ehud Olmert, described as “pogroms” against West Bank Palestinians – have included arson, the killing of thousands of livestock, and the murder of Palestinian civilians. Increases in harassment, trespass, intimidation, and violence by carried out by settlers against Palestinians coincided with the election of the current government – “the most rightwing and anti-Arab government in the country’s history” – and the start of the Gaza war, with “settlers […] act[ing] with near-impunity”. 

In 2023, Israeli forces and settlers undertook “12,161 attacks against Palestinians and their properties, including 3,808 against properties and religious sites, 707 against lands and natural resources, and 7,646 against individuals”. Consequences included damage inflicted on approximately 21,700 trees (nearly 19,000 of which were olive trees).

More specifically, between October 7 2023 and November 1 of the same year, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs documented 171 settler attacks against Palestinians, with “Israeli forces accompan[ying] or actively support[ing] the attackers” in almost half of these cases. Also since October 7, the Israeli national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir – himself a settler, with a background in Kahanism, “a violently racist movement that supports the expulsion of Palestinians from their lands” – “distributed semiautomatic rifles and other weapons to settlers and far-right Israelis, which are now being used against Palestinians”. One hundred and twenty thousand firearms had been distributed by October 2024.

Israeli misappropriation of Palestinian land has always occurred via both ‘official’ mechanisms and settler violence, yet these are both manifestations of state violence: “a coordinated pincer strategy to entrench Jewish control over the West Bank”, with the Israeli regime “actively aid[ing] and abet[ting] the settlers’ violence”. And, increasingly, “the line between settlers and the army [is] blurring”, with the impacts upon Palestinians including: 

• Displacement from their homes
• Restrictions on movement
• Population decreases
• “Crops destroyed by arson attacks, physical sabotage or by settlers grazing flocks on land that Palestinian herders had relied on”
• Water sources being “polluted, vandalized or taken over”
• Difficulties accessing health services and education (in Gaza, it is thought that lack of access to education may create “a lost generation of permanently traumatised Palestinian youth”, but the same could be true of the West Bank)
• Not being able to remain self-reliant, leading to the selling of livestock or borrowing of money
• Demolition of existing buildings and prohibitions on building new ones
• Land confiscations (sometimes imposed punitively). 

Military and settler violence has caused the deaths of upwards of 1,000 Palestinians in the West Bank since October 7, 2023. 

Moreover, Palestinian police “are barred from responding to settler violence”.

• Environmental harm caused by settlers

Within this extreme colonial violence, where “all lives are precarious—people, flora, fauna—and [even] the air, water, and land”, it is unsurprising that “a litany of […] land degradation [has also been] caused by Israeli settlers on Palestinian land”. 

Researcher Dror Etkes, who has “ke[pt] close tabs on the expanding Jewish settlements” for more than 20 years, states that this includes “settlers […] dumping trash [and] spoil”, and allowing wastewater to flow directly onto the land. In the words of Yousef Abu Safieh, the Palestinian Authority’s environment minister, “Israel not only exploits Palestine’s resources, it also pollutes and destroys them.”

A report published by the Norwegian Refugee Council, primarily assessing the effect of Israeli settlements’ wastewater discharge, updated in 2024, lists other harms caused by Israel illegal settlements in the West Bank.

The degradation of Palestinian land – which demonstrates Israel’s disregard of the Geneva Convention’s stipulation that, as occupier, it should act as custodian of them – stands in stark contrast to the “great care [that the Israeli government takes] to guarantee that its citizens enjoy the benefits of a clean and comfortable environment”. This inequality is felt by neighbouring Palestinian communities in the form of health concerns; contamination of agricultural lands, with deleterious effects on crop viability and marketability; and ecosystem disruption, including the introduction of invasive species.

In addition, “Israel covertly transports waste products from its own country into dumps and quarries throughout the occupied West Bank […] – deliberately poison[ing] the water, land and livestock of nearby Palestinian villages.” 

Solid waste from Israeli settlements – which produce considerably more per capita than those of the Palestinians – is also “contribut[ing] to [a] strain on West Bank solid waste management capabilities”, where management of solid waste is limited by “weak technical expertise […] and lack of financial resources”. Reliance upon the burning of waste – already unsuitable given the quantity generated annually (around 250 thousand tons) – releases toxic gases, among other environmental problems. In addition, “hundreds of thousands of tons of hazardous waste” dumped in the West Bank by Israeli chemical and military industries “constitute severe […] health and safety hazards to nearby Palestinian cities and communities”. 

Also, as of 2018, seven industrial zones and 200 factories had been moved from Israel to the West Bank, or built there, taking advantage of cheaper labor, and more lenient environmental regulations, where “it applies less rigorous regulatory standards […] than […] inside its own territory” – an “abus[e] [of Israel’s] status as an occupying power”. 

Certain factories were specifically transferred to the West Bank “due to [their] carcinogenic chemical emissions”. This includes the Dixon Gas industrial factory, solid waste from which “is burned in [the] open air”. Israel also disposes of its hazardous waste in more than 50 locations across the Occupied Palestinian Territory, causing concomitant increases of “a number of mysterious diseases and cancers”.

Given Israel’s continued illegal settlement, the combined settler population of East Jerusalem and ‘Area C’ (which consists of more than 60% of the West Bank, and which is completely controlled by Israel) 

is anticipated to reach one million in the next 10 years. The approximate current total population is around 730,000; an increase of a factor of almost 14 will have a “vast” environmental impact. (Israel’s population has already increased sixfold between 1967 and 2012: a period of rapid industrialization which made “environmental woes” inevitable.)

Meanwhile, in Gaza in April this year, where “many people [were] forced to live in tents erected amid piles of garbage” which have become breeding grounds for rats, snakes, and disease-carrying insects, Palestinians were reported to be “suffering from extremely dire health conditions”. This is further compounded by the decomposition of bodies trapped under rubble, and the difficulty of burying animal corpses during Israeli bombardment. 

The destruction of sewage infrastructure has, additionally, “caused sewage floods in the streets, turning them into health hazards and dangerous swamps”. The danger of “toxic and hazardous chemical substances […] seep[ing] into the groundwater reservoir” could make drinking water into “a deadly poison”. At this time, Israel also cut power to the Deir Al-Balah water treatment in the centre of the Gaza Strip.

• Impacts from munitions

Israel uses ammunition and tank shells containing depleted uranium against Palestinian citizens (and elsewhere); this causes various cancers, chronic diseases, and fetal malformations in affected populations. “Both chemical[ly] and radiological[ly] toxic”, depleted uranium – a by-product of uranium enrichment, a process with applications for both fuel for nuclear power reactors and for nuclear weapons – may contaminate soil it falls upon.

Israel has also used white phosphorus in both Gaza and Lebanon. This chemical incendiary ignites when exposed to oxygen, burning at 1,499°F (815°C). The thick smoke it produces may be used to mask military operations, but the substance “also inflicts horrific injuries”, “pos[ing] a high risk of excruciating burns and lifelong suffering”. Due to its high solubility in fat, white phosphorus can “burn people, thermally and chemically, down to the bone” and cause multiple organ failure by entering the blood. Dressed wounds may “reignite when […] re-exposed to oxygen”. Even relatively minor burns frequently prove fatal, while extensive scarring which tightens muscle tissue can cause physical disabilities in survivors, who also face not only the initial trauma but painful treatment and “appearance-changing scars [which may] lead to psychological harm and social exclusion”. Providing treatment also “exacerbate[s] the already challenging process of treating serious burns”.

The use of white phosphorus against civilians violates international humanitarian law.

As well as potential for the fires it causes to destroy buildings, property, and crops, and to kill livestock, its use can also result in pollution to groundwater, marine environments, and agricultural settings, and the destruction of wastewater treatment plants. Animals can also die from its inhalation, or by eating contaminated vegetation.

• The West Bank barrier

Begun at the turn of the millennium, the 440 mile (708 kilometer) West Bank barrier partly follows the 1949 Jordanian–Israeli armistice line, but at other points stands within the West Bank, isolating around 25,000 Palestinians from the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Its location means that Palestinians lost their access to 23 wells and more than 50 springs. It has also fragmented ecosystems and “create[ed a] new climatic and environmental status”, including the accumulation of rainwater on one or other side, causing soil erosion. Its construction also led to “the extensive contamination of natural habitats associated with the use of heavy machinery and millions of tons of concrete”. 

Additionally, the borders of Gaza – “hardened and heightened into a sophisticated system of under- and overground fences, forts, and surveillance technologies” – have also seen a ‘buffer zone’ established on the Palestinian side. From 2014, the Israeli military’s “clearing and bulldozing of agricultural and residential lands […] has been complemented by the unannounced aerial spraying of crop-killing herbicides”. The spraying takes place “during key harvest periods, targeting spring and summer crops”, employing three herbicides: glyphosate (formerly marketed by Monsanto, and now by Bayer, as Roundup), oxyfluorfen, and DCMU: “probabl[e]”, “possible”, and “known/likely” human carcinogens, respectively. Consuming the meat of livestock which have themselves consumed contaminated plants can indirectly cause “long-term negative effects” for humans.

This practice – described by Forensic Architecture, an interdisciplinary research agency which investigates state and corporate violence, as the “weaponis[ation of] herbicide spraying” – has rendered swathes of formerly arable land barren. Not only has this destroyed Gazan farmers’ livelihoods, but left “farmers, youth and families, further exposed to Israeli fire from hundreds of metres away”. As of 2012, “no Palestinian farmers have ever been compensated for damages to their crops”.

In addition, since October 2023, “Israel’s ground invasion [of Gaza] […] systematically targeted agricultural farmlands and infrastructure”. In September 2024, the United Nations Satellite Centre reported that almost half of Gaza’s agricultural land had been destroyed.

• Wastewater discharge

Wastewater is the most severe problem facing the Palestinian water sector after water scarcity, which is itself “used by Israel as a tool of oppression”. After occupying the Palestinian Territories in 1967, Israeli military authorities have since remained in control of “all water resources and water-related infrastructure”, and “continues to control and restrict Palestinian access to water […] to a level which neither meets their needs nor constitutes a fair distribution of shared water resources”. This constitutes “an instance of environmental racism at its worst”.

In the same year, Israel prohibited Palestinians from “extracti[ng] […] water from any new source or […] develop[ing] […] any new water infrastructure” without a permit – which are “near impossible to obtain”. Palestinians are also unable to access the Jordan River, while cisterns for the collection of rainwater are frequently destroyed by the Israeli army. Just 37% of Palestinians received sufficient quantities of water in 2012, yet Israeli water companies charged Palestinians 11 times as much for water as nearby Israeli settlements. In 2017, 180 Palestinian West Bank communities had no access to running water, with even towns and villages connected to the water network unable to rely upon a consistent supply.

Israeli settlers, on the other hand, face no restrictions in their access to Israel’s own West Bank water network, which the state-owned Israeli water company Mekorot feeds from wells sunk and springs tapped for the benefit of Israelis alone. Israel not only controls Palestinians’ water in the West Bank, but each “Israeli settler [consumes] four times the amount consumed by [one] Palestinian”. As a result, such wells that remain accessible to Palestinians “have suffered drastic decreases in their output”. 

Many Palestinian communities are therefore reliant on “overpriced and often unsanitary water tankers” which they “must travel across a desert, criss-crossed with Israeli checkpoints, to bring home” – meaning that water may cost families as much as half of their monthly income. And, still, Palestinians often consume “dramatically less than [the amount] the […] World Health Organization recommends as the minimum quantity for basic consumption”.

Since 2022, Israel has been ranked just behind the US in the UN’s Human Development Index, which assesses national populations’ longevity, health, and standard of living. As a result of leading lifestyles typical of the Global North, “Israeli settlers in the West Bank […] produce similar amounts of wastewater to the Palestinian population, despite being outnumbered more than six to one.”

In 2018, it was established that, of all wastewater discharged by Israeli settlements – which amounted to around 131 million cubic feet (40 million cubic meters) per year – 90% was not only discharged onto Palestinian lands, but without any form of treatment. 

Settlements are most often located on high ground, “for reasons including surveillance and territorial dominance”, meaning that “lower-lying Palestinian communities, their agricultural lands and natural water systems” are particularly at risk from these discharges. More than “2 million cubic metres [6.6 million cubic feet] of raw [untreated] sewage flow[s] into the valleys of streams of the West Bank…[causing] severe damage […] [and] the contamination of mountain groundwater”. 

In addition, “waste products, generated from the production of aluminium, leather tanning, textile dyeing, batteries, fiberglass, plastics and other chemicals [in Israel’s industrial facilities in the West Bank], [are allowed to] flow freely down to Palestinian villages in surrounding valleys”. Industrial wastewater has been found to contain “a high concentration of chemical materials [which] leach […] into the soil and groundwater resources”.

Water sources to which Palestinians are allowed access to are primarily surface and groundwater sources, with “the most important sources [being] rain, runoff, groundwater, and springs”. Therefore, pollution from wastewater “aggravates the chronic drinking-water shortage in Palestinian communities in the West Bank”, and, in 2001, the Palestinian Ministry of Health connected contamination from wastewater with “frequent outbreaks of intestinal diseases in the West Bank”. However, because settlers use Israel’s water-supply system, they remain unaffected by the consequences of their own wastewater.

Such contamination also affects crops – “a major sector of the Palestinian economy”. Raw wastewater will ultimately also reduce land fertility, as well as:

• Driving the concentration of nitrates and salt, raising soil salinity
• Reducing vegetation
• Driving desertification
• Decreasing biodiversity
• Causing pests and insects to proliferate.

In addition:

• The contamination of Palestinian water by wastewater has been further enabled by Israel’s “neglecti[on of] wastewater management and refus[al to] […] expan[d] […] new wastewater networks to meet the growing population”. Over-pumping of underground aquifers, all of which are “monopolised by Israel”, has caused the intrusion of saline water into the groundwater table
• The average flow of the Jordan River, “an international river basin unilaterally monopolised by Israel”, has been reduced from 4,101 million cubic feet [1,250 million cubic meters] per year in 1953 to 499-666 mcf [152-203 mcm] due to the effect of two huge reservoirs. It was also deemed unsafe for Christian baptism in 2010, due to its pollution by Israeli settlements and industry run-off
• The Dead Sea – also subject to pollution – “is dying”, its level dropping by almost four feet [1.2 m] every year. Having shrunk into two separate sections, its banks are collapsing, and sinkholes are opening up, all as a result of “the freshwater sources that feed [it] [being diverted] for drinking water and irrigation”, while “its salts are pumped by Israeli companies to flood the global market with exotic cosmetic products”
• Dozens of springs located on private Palestinian land, used for irrigation and watering livestock have been seized by settlers and “turned […] into tourist attractions and swimming pools”.

Israel’s growing population and rising standard of living means that it is confronted by both severe water shortages and “persistent contamination of the existing water thanks to rampant ‘development’ and industrialization”. The country carried out expensive cloud-seeding experiments for seven years, and is considered a world leader in desalination and water recycling – yet continues to “destroy […] the rain-water cisterns and wells of agrarian Palestinian villages”.

• Destruction of olive trees

Chief among environmental impacts, in the case of Israel–Palestine, is a long history of both Israeli settlers and the military purposefully “hack[ing] to pieces”, “spraying […] with toxic gases”, and “uproot[ing] olive trees […] as part of the[ir] country’s efforts to seize Palestinian land and forcibly displace residents”. Three million trees (including olive, but also citruses) were torn up between 2000 and 2012. Three thousand, one hundred olive trees alone were destroyed by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank during the 2024 harvest alone. “Practically no […] complaints filed” in relation to attacks on West Bank Palestinians’ trees have led to an indictment.

In August this year, 3,000 more, in a village near Ramallah, also in the West Bank, were destroyed by the military, who claimed them to pose a “security threat” to an Israeli settlement road. In the same month, 10,000 trees, some of which were 100 years old, were bulldozed by the Israeli army, explicitly in order to make a village “pay a heavy price” after “reports that an Israeli settler had been attacked near[by]”.

Increased instances of the Israeli military setting roadblocks, checkpoints, and curfews, have further hampered farmers’ work, with those close to Israeli settlements “hav[ing] to apply for permits to enter their [own] land”. In 2023, access being denied by Israel led to the loss of approximately 1,365 tons of olive oil, at a cost of some $8.5 million (at 2024 prices).

These actions – plus “the burning of ancient trees and theft of both olives and young saplings” – comprise just a fraction of Israeli military and settler violence, which, since the beginning of the war on Gaza, has “surge[d]” in the West Bank. B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, has collated hundreds of reports of beatings, restrictions on movement, home demolitions (including punitive demolitions and forced “self-demolitions”, which cost less than waiting for the Israeli government to carry them out), and other abuse on an interactive map of the Territories, which gives some indication of the scale of these actions. As of 23 August 2025, this includes “at least 671 Palestinians, including 129 children” being murdered by Israeli forces or settlers, and “tens of thousands of Palestinians hav[ing] been forced out of their homes”.

In the Gaza Strip alone, “more than one million olive trees [were] uprooted” between October 2023 and September 2024, while only four of 37 olive presses in the Strip remained functional at that time – though lack of access to fuel means that even those which remain may not be usable. 

Olive trees – a “maltreated symbol in [an] occupied land” – are highly significant to the Palestinian people, both symbolically and economically: they are mostly indigenous, long-lived, and occupy almost half of the agricultural land in Gaza and the West Bank, where villages often rely almost entirely on agriculture and livestock for income. As of 2019, as many as “100,000 Palestinian families [were] estimated to rely on these trees as a source of income”. Olive oil is crucial to the Palestinian national economy, while olive production “mak[es] up 25% of the total agricultural production in the West Bank”.

The olive tree was also voted Israel’s national tree in 2021, and symbolizes longevity and peace in Judaism (as it does in the other Abrahamic religions), due to its part in the Noah flood myth. In the Hebrew Bible, “a dove returns to the ark with an olive leaf in its beak, signaling the end of God’s judgment through the flood and the restoration of peace on earth”. 

In fact, as well as breaching the Paris Protocols, the Hague and Geneva Conventions, and the International Covenant on Economics, Social and Cultural Rights, Israel’s arboricide even contravenes the Halakha, Jewish religious laws which state, “Even if you are at war with a city … you must not destroy its trees.”

Destroying these trees – as well as “blocking and preventing Palestinians from accessing their farms and water sources[, which] means more food and water insecurity” – has nevertheless been used by Israel as a method to displace Palestinians and steal their ancestral lands since 1967. Yet these “practices […] have become harsher and more malicious […], with some areas being classified as ‘state land’ to facilitate theft”. 

The registration of West Bank land ceased in 1967, yet unregistered land still comes under the Ottoman Land Code of 1858. Jordanian and British governance “interpreted [the 1858 code] such that cultivating land for 10 years gave the farmer rights to it that remain even if cultivation stops”. Israel ‘reinterpreted’ the “code to mean that if cultivation ceases after 10 years, the land goes to the state” – meaning that “the absence—and destruction—of Palestinian olive trees are crucial for Israel to grab land ‘legally,’ making their very presence a threat to Israel’s expansionist ambitions”. (Whereas, illegal settlers have been quoted as saying that they “definitely planted [olive] trees only for the purpose of seizing land”.) Limiting farmers’ ability to work their land by illegalizing their access to it, and via inconsistent bureaucratic barriers and violence, enables “Israel’s deliberate confiscation of agricultural lands”. In 2023, “Israel […] seized more Palestinian land than in any year in the past 30 years”.

A ‘co-ordination mechanism’, developed and managed by the Israeli army, ostensibly “protect[s] Palestinians from settler violence and enable[s] a safe harvest”. This is not the case in actuality: dates may be set without taking farmers’ needs into account, while, during the 2024 harvest, there was frequently no co-ordination at all. Dates which were issued were “communicated […] to Palestinian residents haphazardly and last minute”. Frequently, Palestinian council heads were only given one day’s notice, and just one or two days to carry out the harvest: “neither enough time to prepare for the harvest, nor complete it”. 

Palestinian farmers were also barred from accessing their lands, meaning that settlers instead harvested these private Palestinian lands. These crop thefts occurred more frequently in 2024 than in previous years, with Israeli soldiers or security forces failing to intervene. In other cases, Palestinians were unable to harvest at all due to “settlers […] confiscat[ing] their ID cards”, “Israeli soldiers and settlers assault[ing] them, forc[ing] them out of their lands or otherwise obstruct[ing] them”, including Palestinians being shot at. A 59-year-old grandmother, a resident of the Palestinian village of Faqqu’a, was shot dead by an Israeli soldier while setting out to harvest olives on her own family’s land.

In all, 113 “separate incidents of violence, harassment, harvest thwarting or damage to olive trees and crops involving Israeli civilians and soldiers” were verified by Yesh Din, an Israeli organization which monitors and reports on human rights abuses in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, between October 1 and November 15 2024.

The Israeli state and military have even been documented stealing Palestinian-owned olive trees and saplings, while “trees older than the state of Israel have been uprooted from Palestinian lands and replanted in Israeli cities to beautify public spaces”. “Grand old trees” are even reported to be highly sought by “the immoral wealthy” to “adorn […] the gardens of their villas”.

All of these factors “further undermine the food sovereignty of Palestinian families and are yet another attack on Palestinian self-determination”. 

They also mean that harvest time, formerly characterized by “community gathering and cooperation” and “nothing short of a festive season”, “a cherished time with extended family and friends coming together to pick olives, drink tea and share food under the trees[,] has become increasingly dangerous”. This disruption, not only of Palestinian livelihoods but of cultural continuities, also means that younger generations are denied participation in age-old agricultural practices, curtailing traditional ways of life.

Yet, olive trees’ historic “rootedness in the land” – and the ability to sprout again as long as their roots remain intact – makes them “one of the most evocative symbols of resilience, and representative of a generational bond with the land”. This is reflected in the Arabic word sumud – ‘steadfastness’ or ‘perseverance’ – which Palestinians use “to refer to their commitment to stay rooted to the land and defy all Israeli attempts to drive them out”. Due to their longevity, many olive trees embody a “symbolic value as witnesses and sites of memory of the ongoing Nakba [or ‘catastrophe’; the mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians] and the many Intifadas [Palestinian uprisings against the Israeli occupation] [which] the land has experienced”. However, in Gaza, deprived of fuel and food, “families [have been] forced to destroy their trees in order to have firewood for survival” – trees which are seen as akin to friends, children, or “life companions”. 

Olive trees also “expose the lie that Israelis came to an empty land”, countering “Zionist slogans like ‘a land without a people for a people without a land’”. (As part of the agriculturally productive Fertile Crescent, “the region has been home to some of the earliest agricultural societies and thriving civilizations”.) One tree, near Bethlehem, is thought to be as much as 5,000 years old, making it one of the oldest in the world, and meaning that it pre-dates the Abrahamic religions of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. 

But the Palestinian people’s olive trees also relate not only to “their relationship to their ancestors [but] to their future”. Therefore, even in the face of restricted access and settler attacks, “Palestinian farmers are determined to remain steadfast”, braving dangerous areas to farm their olive trees, “to prove they won’t be defeated”, and continue to replace those which are uprooted, “viewing them as a statement of hope, perseverance, and their unwavering connection to the land”.

• Afforestation 

Due to olive trees’ significance within Judaism, Jewish people immigrating from Europe at the turn of the 20th century sought to “ideologically and literally ‘root’ the[selves] to the new/old homeland” through agricultural work which included planting their own olives. However, despite being supported by collectives like the Lovers of Zion, the Jewish Colonization Association, and wealthy individual funders such as banker-philanthropist Baron Edmond James de Rothschild, these early settlers had no experience of farming Middle Eastern terrain, and olives’ labor-intensivity and bitter taste limited their enthusiasm. 

They therefore “dismissed centuries-old sustainable Palestinian agricultural practices as ‘undeveloped’, and […] [instead] used sophisticated European steam engines, mechanised ploughs, reapers and threshers to develop capital-intensive vineyards and cash-crop plantations for commercial marketing”. They sought “to birth themselves […] anew as an ecologically integrated, utopian socialist community” – yet this “ecological zeal” manifested itself not through “respect[ing] and adapt[ing themselves] to the land, but [by] subjugat[ing] and transform[ing] it”.

The significance of olives for Palestinian culture and heritage, and their adoption as an emblem of anti-occupation resistance, further reduced the trees’ appeal as a Zionist symbol. Instead, the Jewish National Fund (the JNF; founded in 1901 and still active) carried out “extensive land acquisition and ‘afforestation campaigns’” instrumental to the creation of both Israel and Palestine’s contemporary landscapes. This saw the introduction of, predominantly, pine trees (including non-native species). Over the years, the Fund has planted over 240 million trees in the region. 

Ideological critics describe this project as colonialist, while environmentalists highlight how monocultural planting “diminish[es] biodiversity and increas[es] the risk of forest fires” (“devastating” fires in JNF forests in 2010, 2016, and 2021 caused the deaths of both people and animals and the destruction of homes). Afforestation by the JNF in southern Israel has also been the cause of violent protests because the planting threatens Bedouin tribes’ livelihoods by diminishing their ability to farm and graze livestock. (The JNF’s ongoing Blueprint Negev project, which “seeks to develop reservoirs, pine afforestation and water conservation programs in the Negev desert” will come at the cost of upwards of 150,000 Palestinian Bedouin, “whose ‘unrecognised’ villages, as a direct result of Israel’s policies, already lack electricity, running water and sewage disposal”.)

Much JNF planting is carried out by volunteers, who feel “a […] connection” with the trees and may return to visit them. Meanwhile, people in the Jewish diaspora donate towards the JNF, “affirm[ing] [their] ethnic nationalism by helping [to] ‘plant a tree in Israel’”: “a tangible symbol of their emotional and financial investment in [the country]”.

Pines were chosen by the JNF because they “reminded [its] leaders of […] their homelands in snowy Europe”. (A 2013 promotional article on the organization’s website proclaimed that the German Black Forest “has got nothing on us”, and Carmel National Park, partially located on the site of the destroyed Palestinian village of al-Tira, is nicknamed ‘Little Switzerland’ due to its alpine appearance.) This “creat[ed] a European-modeled landscape” which “conceal[ed] the geographical dislocation experienced by the predominant Ashkenazi Jews”.

The majority of the pines planted by the JNF are Aleppo pines, a species native to the region, but its range has been “extend[ed] […] beyond any previous point in history” by intensive planting. And with dense crowns that shut out light, and a thick blanket of its acidic shed needles, which prevents most other plants from growing, they lead to low biodiversity and “ruin […] the livelihood of Palestinian shepherds, whose animals depend on grazing land”.

Furthermore, in contrast to one of Israel’s founding myths – that the country ‘made the desert bloom’ – in some places its practices are instead driving desertification. The planting of thousands of non-native eucalyptus trees in the swamps of southern Palestine, for example, “dried out all of [the area’s] ancient water wells and other water sources”. Elsewhere, between 1971 and 1999, “the extensive spread of settlements and military bases[,] alongside Israel’s pervasive bombing”, caused the loss of 95% of Gaza’s forests. The theft of large areas traditionally used by Palestinian for grazing means that the land remaining available for this purpose is now subject to overgrazing, and therefore also under threat of permanent desertification.

Contemporary Israel depicts itself as “a ‘green democracy’, an eco-friendly pioneer” – proud to be “the only country in the world that will enter the 21st century with a net gain in numbers of trees” – yet this greenwashing obscures the role that its ostensibly environmental actions play in its project of land seizure and Palestinian displacement. The JNF “promotes an exclusionary, discriminatory brand of environmentalism” via a constitution that “explicitly state[s] that its land cannot be rented, leased, sold to or worked by non-Jews”. The majority of sites where JNF planting has taken place “conceal[s] the bulldozed houses and torched groves of Palestinian villages”, meaning that this afforestation by fast-growing pines has prevented Palestinian return, while also “play[ing] a role in Nakba denial and the erasure of Palestinian history and collective memory”.

Both the destruction of existing olive trees and afforestation “transform […] the occupied landscape and its ecology”: ecological imperialism, whereby “not just people but their landscapes and environment” are dominated. By 2012, “indigenous arboreta [already] ma[d]e up only 11% of Israeli forests, and pre-1948 growth account[ed] for only 10% of Israel’s greenery”.

Similarly, by 2015, Israel had created 81 national parks and 400 nature reserves: spaces often used historically “to displace indigenous peoples from their lands and ecosystems under the guise of ecological conservation”, “reinforc[ing] the division between subjects and citizens”. In this case, “the administration of nature advances the Zionist project of Jewish settlement alongside the corresponding dispossession of non-Jews from the[se] space[s]”.

This use of land management as a tool of oppression can also be seen in projects such as “the ethnic cleansing and ecological degradation” that occurred at Lake Hula in northern Israel. In 1933, the Ghawarani tribe – who had inhabited the area for 200 years – was evicted from this, “one of the oldest documented lakes and wetlands in history”, by the Palestine Land Development Corporation, using funds from both the JNF and private sources. In 1950, the JNF drained the lake, “ignoring the warnings of scientists that the peat soil under the swamps would not make fertile land”, and without having assessed potential ecological repercussions. 

The resulting environmental catastrophe saw the wetlands’ unique ecosystem destroyed, and, “despite one JNF hydrologist’s certainty that ‘our peat is Zionist peat … our peat will not do damage’”, its decomposition released pollutants into local rivers and lakes, “creat[ed] crop-damaging black dust and ma[de] large tracts of land susceptible to damaging underground fires”. At a cost of $23 million, a small area of this depopulated region was partially re-flooded in the 1990s.

The future

These environmental impacts are inextricably entangled with the subjugation of the Palestinian people, and exist within a broader system of violence, apartheid, displacement, and exclusion overseen within Israel’s boundaries and in the Palestinian Territories which it occupies. 

As talks continue – a “conversation between the sword and the neck”? – Israel must be held accountable.

Additional material

Genocide & Ecocide: The Interconnected Crimes Against Humanity & Nature: a talk with Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh.

Organizations to support

• Many charities, like Ele Elna Elak, are providing emergency relief. You can find further trusted organizations in lists here and here. You can also use the Gaza Family Funds Directory to make donations directly to those in need of support
• Grassroots organization the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) works “to rehabilitate lands destroyed by the Israeli occupation, preserve native seeds and support farmers”, and runs an Olive Harvest Campaign which allows volunteers to assist farmers during the Palestinian olive harvest, which speeds up the process and “can dissuade settlers from attacks”. You can donate here
• The Israeli Rabbis for Human Rights has also formed human shields as a direct action to protect Palestinian farmers from settlers’ attacks during the harvest season. Faz3a, a Palestinian-led initiative named for a colloquialism for “reinforcement”, has also helped more farmers to harvest their olives, by “mobiliz[ing] a mass presence of internationals on the ground, […] to dissuade settlers from hassling Palestinian farmers”
• The Palestinian Fair Trade Association (PFTA)’s Trees for Life project “promotes sustainable agriculture and supports farmers across the West Bank” and “has replanted thousands of olive trees in Palestine”. You can support the PFTA’s olive tree-replanting efforts here, via the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR)
• A regeneration project run by the Arab Group for the Protection of Nature, the Million Tree Campaign, “plants fruit, nut and olive trees across the West Bank […] [,] plant[s] crops, rehabilitate[s] greenhouses and help[s] poultry farmers and fishers in Gaza”. More than 99,000 trees and 970 dunums of crops have been planted, despite settler aggression and Israel’s access and water restrictions. Donate here
• Seeds of Resilience, an “initiative […] powered by young people from Gaza”, “fight[s] hunger with [its] secret weapon: seedling[s]”. Donate here
• The Palestine Heirloom Seed Library conserves and protects indigenous seed varieties passed down through generations, alongside heritage, culture, and biodiversity, while working with Palestinian farmers who are still maintaining these seeds in situ. Donate here.

Organisations to boycott and divest from

Boycotts have been successful historically in forcing policy change, such as in relation to apartheid in South Africa. This form of non-violent direct action exerts economic pressure on specific companies and the Israeli economy in general, challenges Israel’s international standing, and raises awareness and expresses solidarity with Palestinians (read more). 

Consider boycotting:

• “Companies […] no longer merely implicated in occupation – [but which] may be embedded in an economy of genocide” – found by a UN report to include IBM, Microsoft, and Amazon; Chevron and BP; Caterpillar, Hyundai, and Volvo; Airbnb and Booking.com; and the UK’s Barclays bank. US multinational investment companies BlackRock and Vanguard are the main investors in a number of these companies
• The banks which finance Israeli settlements, weapons, and military, which include HSBC, JP Morgan Chase, the Lloyds Group, the NatWest Group, and the Santander Group. Also consider which company your workplace banks with
• UK Local Government Pension Schemes and universities which invest in companies complicit in Israel’s violations of Palestinian rights and of international law
• Organisations “implicated in the commission of international crimes connected to Israel’s unlawful occupation, racial segregation, and apartheid regime”, targeted by Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, a three-pronged, Palestinian-led movement. These include Reebok; Intel and Dell; the AXA insurance corporation; and more. Donate here
• The (as of 2023) 51 businesses specifically complicit in Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise, including Motorola Solutions, Puma, Siemens, and Tipadvisor
• Companies involved in the Gaza war, which include Google
• Companies which have provided Israel with weapons and other military equipment used in its attacks on Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria since October 2023, which includes Amazon, Boeing, Cisco, and Ford.

You can also use apps such as NoThanks and Boycat to check whether products you’re purchasing are produced by companies which support Israel’s actions. 

Featured photo via PublicDomainReview: Photographs of Palestinian life.

The post What are the environmental impacts of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian Territories and the war in Gaza? appeared first on ethical.net.

Sometimes it’s the decisions themselves that cause us anguish. How much of our income should we donate to charity? Should we take a lucrative job offer from a company with a chequered ethical history? In unlucky moments we may even face impossible ethical dilemmas in which there’s no perfect answer, just a selection of bad options we must choose from.

As Aristotle taught, it’s not enough to want to do good: what makes a person good is actually doing good things. So we also need to follow through on our decisions. But it can be hard to turn even straightforward moral decisions into action. A lifelong carnivore might find the moral argument for veganism compelling but still be unable to resist a juicy ribeye; a guilty teen may nonetheless struggle to own up to cheating on a test.

An artificial leg-up

Perhaps we could use some help. What if we had a trusted artificial advisor, an impartial ethics AI that could not only walk us through our toughest decisions but also give practical advice on applying those decisions in real life?

The idea isn’t so far-fetched. Ask Delphi, a prototype from the nonprofit Allen Institute for AI, already does a surprisingly decent job at suggesting answers to moral questions. Its makers claim a 98% accuracy on certain topics, although we should perhaps be sceptical of claims of such precision when it comes to ethics. The more general large-language models like ChatGPT tend to shy away from contentious moral issues, giving only the vaguest advice, likely on the counsel of
their legal teams. But given how lucid and fluent modern LLMs are on other issues, it seems clear they could offer moral advice if only they were allowed to.

But is it actually a good idea to consult AIs for moral guidance?

The main advantage an artificial ethics advisor could offer is an outsider’s perspective. This is, of course, the main reason we discuss tricky problems with other humans, be it a chat with a trusted mentor or soliciting the advice of strangers through forums like Reddit’s Am I The Asshole? (AITA) community, which is only too happy to pass retrospective judgement on worried posters’ actions.

If two heads are better than one, surely more heads are better still. Trained on millions of written texts from across the globe, an AI could hopefully draw upon the collective crowdsourced wisdom of a wide and diverse public, helping us overcome our own biases, blindspots, and self-centred temptations. Perhaps triangulating moral views through an AI would help us make more thoughtful choices, ultimately helping us all treat each other better.

Better still, we could infuse the AI with the moral wisdom of the greatest philosophers of all time. Imagine a system that would not only tell us how many people would approve of our decision, but also what Confucius himself would say about it. A broad, pluralistic AI studded with the insight of ethical experts could help us reach new levels of moral sophistication.

Trouble in philosophical paradise

One worry is that these machines could be too effective. To paraphrase media theorist Marshall McLuhan, every technological extension is also an amputation. Perhaps we’d find these machines so convenient we’d end up relying on them as moral crutches, leaving us unable to make ethical decisions ourselves. If you’re only doing the right thing because a computer said you should, are you behaving admirably or just becoming subservient to a digital overseer?

Should we even trust technologists to accurately train machines that understand ethical complexity? This may end up being one of the hardest challenges in modern-day AI. The stakes are inevitably higher for humans. An AI may lose consumer confidence if it does something wrong, but that’s nothing compared to the way our personal reputations can be trashed by an unwise moral decision. Without a genuine stake in the future, an AI doesn’t have to live with the
consequences of its recommendations like a human does.

An absence of reason

But perhaps the biggest cause for hesitation is how an AI would actually make an ethical recommendation. Ethics needs reasons. If you want to defend a particular point of view, you should be able to justify it. Why is stealing wrong? Because it unjustly deprives someone of their property and infringes upon the rights society has agreed they have. Why should we keep our promises? Because breaking them undermines collective trust and hampers the prospect of genuine friendship, which is essential to our wellbeing.

Reasoning is the downfall of today’s AI systems. Modern LLMs don’t understand concepts like we do: they essentially use probability formulae to regurgitate and remix humans’ words they’ve previously ingested as training data. ChatGPT can’t weigh up the duties involved in an ethical dilemma, nor can it truly consider the type of person you aspire to be. All it can do is draw on the information it’s been fed and string together a plausible explanation from that. This explanation might even look like a valid reason from the outside, but without the AI really understanding
the situation, trade-offs, and consequences of ethical decisions, it’s hard to say an AI can genuinely justify its advice.

This may change in time. It’s possible that future AIs will be able to understand what words really mean and how ideas relate to one another, meaning they can truly start to understand the context of our ethical questions. I‘d certainly be tempted to listen to the ethical advice of a system that understood the world more deeply than I do. But until then, I suggest we ignore the moral advice of machines. In the end, ethics is about how people treat other people and other living beings. We alone are responsible for our actions, and it’s a mistake to palm that responsibility off on a computer. The road to living well is never easy, but for now at least it’s a road we must walk down ourselves.

Featured photo by Miguel Bruna on Unsplash

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Science fiction to reality

Any science fiction fan will recognise this as a cornerstone of many sci-fi films and books. Think of HAL refusing to open the pod bay doors, or the rogue Skynet launching the world’s nukes. Thankfully, the real-world applications of machine ethics to date are less dystopian. We’ve not really needed to teach computers right from wrong in practice, since we’ve used them mostly for specific and harmless tasks.

But the issue of moral machinery is more pressing now that AIs are tackling more complex and ill-defined problems. Even if we’re not yet dealing with homicidal spacecraft, we still want to stop a chatbot from telling a curious user how to make napalm, and prevent generative AIs from, say, creating obscene images of children.

AIs will increasingly need to weigh up outcomes and choose the right ethical course where there are no obvious answers. In certain sectors the stakes are higher still. Medical, military, and security robots may need to make decisions that could profoundly harm others.

The problem with rules

One early thinker on robot behaviour was of course Isaac Asimov, who proposed the Three Laws of Robotics:

1. A robot may not harm a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

The laws are appealing, but in reality things aren’t so simple. Indeed, many of Asimov’s stories describe how these straightforward laws fall apart in practice. If we insist a robot must never harm a human, we need to start by explaining exactly what we mean by ‘human’ and ‘harm’. There will be some awkward loopholes. Surgery, for example, can save a life, but the minute you make the incision you harm the patient. And what if harm is inevitable? Should a robot break someone’s arm to rescue them from a fiery crash or let them die through inaction? Asimov’s laws prohibit both.

Perhaps we’d conclude that robots should harm humans in some cases. If so, we have to rewrite the rules. Herein lies the problem: rules can never fully cover the complexity of moral decisions. We see this with religious edicts too. Even if you choose to follow, say, the Ten Commandments, they don‘t offer enough detail to guide every human decision. Instead we create thousands of laws to cover the gaps, and even then need lawyers, juries, and judges to interpret these texts.

Alternative approaches

Instead of strict rules, perhaps we could give AIs looser principles that act as guiding stars. For example, we could ask robots to do whatever would bring about the most happiness in the world, or to take decisions that always improve the lot of the worst-off.

But which principles should we choose? Ethicists can‘t agree upon an answer, so picking just one perspective over another seems arbitrary.

‘Perhaps there is no single answer to the question of whose morality or what morality should be implemented in AI. Just as people have different moral
standards, there is no reason why all computational systems must conform to the
same code of behaviour.’ — Wendell Wallach & Colin Allen.

Another option is to abandon the idea of direct instruction and instead let robots learn by example. After all, this is how AI systems learn today: we feed them massive amounts of data and train them to find patterns. But can anyone really say they‘ve always been a good person? Humans aren’t perfect ethical examples. We cheat, lie, and steal. Do we really want a powerful AI to adopt our worst habits?

Ideal v real

In an ideal world, we’d probably take a cue from how we teach morality to children. We’d put AIs on a short metaphorical lead, keeping close watch over their behaviours. We’d try to instil some fundamental principles, then allow them to practice mundane moral decisions. Can I wear pyjamas to a funeral? Should I mow the lawn at 3am? (Even before ChatGPT, the Allen Institute’s Delphi AI did a decent job at answering these simple questions already.) Once our juvenile AI shows it knows the basics, we can slowly give it more license to take more important decisions, stepping in to correct it where necessary. Perhaps at some point, we might be confident it can make sophisticated ethical choices alone.

However, the course of machine ethics won‘t run this smoothly. Commercial pressures will push AI into non-mundane territory way before we can pursue this idealised training programme. In practice, we may have to cobble together ethical education however we can.

Some top-down instruction may still be useful, perhaps in the form of guiding principles or heuristics rather than hard-and-fast rules. And despite our moral failings, we might still offer up our own behaviours as ethical training data. But more than anything, robot morality will be a matter of trial and error. Even if we do eventually achieve some success, someone will always want to take off the handcuffs. Author Ted Chiang is pessimistic about the prospect for ethical AI: ‘It will always be possible to build AI that pursues shareholder value above all else, and most companies will prefer to use that AI instead of one constrained by your principles’. Regulation will dampen this temptation – the EU, for example, has just agreed its new AI Act – but regulation typically takes longer to settle than we’d like, and is always itself incomplete.

So the path to ethical AI will be steep and rocky, marked by small wins and occasionally terrible mistakes. Teaching machines to behave morally will also force us to ask difficult questions about our own ethical choices. Uncomfortable decisions lie ahead. But with AI’s heady velocity now seemingly irreversible, it’s work we can’t overlook. An advanced AI without moral guardrails or experience wouldn’t just be ineffective: it could be profoundly dangerous.

Featured photo by Clark Tibbs on Unsplash

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If we’re using normal language, questions of etiquette soon crop up. How should we interact with chatbots? Does it matter if we’re rude to them?

Artificial feelings?

One reason we value being polite is that we don’t want to upset others. But can we hurt a chatbot’s feelings? First, they’d need to have feelings in the first place. In other words, the chatbot would need to be sentient.

If we ever agreed an AI was sentient, we’d probably have to treat it very differently to today’s machines. In theory, we should do whatever’s reasonable to avoid causing it pain, although you can argue our agriculture and food-production practices involve us turning a blind eye to sentient animals’ widespread suffering.

We’ll likely never know for sure whether a machine is sentient. Since we can’t see into others’ minds, we can never know what it’s truly like to be them. And sentience could look quite different in a machine than in a human or an animal. If we’re waiting for a machine to show animal or human-like behaviour, we might miss important evidence of sentience.

For now at least, experts agree machine sentience is a long way off. That said, there has been one notable exception. While testing an early version of what has since become Bard, Google software engineer Blake Lemoine made public claims that the system might be sentient. The company soon fired him for an alleged breach of confidentiality.

A lack of understanding

But sentience isn’t the whole story. Words only hurt if you understand them. It’s okay to be rude to a pig – so long as you’re not physically harming it – because it can’t understand what you’re saying. So it’s not enough for our hypothetical chatbot to be sentient: it would also need to understand language.

Modern chatbots don’t understand language the way humans do, and don’t form proper models of what various words and concepts in a sentence actually mean. Instead, using vast compilations of written data, they’re trained to recognise which words tend to follow other words, which lets them create realistic text of their own. Essentially, these are highly sophisticated autocomplete systems, the same things you see in your smartphone’s predictive text keyboard.

So perhaps we can relax. Chatbots aren’t sentient and neither can they really understand what we’re saying. It’s very far-fetched to claim they can be harmed by our words. So why bother being polite?

Human/AI partnerships

One answer is that these systems aren’t fully independent. Even the best chatbots need correction. Experimental tools like ChatGPT work unsupervised, apart from the odd behind-the-curtain policy tweak, but when accuracy really matters humans will work directly with chatbots in real-time. These human helpers will act as fact-checkers and translators, correcting notoriously unreliable chatbot output and clarifying ambiguous questions.

We can assume some companies won’t disclose this hybrid partnership unless they’re forced to by law. Depending on the context, companies will want users to think they’re either being served by a loyal and attentive human, or a magical, all-knowing chatbot.

So if you swear at a chatbot in the years to come, you may well be swearing at a human too. Ask any call centre worker about the emotional toll of abuse from faceless customers and you’ll understand how a human chatbot partner might feel too, having spent their day sifting through hundreds of hostile or inappropriate messages.

Setting an example

When Amazon’s Echo was launched, many parents were unhappy. The problem? Alexa complied with kids’ demands even if they didn’t say ‘please’. In response, Amazon eventually added a Magic Word mode that thanks users for asking nicely, in an attempt to reinforce good manners.

Setting a good example, then, is another argument for politeness. Every parent knows that kids learn by mimicking adult behaviour, so being polite even towards objects that don’t necessary need to be treated kindly might encourage better habits in children, and perhaps even adults too.

The role of gender plays a part too. The last generation of voice assistants have mostly had female-sounding voices, which introduce subtle but unwelcome connotations: women should be secretarial, eager to please, and subservient to others’ desires. Text chatbots like ChatGPT are programmed to have no gender presentation, but as these new AI models find their way back into voice systems, tech teams will again have to choose how these assistants should sound and what personas they project. If we are habitually rude to female-gendered AIs, we may unwittingly be supporting a damaging stereotype of female subservience.

Are we harming ourselves?

This, for many ethicists, is the point: even if our rudeness doesn’t harm someone else, it harms us.

In 2013, MIT researcher Kate Darling asked conference attendees to torture and dismember robot dinosaurs. She found most people wouldn’t do it, even though they knew the creatures couldn’t suffer. It seems we’re squeamish about doing things that feel wrong even if they don’t do any real harm.

For philosopher Immanuel Kant, treating non-human animals well keeps us noble as a species and towards each other: ‘he who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men.’ Kant says rational humans have a duty to show empathy and shared feeling, meaning if we’re unkind, we violate this important obligation. Unfortunately, Kant seems to argue this is the only reason
to be kind to animals, overlooking the feelings of the animal itself. More recent ethicists have corrected this omission and agree we should be kind to animals simply because they can suffer.

That aside, even when it comes to non-sentient machines, I think Kant has a point. Our shock at mistreatment, even if it doesn’t cause direct harm, is a good thing. It’s important that rudeness feels rude, that violence feels violent. If we found ourselves losing our emotional responses to, say, robot torture or even just needless hostility to a chatbot, I’d worry we’d started to lose a small part of what makes us ethical people.

A second opinion

Not every tech ethicist shares my view. Many have no qualms with being rude to chatbots, arguing we should see and treat AI as a mere tool, or even a slave.

But perhaps there’s another opinion we can draw upon. So I asked a chatbot.

‘Rude behaviour can reflect poorly on the user: Being rude to a chatbot can be seen as a reflection of the user’s character and behaviour, which can negatively impact their personal or professional reputation.’

I quite agree. Even though politeness may seem fussy or even superfluous when talking with machines, good manners costs nothing. I think it’s worth it.

Featured photo by D koi on Unsplash

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How did you go bankrupt?
Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.

The late Gordon Moore famously observed that computing power doubles every two years. For a long time you’d be forgiven for barely noticing. Our devices got faster and smaller, sure, but ultimately they were still computers doing computer things, just more efficiently.

But as Hemingway describes, exponential curves start slow then get quick. Suddenly we’re seeing astonishing change. Powerful cloud computing, paired with new programming techniques and oceans of data, is writing convincing essays, passing exams, and painting compelling pictures on request. Bill Gates says these generative AI systems are the most important technology advance in decades. He’s right, and progress is likely to accelerate from here. But as AI systems mature they also pose deep questions about the future we want to inhabit, and who gets to build it.

Bias

Modern AI systems consume vast quantities of data, building predictive models that then work with new data sets. Say you’re building an AI that predicts whether a criminal might reoffend. To train your system you’ll feed it data on previous arrests, sentences, and reoffending rates, and ask it to find patterns. It will probably find these patterns with ease, but not for the reasons we might hope. Data always describes the past, and the past is biased.

Thanks to systemic racism in the police and the courts, our algorithm will learn that people from certain communities have historically been arrested more often and sentenced more heavily. It’s likely, then, our AI will suggest we continue this pattern. A system that appears neutral – just numbers and code – will itself make biased recommendations. After all, that’s all it was ever taught.

This is precisely what happened with COMPAS, a criminal risk system used across the US. An exposé by ProPublica argued the software was biased against Black defendants, predicting they’d be more likely to commit future crimes than other groups.

The findings are still contested, but COMPAS is no isolated case. When MIT researcher Joy Buolamwini found facial recognition systems didn’t recognise her dark skin, she fabricated a white mask and wore that instead. The system then recognised her easily. In 2015, Amazon scrapped a recruitment algorithm that marked candidates down for attending all-women’s colleges. In both cases, these systems were just reflecting the skewed training data they’d been fed. The facial recognition system had learned to recognise mostly white people; the hiring system discovered that Amazon had historically overlooked women for technical roles.

Learning from these problems, technologists are working hard to reduce bias from training data and machine-learning algorithms. But this turns out to be difficult. There are plenty of statistical methods, but the biggest challenge is philosophical: you have to define what fairness means. Make a system fairer by one definition and you often create unfairness in another direction. So tackling bias often means choosing which biases to erase and which to accept: a complex, human, and social decision that computers aren’t well suited to answer.

Explaining AI decisions

Even if our AI is fair, can it explain itself?

Modern AI systems don’t ‘think’ in the way we do, so they struggle to describe their decisions in logical terms humans can understand. The best most systems can offer for now is a series of numbers (weights of nodes in a neural network), which are meaningless in isolation.

Yet AI is influencing more and more critical human decisions, such as allocating medical resources, or approving or denying people loans and jobs. With impacts this serious, it’s right that we should expect these systems to explain their decisions. Until that time, there’s a fair case to argue AIs shouldn’t be used when lives and livelihoods are on the line.

Worse, some AI outputs are simply wrong. New language models like ChatGPT are famous for ‘hallucinating’: a cute euphemism for what is really happening, which is outright fabrication of information. Ask ChatGPT to give references for, say, a scientific theory and it will conjure up academic references with plausible titles and authors. But your local librarian will never be able to find these papers, because they simply don‘t exist.

Whether consciously or not, AI manufacturers have decided to prioritise plausibility over accuracy. It means AI systems are impressive, but in a world plagued by conspiracy and disinformation this decision only deepens the problem.

Privacy

Technology has long moulded the history – and even the idea itself – of privacy. The advent of photography prompted the first US laws, and in recent years online tracking has further influenced the debate. No surprise then that regulators have set up new privacy protections, but even these could be undone by powerful AI.

Data is often anonymised to protect privacy, but this is less effective than we might hope. Privacy specialists have been able to identify individuals from anonymised records with worrying ease. In one case, two researchers combined Netflix and IMDb data to identify users and deduce their political leanings. In another, Carnegie Mellon professor Latanya Sweeney found she could identify more than half of the US population using only public data on gender, date of birth, and town of residence.

A future AI armed with the right data could be even better at identifying individuals than these skilled researchers. Even CCTV footage could be retrospectively analysed and mapped to a facial recognition database, building a map of your historical movements and a list of people you spend time with. Data that is harmless today may make you traceable tomorrow.

Overseeing the future of AI

Beyond the contemporary issues lurk deeper long-term questions. What should and shouldn’t we automate? Should we create lethal autonomous weapons, or should a human always take charge of life-and-death decisions? How will we earn a living and even find meaning if AIs eliminate jobs? And if we ever create AIs that are smarter than us, will they value the same things we value – not least human life itself?

These are profound questions which deserve democratic debate. But today only a tiny cluster of AI firms, often funded by the world’s richest and most powerful people, are calling the shots. Is this the future we want?

I make a living helping technologists understand the social, political, and ethical impacts of AI and other emerging technologies. In recent years I’ve seen some progress, although the field of technology ethics is still nascent. What we really need now is outside help.

One answer is to regulate AI. This is starting to happen – particularly in the EU – but progress is modest. Politicians see AI as an economic growth lever and are worried about hampering its development. Even then, regulation is never enough on its own. The severity and urgency of the questions AIs poses means we also need a wider public discussion.

So now is the time to pay attention to what’s happening with AI and to ask questions. Ask how it is used in your public spaces, your schools, your workplaces, by your police, by your governments, by your militaries. Urge those in power to justify their decisions and discuss the safeguards they have put in place to ensure AI’s effects are positive. The issues involved are too important to be left to technologists.

Featured photo by DeepMind on Unsplash

The post Artificial intelligence: who owns the future? appeared first on ethical.net.

Now best known for multimedia and creativity software products, American multinational computer software company Adobe has been around in some shape or form for years. 

The Financial Times has noted that Adobe was “one of the lesser-known tech success stories of the Covid crisis”, building on key features such as Premiere and Photoshop with “stock content and analytics, advertising and ecommerce services”. 

Then there’s the fact that the company is behind DocuSign, a popular free document-signing app which has become ever more important in the post-Covid world. 

However, Adobe isn’t free from ethical issues, which give cause for concern when looked at in depth. 

We’ve come up with a list of ethical alternatives to Adobe products, as well as detailing the main reasons why we’d give them a miss if possible.

Four Reasons to Avoid Adobe

Adobe has frequently made headlines for the wrong reasons, but is it unethical? 

Here are the main reasons you may prefer to avoid its Creative Cloud products:

1. Pricing and Cancellation Fees 

Adobe is expensive, with justifications including rampant piracy of its products and the fact that many businesses use its software for professional purposes.

It says: “We are constantly making improvements to Creative Cloud, adding new apps, services, features, and content regularly. As we do so, our plans and prices will change to reflect the value added to your membership. Plans and prices are also adjusted based on local market circumstances, such as changes to local taxes.”

In any case, the company can change whatever it sees fit. However, a 2019 Forbes report on Adobe’s stock price noted that it’s hard for customers to stop using its products for two reasons: 

“[Adobe’s] subscription model replaces a previous strategy of selling boxed software for $1,000 or more with a monthly fee — as low as $10 a month — in trade for regularly updated software with new features.

“Secondly, Adobe’s strongest tie to customers is a powerful network effect. Creative Cloud is widely used within ‘the creative world and the educational system.’ Were creative professionals to switch to another supplier, they would be locked out of collaborating as efficiently with their peers who use Creative Cloud.”

If you do decide to stop using the service, don’t be surprised if you are hit with an unexpected bill. Take a user who faced a $291.45 fee to cancel their Adobe Creative Cloud plan, after falling foul of its terms and conditions. 

Adobe clarifies that, “Should you cancel after 14 days, you’ll be charged a lump sum amount of 50% of your remaining contract obligation and your service will continue until the end of that month’s billing period.”

Furthermore, specific countries require cancellations that can only be made by contacting customer support.

A 50% cancellation fee can be a lot of money, and only allows you to use the service until the end of the monthly billing period. It’s not especially flexible, and it’s not a great deal by any means. 

2. Security and Data

Can Adobe be trusted with personal data? Ask the near 7.5 million Adobe Creative Cloud account holders who were exposed in 2019. And that’s after at least 38 million accounts were hacked following a cyberattack in 2013; you would have hoped that the company would have learned its lesson.

In addition, 2.9 million customers had their personal information compromised – including encrypted payment card numbers – as a result of a breach of the software company’s network.

The trouble is, Adobe is a massive company. According to its own stats, over 90% of the world’s creative professionals use Photoshop, and it has an estimated total of nearly 30 million Creative Cloud subscribers as of December 2022. That’s a lot of user data to look out for.

However, you’d think that a company in the tech sphere would have more effective online security. 

Instead, it has released “an enhanced Adobe Customer Journey Analytics cloud service that enables organizations to apply AI to data from both online and offline sources to gain deeper insights into customer behavior”. 

Thanks, Adobe. 

3. The Monopoly 

It’s fair to say that Adobe’s pricing leans on the popularity of its industry-standard apps and services. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are worth the outlay. 

Its cancellation fees saw users argue that it was “morally correct” to pirate their software, but it’s arguably preferable to find ethical alternatives that have a chance of providing competition in the long term.  

If you’re still not convinced that this is necessary, consider the Forbes report which noted that people without Creative Cloud would be locked out of collaborating as efficiently with peers who do. Or that over 90% of the world’s creative professionals use Photoshop. 

Then there’s the fact that Adobe purchased its main competitor, Macromedia, for $3.4 billion in 2005.  

It’s also being reported that the United States Justice Department is preparing an antitrust lawsuit intended to block Adobe’s $20 billion acquisition of startup Figma Inc. – one of the alternatives I listed back in 2021.

It’s not impossible to create or use ethical alternatives – but doing so will always raise questions: will they be compatible with Adobe services? Will your overall experience be worsened if you try something new? Will Adobe just buy those alternatives if they prove to be too successful?

4. Poor Customer Service

Considering the fees, you’d expect Adobe to have decent customer service – yet its Trustpilot rating is abysmal, averaging just 1.2 out of five at the time of writing. (And that’s down from 1.3 in 2021, so it’s getting worse.)

Many complaints come from users who feel misled by ‘free trials’ or Adobe’s various subscription offers. Some have struggled to cancel their subs, or have fallen prey to the 50% cancellation fee after 14 days.  

It’s almost as if these things have been made intentionally difficult to understand.

Ethical Alternatives to Adobe 

The problem is that Adobe software is undeniably good, and everything works well within its ecosystem. (As long as you remain a paying customer.)

The same can’t always be said for alternative software, which can lead to compatibility issues. For example, are files viewable on every device, and will it be quick and easy to get to grips with? 

That said, most alternative apps and services are capable of giving the official Adobe version a run for its money. 

We’ve listed various alternatives for the majority of the most popular Adobe programs, but there are many more which would appreciate support from an influx of new users. We’ve also tried to consider ethical options, or at least options that appear to be ‘more ethical’ in comparison to Adobe.

Adobe Photoshop Alternatives

Adobe Photoshop is seen as the standard software for digital art and imagery. 

It’s so popular that it has become a verb, and most people understand what a ‘Photoshopped’ image is. 

We’ve listed some of the best alternatives below.

GIMP 

An alternative I can personally vouch for, GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a cross-platform image editor available for GNU/Linux, OS X, Windows, and other operating systems. It’s free software, and you can change its source code. 

GIMP offers customization options and third-party plugins, and allows integration with numerous programming languages including Scheme, Python, Perl, and more. 

It’s a world away from Adobe in terms of design and ethos, but it’s well worth checking out. 

Krita 

Krita is a professional, free, and open source painting application. 

The Krita project was started by the KDE community back in 1998. KDE (originally the K(ool) Desktop Environment) is “an international community working together to create free and open source software for users all over the world”.

Packed with features, its dockers and panels can be moved and customized to suit your specific workflow. 

Once you have established your setup, you can save it as your own workspace. You can also create your own shortcuts for frequently used tools.

Sumopaint  

An online image editor and drawing tool, Sumopaint offers filters, painting tools, and image manipulators. It has both free and pro tiers, while its privacy policy is reasonably robust.  

Sumopaint was founded in Helsinki, Finland, in 2008, as an online photo and image editor intended to “serve as an alternative for the 90% of users who only use 10% of Photoshop’s tools and features”.

As such, its premium subscription services are available for a fraction of the cost of Adobe’s suite.

Adobe Illustrator Alternatives

As the name suggests, Adobe Illustrator is used for everything to do with digital art, illustration, and graphic design. Once again, it’s a great tool for creatives, but there are viable alternatives that are worth checking out. 

Vectr

Vectr is free software for creating vector graphics intuitively, which allows for real-time collaboration whether you’re using the web app or desktop version. It allows for real-time collaboration, advertises time-saver tools and features powered by AI, and is particularly easy to use. 

It notes: “Vectr’s basic graphics editor is free forever. In the future, we’ll keep the lights on with a pro account and built-in marketplace.”

Inkscape 

Another Adobe Illustrator alternative comes in the form of Inkscape, which offers “professional quality vector graphics software which runs on Linux, Mac OS X and Windows desktop computers”.

Features are plentiful, and it works with a host of file formats, such as SVG, AI, EPS, PDF, PS, and PNG. 

Best of all, Inkscape is free and open-source software (FOSS), licensed under the GPL. This means it’s free of charge, free to use and distribute, and you can check the source code.

Affinity Designer 2

Affinity Designer is the first in an industry award-winning full creative suite of applications covering photo editing, desktop publishing, and graphic design, which have been adopted by over a million customers worldwide. 

As well as Designer, the company also offers Affinity Photo and Affinity Publisher. Each is available for a one-off fee, currently priced at £69.99. 

It’s worth noting that Affinity recently updated to version 2 apps. It notes that: “If you wish to upgrade to V2 you will need to pay, but as with V1, you only need to make a one-off payment—no subscription required.”

In other words, don’t expect the one-off payment to last forever if you want the latest version of its apps. However, anyone who owns V1 can upgrade to a V2 Universal Licence with a 25% discount.

Adobe Animate Alternatives

Another popular tool is Adobe Animate, a 2D animation software program that allows the user to create animations or cartoons, either personally or professionally. 

As with the majority of Adobe’s software, there’s a decent range of alternatives if you know where to look. 

CACANi 

CACANi (Computer Assisted Cell Animation) is an application “developed with hand drawn animators in mind”. Founded in 2011, it helps considerably speed up the inbetweening process (the creation of intermediate frames). 

Though not the cheapest option on the market, $499 will buy you a perpetual license that won’t expire, so at least you won’t have to pay endlessly recurring subscription fees.

TVPaint 

TVPaint Animation is 2D-focused software that is available with both standard and professional tiers. 

It notes that: “The first version of TVPaint Animation (called TVPaint 1.0) was developed in 1991 on the Amiga. It means that TVPaint technology has spent at least as much time in development and use as other digital painting software.”

You can buy the software for a flat fee, and all licenses are perpetual. 

However, there are no plans to release an iOS version, for reasons including a lack of pressure sensitivity (control of line thickness) and the 30% it takes from each sale on the Apple Store.

Blender  

A free and open source 3D creation suite, Blender “supports the entirety of the 3D pipeline—modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing and motion tracking, video editing and the 2D animation pipeline”.

In terms of its ethical credentials, “The Blender Foundation (2002) is an independent public benefit organization with the purpose to provide a complete, free and open source 3D creation pipeline, managed by public projects on blender.org.”

• The Foundation aims to: Manage the facilities on blender.org for users and developers who want to contribute to Blender
• Maintain and improve the current Blender product via a public-accessible source code system under the GNU General Public License (GPL)
• Establish funding or revenue mechanisms that serve the foundation’s goals and cover the foundation’s expenses
• Provide individual artists and small teams with a complete, free, and open source 3D creation pipeline.

Adobe InDesign Alternatives

Since Adobe InDesign was released in 1999, it quickly became the industry standard for desktop publishing (DTP). Once again, it’s contained within the Adobe Creative Cloud, so it is only accessible via a monthly subscription. 

We’ve mentioned the problems which can come with this subscription – including unexpected charges, or high fees for ending a subscription early – so it may be worth taking a look at some of the alternatives we’ve listed below instead. 

Scribus 

The first InDesign alternative to make the list is Scribus. 

This page-layout program supports professional publishing features such as CMYK colors, spot colors, ICC color management, and versatile PDF creation. 

In terms of reasons why it’s a viable option, Scribus answers: “Because it’s reliable and Free. Free really means Free with an uppercase F. Free is more than just gratis (which is just a side-effect). It means that you are in control of your data and, if you wish, the code of your desktop publishing tool.” 

That’s a big deal, and fairer options are in short supply. At the very least, it’s worth testing out. 

Affinity Publisher 2

Affinity’s second appearance on the list, this time for the Publisher 2 app rather than Designer. Once again, it’s currently priced at $69.99, but you can also purchase the entire suite on all platforms for $169.99 with the company’s Universal License.

Publisher is comparable to InDesign in many ways, despite being available for a fraction of the price. We’d strongly recommend checking out its services if they’d be useful for you.

Adobe Substance Alternatives

Substance is a complete suite of tools needed by artists to create 3D digital materials. It was originally developed for the game and film industries, but is also useful for anything connected to special effects or entertainment imagery.

Quixel Mixer  

Mixer is known for being easy to use, but without its power or quality being compromised. In fact, it claims to be the fastest high-quality texturing tool out there. 

Founded in 2011, it was “based on the vision of substantially speeding up how creators build digital environments, by giving them access to a vast and ever-expanding library of 3D building blocks, and easy-to-use tools to greatly simplify the creative process”.

ArmorPaint

ArmorPaint runs on Windows, Linux, macOS, iPadOS, and Android. A collection of detailed 3D content creation tools, it works with plugins and runs via the graphics processing unit (GPU). On desktop, it’s a portable application with no installation needed, and an online user manual is available here.  

Alternatively, check out Blender, which is listed both above and below due to its versatility. 

Adobe Premiere Pro Alternatives

A successor to Adobe Premiere, which launched in 1991, Premiere Pro is popular video editing software, available as part of the Adobe Creative Cloud licensing program. 

Olive 

2023 Update: Olive is still usable, but its social media accounts are silent and there’s no sign of the 0.2 version, never mind a stable 0.1 release. You can check for updates via its relevant GitHub page. 

Hoping to become the go-to app for those seeking a free Adobe Premiere Pro alternative, Olive is currently available in two pre-build versions: the April 2019 0.1 pre-rewrite version and the current, unstable 0.2 nightly build. 

Both are technically alpha software, but 0.1 has been developed much further and is generally considered more stable and usable than the current nightlies. 

Kdenlive 

Kdenlive – an acronym for KDE Non-Linear Video Editor – works on GNU/Linux, Windows, and BSD. It’s packed with features, and comes with a detailed roadmap. 

An open-source video editor, “The project was started around 2003. Kdenlive is built on Qt and the KDE Frameworks libraries. Most of the video processing is done by the MLT Framework, which relies on many other open-source projects like FFmpeg, frei0r, movit, ladspa, sox, etc.”

Best of all, the program is Free Software, as described by the Free Software Foundation under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Alternatives

Released as part of the Creative Cloud Photography plan, Photoshop and Lightroom are photo editing software used to capture and edit images.

As Adobe explains, “Whereas Lightroom is focused on organizing and processing photos, Photoshop ventures into image manipulation, creation and enhancement. Photoshop is the best choice for images where you want pixel-level perfection.”

Darktable  

Darktable is “an open source photography workflow application and raw developer. A virtual lighttable and darkroom for photographers. It manages your digital negatives in a database, lets you view them through a zoomable lighttable and enables you to develop raw images and enhance them.”

It’s released under the terms of the GNU General Public License Version 3.

Affinity Photo 2

Affinity is back again, with a fully-loaded photo editor integrated across macOS, Windows, and iPad.

As with its other apps and services, you can purchase Affinity Photo 2 for $69.99 on Windows or Mac or $19.99 on iPad, making it one of the cheaper options overall. A universal license is also available, packaging all three Affinity products together for a one-time fee. 

Adobe XD Alternatives

According to its marketing, “Adobe XD helps you craft prototypes that look and feel like the real thing, so you can communicate your design vision and maintain alignment across your team efficiently.” 

In practice, it’s a vector-based experience design platform that should help management of workflows, as well as boosting collaborative efforts. 

Figma 

2023 Update: I originally listed Figma as a viable Adobe XD alternative in 2021. As it turns out, Figma was so good, Adobe decided to buy the company, for the serious price of $20 billion. 

I’m far from the only person to note that the move is anti-competitive, but Adobe claims that “the combination of Adobe and Figma will usher in a new era of collaborative creativity”. It will also further cement Adobe’s dominance over the rest of the market.

Figma is a browser-based user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) design application, with design, prototyping, and code-generation tools. 

It places a marked emphasis on collaborative projects, and while the Starter version is free, its Professional and Organization tiers are billed per editor, per month. 

The company notes that, “The Starter plan is designed for individual and very small teams to get started with Figma. You get unlimited files in the Drafts space, which you can share with unlimited viewers. Additionally, you can co-edit with unlimited editors in the Team space on up to 3 files (limited 3 pages per file).”

Figma is also free for students and educators, with application via a verification form on its website. 

Penpot 

Penpot is the first open source design and prototyping platform for product teams, which works on a ‘free for ever’ model. In other words, Penpot plans to “follow an open core model where the paid tiers target medium to big organizations in need of specific features that are not needed by power users, who will enjoy Penpot Free For Ever”.

Its stated “mission is to provide an open source & open standards platform to bring collaboration between designers and developers to the next level. Penpot wants to be the ally designers need in their demand to achieve unprecedented scalability and creativity. We want to build designer and developer communities that can collaborate effortlessly so they can focus on bringing their unique creative contributions to the world.”

Adobe After Effects Alternatives

Adobe After Effects is undeniably the industry-standard when it comes to motion graphics and visual effects software. 

It’s often used in the post-production process of filmmaking, television production, and video games. In 2019, it even earned an Academy Award, thanks to “pioneering use of consumer hardware to host an application that is extensible, efficient and artist-focused [and which] has made it the preeminent motion graphics tool in film production, allowing motion designers to create complex animated elements for title design, screen graphics and fictional user interfaces”.

After Effects was originally released in 1993, and the software has reached its 23rd version.

Natron

How can you compete with a service on the level of After Effects? Natron aims to do so with “a powerful Digital Compositor that can handle all of your 2D/2.5D needs”.

Natron received funding from Inria (France’s National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology) between 2013 to 2018, and is now actively developed by its community. 

Completely free of charge, its original motive was to create a tool for those who may need it but cannot afford expensive pricing plans, such as students who want to learn compositing at home and schools for which software licenses are prohibitively expensive.

“One great mission of a free open-source software”, it says, “is to aim to create common practices so everyone can benefit from it. On the other hand, being free of charge, Natron can be installed on large-scale render farms without worrying about licensing issues.”

Blender 

Making a third appearance on the list, Blender can be used for a host of tasks, including compositing, FX, and motion graphics.

The Blender Foundation is an independent public benefit organization with the purpose to provide a complete, free, and open source 3D creation pipeline, managed by public projects on blender.org.

Its main source of income is a development fund, where users can sign up to make a recurring donation. 

Adobe Audition Alternatives

Adobe Audition is a professional digital audio workstation app which can be used for a variety of tasks relating to audio content. It’s for Windows and Mac, and is targeted at professional users. 

Audacity 

Previously a no-brainer in terms of Audition alternatives, Audacity made the news in 2021 when, under new ownership, this free, open source, cross-platform audio software updated its privacy policy. 

The incoming owner, Muse Group, confirmed that user data would be sent to Russia, as well as further data being collected “for legal enforcement”. 

As a result, it was claimed that Audacity would become a possible spyware app. However, Muse head of strategy Daniel Ray told BBC News: “We don’t know anything about our users. We don’t want users’ personal information – that doesn’t help us.”

In any case, it’s something to be aware of before downloading the software. 

Tenacity

If you’re worried about Audacity, Tenacity is a viable alternative: “an easy-to-use, cross-platform multi-track audio editor/recorder for Windows, macOS, Linux and other operating systems […] developed by a group of volunteers as open-source software”.

The project originated as a fork from Audacity, due to multiple controversies, with the intention of picking up where the original developers left off and making multiple improvements. 

Adobe Dreamweaver Alternatives  

Dreamweaver is an application used to develop and design websites. It was originally produced by Macromedia – until that software company was acquired by Adobe in 2005 – and is now included in the Creative Cloud. 

Brackets  

With focused visual tools and preprocessor support, Brackets is a text editor that makes it easy to design in the browser. An open-source project founded by Adobe, it’s “crafted from the ground up for web designers and front-end developers”. 

Though Adobe ended its support for Brackets in 2021, the software is still contributed to and maintained by the community. 

Visual Studio Code 

Visual Studio Code is a “streamlined code editor with support for development operations like debugging, task running, and version control. It aims to provide just the tools a developer needs for a quick code-build-debug cycle and leaves more complex workflows to fuller featured IDEs [integrated development environments], such as Visual Studio IDE.”

As open-source software, VC Code is free for private or commercial use, and runs on macOS, Linux, and Windows. You can check out its product license for more details.

Ethical Alternatives to Adobe: Summary 

Adobe may be seen as the best there is, but that isn’t necessarily true for all users. 

The corporation’s hold over the professional market shouldn’t be overlooked, while various questionable business practices aren’t especially user-friendly. After all, customer feedback would suggest that many are left unhappy by their dealings with Adobe.

Regardless, various dev teams are working on a number of projects as we speak, hoping to offer ethical alternatives that can stand up to the best that Adobe has to offer. 

In the years since I first wrote about ethical alternatives to Adobe, a number of viable options have popped up, and many have improved rapidly, providing greater parity with the respective Creative Cloud applications. 

In addition, many great apps and services are at some stage of development, while many entries on this list could potentially be used in conjunction with others to provide a similar service. 

Featured image by Med Badr Chemmaoui on Unsplash

The post Ethical Alternatives to Adobe: 2023 Update appeared first on ethical.net.

Gmail is a free, advertising-supported email service released on April 1, 2004.

With over 1.8 billion users worldwide, it is the second most popular email platform on the planet. By comparison, just 400 million use Microsoft Outlook, and only 225 million have signed up to Yahoo Mail. Apple leads the market, having rapidly siphoned users from Gmail over the past few years. 

In a world of data-driven digital marketing, can an email service owned by Google be trusted, and what ethical alternatives are available?

Five Reasons to Avoid Gmail 

Gmail may be one of the most popular email platforms, but that doesn’t mean it’s best in terms of either privacy or security.

1. Reading Your Emails 

Google and personal data have always had a strained relationship, as the company attempts to see how much it can mine without pushback. 

In 2018, it came to light that hundreds of external software developers were able to “scan the inboxes of millions of Gmail users who signed up for email-based services offering shopping price comparisons, automated travel-itinerary planners or other tools”, according to a Wall Street Journal report. 

One example was a company called Return Path, which collected data for marketers by scanning the inboxes of more than two million people who had signed up for a free app. Google gave Return Path employees direct access to roughly 8,000 emails, to “help improve the company’s software”.

This practise having become public, Google issued the following response:

“A vibrant ecosystem of non-Google apps gives you choice and helps you get the most out of your email. However, before a published, non-Google app can access your Gmail messages, it goes through a multi-step review process that includes automated and manual review of the developer, assessment of the app’s privacy policy and homepage to ensure it is a legitimate app, and in-app testing to ensure the app works as it says it does.”

Google also uses deep learning AI to scan Gmail attachments, in an attempt to avoid malware.

It would be naive to think that Google doesn’t have the ability to read your emails. At least your messages aren’t made to serve adverts: 

“When you use your personal Google account and open the promotions or social tabs in Gmail, you’ll see ads that were selected to be the most useful and relevant for you. The process of selecting and showing personalized ads in Gmail is fully automated. These ads are shown to you based on your online activity while you’re signed into Google, however we do not process email content to serve ads.”

2. Privacy Concerns  

Google took a long time to add iOS privacy labels to the Gmail app, and while it doesn’t collect your name, physical address, or phone number, it will share information including your approximate location, user ID, and data about ads viewed online. This makes the company even more comprehensive than the likes of Outlook or Yahoo, though they also slurp up more data than necessary.

Online privacy is starting to be taken more seriously, which arguably damages Google’s business model – unless it can find a way to pivot and align its interests with those of its massive user base. 

A more recent example of privacy concerns occurred in 2022, when Google agreed to a record $391.5 million privacy settlement in the United States after being charged with “misleading users into thinking they had turned off location tracking in their account settings even as the company continued collecting that information”.

In fact, between September 2022 and January 2023, Google paid nearly $600 million in settlements relating to privacy.

If you’re reading this, it’s likely that you don’t need to be told why it’s probably not a good idea to give it even more data which could be tied back to you, especially considering the amount of personal information contained within the average email account. 

3. Compatibility Issues 

Gmail is reliable and easy to use, but can suffer from compatibility issues.

For example:

• Internet Explorer 11 support has recently been discontinued
• The Windows 10 Mail client has reportedly been deleting emails from synced Gmail accounts 
• On iOS, drafts won’t synchronize across different accounts 
• Creating new mailboxes (labels) isn’t supported from within Apple Mail. 

Gmail advises sticking with either Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Microsoft Edge internet browsers.

4. Shopping Adverts 

In 2020, Google announced that both Product Shopping ads and Showcase Shopping ads were being added to Gmail. 

The company noted: “You can use Shopping campaigns to promote your online and local inventory, boost traffic to your website or local store, and find better qualified leads”. YouTube, Gmail, and Google Discover are among the services affected.

As Google aims to tighten its grip on the online advertising sector, experts have suggested that users “will require the ongoing supervision of the digital ad infrastructure by a specialist regulator with both privacy and antitrust responsibilities”.

In other words, Google is arguably too powerful within the digital advertising sector, and Gmail helps to further its influence.

5. It’s Owned by Google

Once a humble search engine, Google has morphed into one of the biggest companies in the world. “Don’t be evil” used to be part of its corporate code of conduct, but any trace of this old motto was purged in 2018.

It makes sense to de-Google if possible, whether due to privacy concerns, censorship, tax avoidance, monopolization, the use of AI, or treatment of employees. 

Check here for more information about ethical alternatives to a range of Google products.

The Best Ethical Gmail Alternatives

Below is listed a variety of ethical alternatives, many of which offer something a little different from Google’s flagship email service. Some options charge a fee, but shouldn’t necessarily be disregarded in favor of a ‘free’ app which scoops up your data as a consequence.

ProtonMail 

ProtonMail is a capable Gmail alternative, and among the most popular.

Located and incorporated in Switzerland, all user data is protected by Swiss privacy laws.

The company notes: 

“We are scientists, engineers, and developers drawn together by a shared vision of protecting civil liberties online. This is why we created ProtonMail, an easy to use secure email service with built-in end-to-end encryption and state of the art security features. Our goal is to build an internet that respects privacy and is secure against cyberattacks.”

After raising over $550,000 via Indiegogo in 2014, ProtonMail later received funding from the European Commission and the Swiss Federal Commission for Technology and Innovation. 

A free account comes with limited features, while the paid tier costs $3.99 per month. 

However, due to being headquartered in Switzerland, authorities in France managed to obtain the IP address of an activist who was using the service. As TechCrunch reported: “French police sent a request to Swiss police via Europol to force the company to obtain the IP address of one of its users.”

Founder and CEO Andy Yen responded to the news: “Proton must comply with Swiss law. As soon as a crime is committed, privacy protections can be suspended and we’re required by Swiss law to answer requests from Swiss authorities.”

Burner Mail 

Burner Mail‘s main aim is to provide a reliable, convenient way of protecting your identity.

As the name implies, your account generates a unique and anonymous email for every third-party service you sign up to, making it difficult for companies and advertisers to track you online. Emails you receive from those services will be forwarded to your personal account, while the services will never be given your real address. 

This system means you’ll be able to block specific senders – great if you’re worried about excess marketing and spam. You’ll also be able to see who is selling your data.

Its FAQ notes:

“Burner Mail does not have any access to your inbox or email account and does not store the emails forwarded to you. The [only] messages or emails that Burner Mail has access to are the ones sent to us at contact [at] burnermail.io. We do not disclose or sell any of your data.”

Lavabit 

Best known for being used by Edward Snowden, Lavabit is an open-source encrypted webmail service. In 2013, it was forced to shut down after the US government demanded access to its private encryption keys, in order to “access the plain-text versions of messages from customers using the company’s encrypted storage feature”.

In response, owner Ladar Levison told The Guardian:

“I had a hard decision to make. I had not devoted 10 years of my life to building Lavabit, only to become complicit in a plan which I felt would have involved the wholesale violation of my customers’ right to privacy. Thus with no alternative, the decision was obvious: I had to shut down my company.”

However, Lavabit was resurrected in January 2017, using new architecture that physically prevents it from handing over its SSL key. It works by generating a unique passphrase which the company can’t see, which is inserted into a tamper-resistant device before being destroyed. 

A free tier is available, but end-to-end Dark Internet Mail Environment (DIME) encryption is only offered as a paid feature. Developed by Lavabit, the DIME is a “secure, open-source, end-to-end communications platform for asynchronous messaging across the internet”.

Mailfence 

Launched publicly in 2013, Mailfence states “that online privacy is a fundamental human right which can no longer be taken for granted so we decided that it was time to offer a service which is fully dedicated to email privacy. 

“We double-checked every line of code, hardened our servers, worked hard to find a SSL certificate with no American certification authority involved in the certification chain (not that easy to find) and developed a unique and inter-operable End-to-end Encrypted email solution which includes digital signatures.”

In 2020, after refusing to submit to a Notice of Commencement of Collaboration with Roskomnadzor (Russia’s Federal Supervision Agency for Communications, Information Technology, and Mass Communication), the service was blocked in the country. 

Privacy fans will be glad to hear that Mailfence releases regular transparency reports, and also possesses a warrant canary (a statement declaring that it has not received secret requests for user data by the government or law enforcement officers). However, it’s another that is beholden to court orders in the country in which it is headquartered.

Plans are split across four tiers, including a limited free version.

Tutanota 

Next up is Tutanota, a green email service from Germany that relies exclusively upon renewable energy.

Another open-source, encrypted option, the company notes that its service “is forever free with 1 GB of free storage for private users, while the actual free storage is much higher as we are compressing your emails”. 

Tutanota also offers its secure email service at a discount to schools and non-profit organizations.

Mailbox.org 

Mailbox.org is another email service focused on preserving free speech and privacy, while using 100% green energy.

Its transparency report notes that unlawful requests for information will always be rejected, and personal accounts are priced at €1 per month. 

Another company which has denied the Roskomnadzor access to its data, it has stated:

“A report by the Russian news agency Interfax suggested that mailbox.org had agreed to general data storage within the Russian territory. This is false. We strongly deny such insinuations and stress again that mailbox.org will never permit the storage of any user data in Russia.”

Runbox

An independent, private Norwegian company, Runbox is headquartered in Oslo. The company’s email service was launched in September 2000, with the key personnel from Runbox Solutions involved ever since. In its current form, the company was founded in March 2011, and is owned by employees, board members (77.5% in 2018), and close associates.

That’s a great start, and its ethical credentials are proudly listed on its website: 

“We take our ethical responsibility seriously and will always make our best moral judgments with regards to our customers, our employees, our partners, and our shareholders. We will act ethically with regards to the principles that govern Norwegian legislation, such as human rights, freedom of speech, and environmental rights. We comply with Norwegian laws and regulations, and we will never intentionally compromise them.”

The company’s ethos includes: 

• The belief that communication is a basic human need and that increased communication makes for a better world 
• The belief that it is essential for human communication to occur securely, with privacy ensured 
• Caring deeply about its impact on the planet, and working to minimize its ecological footprint.

It’s hard to think of a better ethical option given Runbox’s commitment to the cause. 

A free trial is available, while prices are as follows:  

Meanwhile, all subscriptions come with a 60-day money-back guarantee. 

Fastmail 

Advertised as a Gmail alternative, work by this Australian company on internet standards and open-source technology powers various email services besides its own. 

Fastmail says, “We keep email on your side, with modern features, security and the power to choose the tools that work for you”, and makes a point of noting that it will keep your personal information away from Google. 

Its basic plan comes in at US$3 per user per month, with 2 GB of storage and a free 30-day trial available. 

Posteo 

Founded in 2009, Posteo is an innovative, independent email provider based in Berlin, which is concerned with sustainability and privacy, and is completely ad-free.

Posteo is 100% powered by green energy and advocates for “informational self-determination”. In these times of network surveillance, it protects its users’ privacy with a modern and innovative encryption and security model.

Posteo is another viable ethical alternative that is undeniably more secure than Gmail, and, in 2014, became the first German telecommunications service to publish a transparency report.

StartMail

StartMail is based in the Netherlands and complies with EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) privacy laws – some of the most stringent regulations for the protection of consumers’ personal data.

It offers 10 GB storage, and you’ll be able to use your own domain, create temporary email addresses, and send password-encrypted messages. Anonymous payments can be made with Bitcoin.

As a premium service, personal accounts come in at $35.99 per year, while business accounts with custom domain support and centralized billing are also offered.

Canary Mail

We’ve saved one of the slickest apps until last. Canary Mail’s security features include:

• Seamless end-to-end encryption
• Full Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) support
• Biometric app lock
• On-device fetch
• No ads
• No data mining 
• Open-source mail sync engine.

This app can be used with ProtonMail, and offers further support for Gmail, iCloud, and Microsoft 365.

The iOS and macOS apps both come with a 30-day trial, although they must be purchased separately.

Ethical Gmail Alternatives: Summary

As with any Google service, it’s worth weighing up the various pros and cons when deciding whether Gmail is right for you. 

Be wary of any promises made in terms of either privacy or security, no matter the quality of the ‘free’ service on offer. 

There are numerous ethical Gmail alternatives on the market, especially if you’re willing to pay a small fee to ensure that your data remains secure. Many of the services listed above also offer a trial, or only cost a few dollars per month. 

If you’re not willing to switch just yet, secure email apps like Canary Mail are a viable solution. 

It seems that many people were initially willing to put up with a few adverts when using Gmail, considering its overall quality. But, from a privacy perspective, continuing to use the service in 2023 makes no sense. 

Instead, many options are available which use a business model built around keeping your emails encrypted and safe, and which won’t monetize your data in the process.

Featured image by Mathyas Kurmann on Unsplash

The post Gmail Alternatives Guide: How (and Why) to Avoid Gmail – 2023 Update appeared first on ethical.net.

The professed mission of Facebook – or Meta, as the social media platform’s parent company was renamed in 2021 –  is to “give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together”. But a slew of revelations about the company – among them its role in influencing elections, traumatizing its content moderators, and even its involvement in ethnic cleansing – expose the hypocrisy of the company’s self-professed aims.

It’s become clear that Facebook only cares about hoovering up more and more data, gobbling up any budding competitors, and cementing its global domination of the online world – making it harder and harder for the average denizen of the internet to avoid, even if they don’t have a Facebook account.

I personally gave up on Facebook years ago, after reading about the effects it can have on your psyche. I can’t pretend it didn’t come at a cost – it’s now much harder to keep up with far-flung friends and distant relatives, and it’s a shame to hear their news later than everyone else. But in the grand scheme of things, it’s been a small price to pay for safeguarding my personal information – and my mental health.

If you’re tempted to remove Facebook from your life, read on for everything you need to know – from deleting your Facebook profile and preventing the service from tracking you around the web, to ethical alternatives you can use instead.

Facebook: A brief history

‘The Facebook’ was founded by 19-year-old Harvard psychology undergrad Mark Zuckerberg in 2004 (after previously creating Facemash – a site for rating fellow students’ attractiveness). It was an immediate success: 1,200 students signed up within the first 24 hours, and were joined by half of all Harvard undergraduates within a month. Zuckerberg famously called these initial users “dumb fucks” for trusting him.

Now, Facebook has 1.9 billion active monthly users, and is the ninth most-visited site in the world. Despite losing users by the millions in the US, it continues to spread across the rest of the globe.

It’s long been part of Facebook’s strategy to buy up any potential challengers (like WhatsApp, Oculus, and Instagram), to ensure its continued dominance of the web. And it’s worked, to an extent – younger users are migrating to alternatives like (the Meta-owned) Instagram, even if Generation Z (born between the mid-to-late 1990s and early 2010s) shuns Facebook itself, while Reels, Meta’s answer to TikTok, shows that the company won’t go down without a fight. 

Eight reasons to avoid Facebook

1. Privacy concerns

There was the Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018: the shadowy consulting firm secretly harvested data from millions of people’s Facebook profiles to target users with political advertising and drive votes for candidates who paid the company to do so. But it’s important to know this was no isolated incident – Facebook’s disregard for user privacy has subsequently manifested itself in plenty of other ways.

For example, in 2019, Facebook clashed with Apple following news that the former had been paying users (some as young as 13) to install a ‘Facebook Research’ VPN on iOS devices – giving Facebook access to everything their phone sent or received over the internet.

There’s no limit to how intimate Facebook is willing to get: in 2018, it was revealed that the company had been in secret talks with hospitals to gain access to patient data, and The Wall Street Journal have reported that at least 11 popular health apps (such as fertility trackers) were sharing extremely sensitive personal information with Facebook.

With such a dismissive attitude for user privacy, it’s hardly surprising that Facebook has suffered multiple data breaches, with one of the latest seeing a total of 533 million records potentially exposed – everything from likes and reactions to comments and account IDs have been leaked from insecure servers. The service failed to inform users about the breach. 

2. Mental health

The link between extensive social media use and psychological issues is now well documented. A 2013 study into “the pathway between Facebook interaction and psychological distress” found that “frequent Facebook interaction is associated with greater distress directly and indirectly via a two-step pathway that increases communication overload and reduces self-esteem.”

And this doesn’t result solely from users passively absorbing what they see on their feeds – Facebook has actively manipulated users over the years, from secret tests to determine users’ level of addiction to its site, to using its newsfeed to influence users’ moods through “emotional contagion”.

But when it comes to mental health, perhaps the worst offender is the Facebook-owned Instagram. A UK-wide survey of 14- to 24-year-olds, by the Royal Society of Public Health (RSPH), ranked it the most harmful social media platform, finding it associated with high levels of anxiety, depression, bullying, and fear of missing out (FOMO).

“On the face of it, Instagram can look very friendly,” said a spokesperson for the RSPH. “But that endless scrolling without much interaction doesn’t really lead to much of a positive impact on mental health and wellbeing. You also don’t really have control over what you’re seeing. And you quite often see images that claim to be showing you reality, yet aren’t. That’s especially damaging to young men and women.”

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recorded that the suicide rate among 10- to 24-year-olds was stable from 2000 to 2007, but increased by 57% between 2007 and 2017. In other words, it went up exponentially as Facebook became more popular. 

A 2022 study of the connection between social media and mental health found that:

“The roll-out of Facebook at a college increased symptoms of poor mental health, especially depression. We also find that, among students predicted to be most susceptible to mental illness, the introduction of Facebook led to increased utilization of mental healthcare services. Lastly, we find that, after the introduction of Facebook, students were more likely to report experiencing impairments to academic performance resulting from poor mental health. Additional evidence on mechanisms suggests that the results are due to Facebook fostering unfavorable social comparisons.”

3. Spread of misinformation and hate speech

The spread of misinformation on Facebook ranges from the relatively silly to the downright dangerous (like the growth of the QAnon conspiracy theory: “that a cabal of Satanic, cannibalistic sexual abusers of children […] conspired against former U.S. President Donald Trump”) to the downright dangerous.

Facebook has attempted to clamp down on this to some degree – but, in 2019, campaign group Avaaz uncovered a network of far-right accounts spreading fake news and hate speech throughout Europe. The pages Facebook took down following these revelations had received 500 millions views in total – more than the number of voters in the EU. Indeed, in the first three months of 2019, Facebook removed two billion fake accounts from its servers, which is almost as many as all legitimate Facebook accounts. (Here are three Chrome extensions that can help you filter fake news from your Facebook feed.)

More recently, Facebook has claimed that it removes more than 90% of hate speech on the platform. However, a leaked document from March 2021 stated that, “We may action as little as 3-5% of hate … on Facebook.”

Though misinformation is rampant in the US and Europe, the situation is even worse elsewhere in the world. In Myanmar (Burma), where 20 million people out of a population of 53 million are Facebook users, the spread of hate speech has had catastrophic consequences.

In 2017, Facebook failed to take action when the platform was used by Buddhist nationalist extremists to stoke hatred towards the Rohingya, a stateless and primarily Muslim ethnic minority, and fuel the ongoing genocide against them. Only in August of 2018 – after 25,000 Rohingya people had been killed, and 700,000 had fled the country – did Facebook ban some of the instigators of the violence from the platform.

4. Worker exploitation

The workers at Facebook’s HQ on Hacker Way in Silicon Valley are famously pampered, with perks including a video game arcade, free meals, and on-site dental care. But for the army of 15,000 content moderators Facebook has been obliged to hire as contractors, it’s a completely different story.

An exposé by Casey Newton of The Verge brought the horrors of this job to light. 

Moderators are expected to review up to 400 posts every day, featuring the worst that humanity has to offer – racism, bestiality, and murder are par for the course. You might expect working conditions to compensate for this, but you’d be wrong. Contractors’ time is strictly controlled, with monitored bathroom breaks, an allowance of just nine minutes “wellness time” a day to step away from the screens if feeling overwhelmed, and harsh penalties if their moderation “accuracy score” falls below 95/100.

It’s no surprise, then, that many moderators have turned to sex and drugs to cope with their work – Newton reports that employees regularly use marajuana on the job, and have been caught having sex in bathroom stalls, stairwells, the parking garage, and even a room reserved for lactating mothers. Many go on to develop symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Content moderators endure all of this for $28,800 a year, whereas the average salary of a direct Facebook employee at the time was $240,000.

As for its global workforce, Meta sacked 11,000 workers in November 2022 – roughly 13% of staff. A leaked recording of Mark Zuckerberg during a Q&A noted recent difficulties at the time:

“We made our plan for ’22 in terms of how we thought the business was going to go, and obviously it hasn’t gone the way that we wanted to.”

5. Opposing anti-tracking 

Apple’s anti-tracking plans for iOS seem like good news for anyone who owns one of the company’s devices. However, the system’s App Tracking Transparency feature isn’t so great for Facebook, as its business model relies on keeping tabs on users. 

In a blog post, Facebook took the questionable decision to frame its response to Apple’s decision as a stand for the little guy:

“Facebook is speaking up for small businesses. Apple’s new iOS 14 policy will have a harmful impact on many small businesses that are struggling to stay afloat and on the free internet that we all rely on more than ever.”

Wait, what? The post continues:

“At Facebook we use data to provide personalized ads, which support small businesses and help keep apps free. Starting today Apple will require apps that engage in what it calls ‘tracking’ to ask permission when using information from apps and websites owned by other companies to personalize or measure ads. This will happen through a prompt designed by Apple that discourages people from giving their permission, and provides little detail about what this decision means.”

In other words, Facebook was upset that iOS users would be able to deny it permission to use app and website info to provide adverts. Though understandable, it’s still bizarre to present this as though the user is losing out due to the changes.

6. Censorship 

What are the ethical ramifications surrounding censorship, and when is it appropriate for Facebook to censor content?

In December 2020, Amnesty International released a 78-page report based on dozens of interviews with human rights defenders and activists from Vietnam, including former prisoners of conscience, lawyers, and writers.

The BBC reported: 

“Freelance journalist Truong Chau Huu Danh posted on Facebook about an alleged corruption scandal in Vietnam, but was later notified that his posts had been restricted in Vietnam due to ‘local legal restrictions’. He was not given any way to contest this, he said. Facebook announced in April it would ‘significantly increase’ compliance with Vietnamese government requests to take down content. Since then, the number of times the social media platform has restricted content in Vietnam has gone up by 983%, from 77 in the second half of 2019 to 834 in the first half of 2020, according to the company’s latest Transparency Report.”

Most liberal people would disagree with that decision on an ethical basis.

Admittedly, Facebook was the first social media giant to block Donald Trump in 2020 – yet its own Oversight Board noted that “it was not appropriate for Facebook to impose the indeterminate and standardless penalty of indefinite suspension.”

Is that good censorship? Even if you agree with the outcome, is it positive for tech companies to be able to effectively blacklist individuals? (On the flipside, do you agree with Elon Musk shadowbanning @Elonjet on Twitter – ie, having its reach intentionally limited – or the accounts of various critical journalists soon after?) 

In February 2021, in response to a proposed law which would make tech giants pay to display news content on their platforms, Facebook blocked Australian users from viewing or sharing news. It stated:

“The proposed law fundamentally misunderstands the relationship between our platform and publishers who use it to share news content. It has left us facing a stark choice: attempt to comply with a law that ignores the realities of this relationship, or stop allowing news content on our services in Australia. With a heavy heart, we are choosing the latter.”

An agreement was reached a few days later, but it’s worth remembering that Facebook was happy to block an entire continent’s access to news rather than pay for the content it siphons. 

7. Monopolisation 

Having acquired more than 90 services since 2005, Facebook also owns the four most downloaded apps of the 2010s: Facebook, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram.

This monopoly was emphasized when the apps went down for over five hours in October 2021. WhatsApp was inaccessible for billions of users, a reminder to many of how critical Facebook services have become to the infrastructure around us(and how reliant upon them we have become).

Data-analysis platform Statista notes that WhatsApp is the most popular mobile messenger app worldwide, with two billion active users as of January 2022. Facebook Messenger has 988 million, and Facebook itself is now more than just a website, with multiple Meta-owned services going some way to controlling how we communicate. 

Closing your Facebook account

If the above has motivated you to boycott Facebook, the best way to start is by closing your account; here’s a great step-by-step guide on how to do so.

Predictably, Facebook makes this process as difficult as possible. Requesting permanent account deletion starts a two-week deactivation period – but if you log into your account during this time, your request will be withdrawn. During this period, avoid using your Facebook login to access external sites like Airbnb and Spotify.

If you want, you can also download all of your Facebook data – including photos, chats, and posts – before you close your account: here’s how. (And for those of you who’ve outsourced remembering friends’ birthdays to Facebook, the Birthdays Reminder app can take over!)

Here are additional guides to removing Facebook subsidiaries:

• Instagram
• Whatsapp (on Android and iPhone) 
• Oculus.

How to stop Facebook tracking you around the web

Once your account has been deleted, Facebook claims that it takes 90 days to remove all of your data – but whether this is entirely true is questionable, to say the least.

However, even once your account is gone, Facebook can still track you around the web. For example, this can occur via the installation of cookies on your browser when visiting sites that include Facebook ‘like’ and ‘share’ buttons. Meta claims to use this data to create analytics reports on site traffic.

You can protect yourself from Facebook’s tracking, to some extent:

• Switch to a privacy-focused browser like Safari, Brave, or Tor
• If you don’t fancy changing browsers, use a tracking blocker like Ghostery or Privacy Badger.

How to stop Facebook tracking you in apps

UK advocacy group Privacy International has revealed that some of the most popular apps in the Google Play store automatically send users’ personal data to Facebook the second they’re launched (and there’s evidence that apps on iOS do the same).

As of March 2019, these apps included:

• Yelp
• Duolingo
• Indeed
• King James Bible app
• Qibla Connect
• Muslim Pro.

Though it’s very difficult to stop Facebook from tracking you through third-party apps, Privacy International recommends:

Resetting your advertising ID regularly

This won’t prevent you from being profiled, but it can limit the details that are known about you. Android users should go to Settings > Google > Ads > Reset Advertising ID.

Limit ad personalisation

You can do this by opting out of ad personalisation. For Android users: Settings > Google > Ads > Opt Out of Personalised Advertising.

Regularly review permissions given to apps

Limit Facebook’s access to only strictly necessary information. Android: Settings > Apps > [Select relevant app] > Permissions.

Other options include installing apps which control how the other apps on your phone interact with the network and one another, such as Shelter. This allows apps to be separated into different profiles on Android, for which different advertising IDs can be used.

Phone-based firewalls like AFWall+ or NetGuard can also limit your phone’s connection to Facebook.

Ethical alternatives to the main Facebook site

If you’ve taken the above steps and are feeling the loss of Facebook in your life, there are plenty of brilliant alternatives that actually respect your privacy:

Mastodon 

Community-owned and ad-free, Mastodon also comes with a twist: rather than being a single website like Twitter or Facebook, it’s “a network of thousands of communities operated by different organizations and individuals that provide a seamless social media experience”.

It also comes with anti-abuse tools, and your feed is chronological, ad-free, and non-algorithmic. 

After Elon Musk started messing with Twitter in 2021, Mastodon user numbers jumped from 500,000 to over 2.5 million in early December, at one point gaining over 130,000 new users per day. 

However, these figures soon began to drop, possibly because Mastodon does take some getting used to compared to more accessible social media platforms. 

Friendica 

Frendica is another viable decentralized option. Privacy is its main USP, along with a long list of features. As well as integrating with independent social networking platforms (like the Fediverse or Diaspora), it also works with some commercial ones too, such as Twitter.

The latest stable release was a few weeks ago, at the time of writing. The project is run informally, with developers working voluntarily and using the platform itself to communicate. 

The source code of Friendica is hosted on GitHub.

Steemit

According to the Steemit whitepaper: 

“Steem is a blockchain database that supports community building and social interaction with cryptocurrency rewards. Steem combines concepts from social media with lessons learned from building cryptocurrencies and their communities. An important key to inspiring participation in any community, currency or free market economy is a fair accounting system that consistently reflects each person’s contribution. Steem is the first cryptocurrency that attempts to accurately and transparently reward an unbounded number of individuals who make subjective contributions to its community.”

You can find out the current Steem coin price here. 

MeWe 

MeWe is a “visionary culmination of years of determined efforts, research, and development to provide people around the world with a communication network they love and trust”.

In terms of notable features, users control who receives and views their posts. Since there is no way to boost anything on MeWe, posts are only shared with members you choose to connect with.

Its Privacy Bill of Rights promises:

• “You own your personal information & content. It is explicitly not ours.
• “You never receive targeted third-party advertisements or targeted third-party content. We think that’s creepy.
• “You have full control over your newsfeed and the order of how posts appear.
• “We do not manipulate, filter, or change the order of your newsfeeds. Only you can do that.
• “Permissions & privacy are your rights. You control them.
• “You control who can access your content.
• “You can opt out of our member directory to protect your privacy.
• “We do not sell your personal information to anyone.
• “Your face is your business. We do not use facial recognition technology.
• “You have the right to delete your account and take your content with you at any time.”

Named a 2016 Start-Up of the Year Finalist for ‘Innovative World Technology’, world-renowned thought leaders proudly serve on its advisory board – including World Wide Web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee.

Ethical alternatives to Messenger and WhatsApp

As previously noted, Messenger and WhatsApp users total roughly three billion accounts. Given the amount of data Meta collects, the furore it made about Apple’s decision to start using privacy labels makes more sense. 

Both Messenger and WhatsApp collect usage data and location details, along with users’ purchase history, financial information, location details, contacts, phone numbers, email addresses, and more. 

It’s difficult to think of many reasons why either option should be chosen over a free and open-source instant messaging app like Signal. Unfortunately, the hard part is convincing friends and family to also make the switch.

Signal

Signal is backed by the likes of Edward Snowden and offers state-of-the-art end-to-end encryption (powered by the open-source Signal Protocol), which keeps conversations secure.

It’s the most popular alternative on this list by some margin, thanks to a strong emphasis on privacy. You’ll also be able to make crystal-clear voice and video calls to people who live either across town or across the ocean, with no long-distance charges.

As for its ethical credentials, the company notes: 

“Signal is an independent nonprofit. We’re not tied to any major tech companies, and we can never be acquired by one either. Development is supported by grants and donations from people like you.”

Tox

Another solid option comes in the form of Tox.

Its “easy-to-use software […] connects you with friends and family without anyone else listening in. While other big-name services require you to pay for features, Tox is completely free and comes without advertising — forever.”

Encrypted and decentralized, “Tox is free software. That’s free as in freedom, as well as in price. This means Tox is yours — to use, modify, and share — because Tox is developed by and for the users.”

That might make it a bit too rough around the edges for some users, but it’s definitely worth mentioning. 

Telegram

Telegram is another popular alternative, with a focus on speed and security. You’ll be able to translate entire conversations, and there’s a chance that a few of your contacts might have tried it out already. It became one of the top-five most downloaded apps worldwide in 2022 and has over 700 million monthly active users, all while never paying to advertise its apps. Both a free tier and a premium subscription service are available. 

Delta Chat

A messaging app that works over email, Delta Chat allows you to write to every existing email address – even if the recipient doesn’t have the Delta Chat app. You own your data, and you can ensure that every message is encrypted. It’s something different, and it’s open source and free software. 

Ethical alternatives to Instagram

Instagram is arguably Facebook’s largest competitor, despite also being owned by Meta. Facebook bought the photo-sharing site in 2012 for $1 billion. Its estimated value now exceeds $100 billion – more than 100 times what Facebook originally paid for the site.

Once again, where to look for alternatives in the case of a massive duopoly – especially when both options are owned by the same company?

Tookapic

For a different take, Tookapic doesn’t promote endless posting. It encourages users to publish just one significant photograph on the platform per day. (This is called a 365 project.)

Tookapic also charges users at a rate of $69 per year, with a seven-day free trial. Alternatively, there’s a $9 monthly subscription. The company explains that this is “to keep the lights on”, continuing: 

“Tookapic is just a two person team. What you see here was bootstrapped from scratch. There is no big investor behind this project. And that’s good. Nobody will make us sell to a big company and leave our users with nothing. Thanks to this small monthly fee we’re able to keep the community hate-free. People who join us are 100% committed to the idea of 365 projects.”

Pixelfed

An ad-free, privacy-focused alternative comes in the form of Pixelfed: a free and ethical photo-sharing platform, powered by ActivityPub, an open, decentralized social networking protocol.

With no nefarious algorithms or third-party tracking, Pixelfed uses a chronological timeline, and is sponsored in part by the NLnet Foundation, via the Next Generation Internet (NGI), “a European Commission initiative that aims to shape the development and evolution of the Internet into an […] Internet that responds to people’s fundamental needs, including trust, security, and inclusion”. 139,000 users have joined the project so far.

Ethical Alternatives to Giphy

Launched in 2013, Giphy was originally a search engine for GIFs. Facebook bought it out in 2020, in a deal worth a reported $400m, to enhance the stickers, stories, and other products under its umbrella. 

Given antitrust concerns, the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) extended the deadline of an investigation into Facebook’s acquisition of Giphy until December 2021. In response, Facebook forcefully denied its “significant market power” in the UK’s display advertising sector – which is one way of interpreting the reality. 

The CMA eventually ruled that Meta had to sell Giphy in 2022, as the company already controls half of the online advertising sector in the UK. Now, it’s probably easier to search for a GIF manually online. 

Over to you

As Facebook continues to worm its tendrils into every corner of the internet, it may feel like it’s too big to fail. But remember what the collapse of MySpace taught us: the butterfly effect can be powerful, and if more and more people leaveFacebook, an exodus could snowball.

So if you’re unhappy with Facebook’s unethical business practices, take the first steps by deleting your profile today – and try to take a few friends with you.

For developers

If you’re a developer, there are a few extra steps you can follow to take action against Facebook:

• Remove Facebook trackers or widgets from your site – use a share link as an alternative
• Reconsider whether your app needs the Facebook Software Development Kit – if so, use its components sparingly and transparently
• Don’t allow Facebook Connect as a sign-in option on your site
• Reduce your dependency on Facebook-developed technology like React; see this guide to alternatives.

Resources: 

Organizations

• Privacy International
• Delete Facebook
• Freedom from Facebook
• Centre for Humane Technology
• Full Fact.

Further reading

• ‘Instagram Ranked Worst for Young People’s Mental Health’ (including ‘#StatusOfMind’, a report by the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) and the Young Health Movement (YHM) which examines “the positive and negative effects of social media on young people’s health”)
• ‘How Apps on Android Share Data with Facebook – Report’ 
• ‘I Cut Facebook Out of My Life. Surprisingly, I Missed It’
• ‘Facebook’s Role in Brexit — and the Threat to Democracy’ (TED Talk)
• ‘15 Months of Fresh Hell inside Facebook’.

ethical.net is a collaborative project, and that includes our guides. If you think we’ve missed something, or know of additional ethical Facebook alternatives, let us know down below and we’ll update the article.

Also in this series: ‘Amazon Alternatives Guide: How (and Why) to Avoid Amazon’.

Image credits: Ouch.pics

The post Facebook Alternatives Guide: 2023 Update appeared first on ethical.net.

Once a humble search engine, Google has morphed into one of the biggest companies in the world. “Don’t be evil” used to be part of its corporate code of conduct, but any trace of this old motto was purged in 2018.

From Android to YouTube, it’s tough to avoid its services entirely, but it’s easy to understand why you’d want to. The following guide discusses why it’s a good idea to remove Google from your life and how to do it, as well as listing some of the best ethical alternatives to its products.

The Origins of Google

The first version of Google, designed by computer scientists Larry Page and Sergey Brin, was released on the Stanford University website in 1998. Starting from a garage in California, their original mission was to catalog and organize the many pages of the internet. They nearly sold the company in 1997, but competitors like Yahoo! balked at the $1 million asking price. Instead, in 2000, Google developed AdWords, enabling the platform to be heavily monetized, with this funding allowing an expansion across a wide range of services and products over the next decade.

By the mid 2000s, Google Maps had been launched, while the purchase of Android was completed in 2005. The release of Google Chrome in 2008 was soon followed by apps like Google+ (2011) and Google Drive (2012). The company moved into cloud computing and other ventures, cementing its status as the undisputed king of the internet.

Of course, it hasn’t been smooth sailing; Google has faced a number of accusations regarding everything from monopolization to disrespecting user privacy.

Eight Reasons to Avoid Google

This list could have taken up twice the word count of this article, but here’s a rundown of eight of the main reasons to avoid Google. We’re open to further suggestions, so let us know below what we’ve missed!

1. Privacy

One of the most persuasive reasons to avoid Google stems from its blasé attitude to privacy. Each time you use its search function or one of its many services, you give away more personal information. We’re all aware that Google stores an enormous amount of data about the average user, from their search history to an advertising profile – however, you may not know just how sinister its data collection methods are.

For example, not only does your phone constantly ping your location to its servers throughout the day, smart lights inform the company of exactly when you’ve chosen to go to bed at night. Additionally, Gmail tracks users’ purchases, and footage from secondhand Nest Cam Indoor home security cameras can still be viewed even after being reset. If subsequent users can see the footage, Google can too.

In September 2019, Google was fined a record $170 million after the US Federal Trade Commission investigated how YouTube handled the user data of children under the age of 13. FTC chairman Joe Simons released a statement soon after: “YouTube touted its popularity with children to prospective corporate clients, yet when it came to complying with COPPA [the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act], the company refused to acknowledge that portions of its platform were clearly directed to kids. There’s no excuse for YouTube’s violations of the law.”

In October 2022, Google paid out $85 million to settle a privacy lawsuit after being accused of “deceptive and unfair collection, use, and exploitation of user location data”. However, the fine constitutes less than 12 hours of parent company Alphabet’s quarterly profits, so it’s unlikely to make much of an impact on its future business practices.

The only way to avoid your data being harvested by Google is to limit usage of its platforms. 

2. Censorship

As Google controls so much of what we see on the internet, censorship is a key issue for the company. It’s aware of the delicate nature of free speech, so much so that an 85-page presentation entitled ‘The Good Censor’ was commissioned in 2018. Leaked and published online by the far-right Breitbart News, the briefing gives an insight into Google’s stance on the subject. It concludes that large tech companies “are performing a balancing act between two incompatible positions”: facing pressure from governments on one side and users on the other. The frequency of censorship requests by governments is also rising, as shown in the image above.

Google was also reportedly developing a censored version of its search engine for China, which would have linked users’ queries to their phone number – a direct way of keeping tabs on individuals. The project was eventually shut down before release, “after members of the company’s privacy team raised internal complaints that it had been kept secret from them”.
In 2022, Alphabet agreed to new licensing rules to continue operating in Indonesia. The new laws “give authorities broad powers to compel platforms to disclose data of certain users and take down content deemed unlawful or that ‘disturbs public order’ within four hours if urgent, and 24 hours if not”.

3. Tax avoidance

Most people will associate Google (like Amazon) with tax avoidance. Google has repeatedly made headlines over the last decade in relation to this subject, with the UK press and government regularly combining to condemn the practice. It’s hard to blame them, considering that “Google’s UK unit paid just £6m to the Treasury in 2011 on UK turnover of £395m” – a paltry sum. Has anything changed subsequently? Not really.

In January 2019, it was reported that “Google moved €19.9bn ($22.7bn) through a Dutch shell company to Bermuda in 2017, as part of an arrangement that allows it to reduce its foreign tax bill, according to documents filed at the Dutch chamber of commerce.”

In 2022, Google paid £200 million in tax to the UK Treasury, although its total turnover was £3.4 billion.

Despite the legality of these methods, it leaves a sour taste when considering the detrimental impact unpaid tax money has on the funding of public services like the NHS, among others. Removing Google from your life will only lower its income infinitesimally, but a concerted effort from a significant portion of users would have an effect on its engorged coffers.

4. Antitrust concerns

Google is massive and has consequently faced allegations of monopolization from both sides of the pond. It’s also paid out on multiple occasions in recent years.

The European Union (EU) threw the book at Google in 2018, when it found that the company had “violated competition rules by paying phone makers to exclusively pre-install Google Search on their devices and preventing them from selling phones that run other modified, or ‘forked,’ versions of Android”. It hit the company with a $5 billion antitrust fine, and in compliance with European regulations, Android phones in the region are now slightly more flexible.

It didn’t take long for the company to end up in hot water again. In March 2019, “Europe’s antitrust regulators slapped Google with a $1.7bn fine for unfairly inserting exclusivity clauses into contracts with advertisers, disadvantaging rivals in the online ad business.”

Additionally, in September of that year, 50 US states and territories banded together to commit to another antitrust investigation, due to concerns about Google’s impact on smaller companies. They’re hoping to send a “strong message” to the giant, but it’s hard to hurt it financially when Alphabet is worth over $820 billion.

5. Treatment of employees

From the outside, Google is generally seen as a great company to work for – yet multiple concerns have been raised by employees in recent years. Two employee activists, Meredith Whittaker and Claire Stapleton, organised a mass demonstration against Google, where 20,000 workers walked out of its offices to protest the handling of sexual harassment claims. A few months later, both Whittaker and Stapleton felt that they’d been made to pay for their role in the walkout, with the former explaining in an open letter:

“Just after Google announced that it would disband its AI ethics council, I was informed my role would be changed dramatically. I’m told that to remain at the company I will have to abandon my work on AI ethics and the AI Now Institute, which I co-founded, and which has been doing rigorous and recognized work on these topics. I have worked on issues of AI ethics and bias for years, and am one of the people who helped shape the field looking at these problems. I have also taken risks to push for a more ethical Google, even when this is less profitable or convenient.”

Stapleton was told she was going to be demoted, despite being a high performer in her sector. After failed attempts to escalate to HR and her vice president, Google suggested she go on medical leave, despite having no illness. She eventually had her role reinstated after lawyering up.

It could be a series of coincidental circumstances, but it’s easy to see why Whittaker and Stapleton feel penalized for their role in the demonstration. Either way, not a good look for Google.

Neither was the news that Google had decided on mass layoffs in January 2023, cutting 6% of its total workforce. In other words, 12,000 people are now out of a job in a sector that has seen a lot of turmoil in recent months. (Thousands more have been laid off at Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta.) It’s easy to argue that this is a byproduct of the current climate, but Google earned roughly $69 billion and made $13.9 billion in profit in the third quarter of 2022.

6. Pushing AMP

I quietly ignored AMP when it first arrived on the scene. ‘Accelerated Mobile Pages’ tended to load quickly on my phone, but it was annoying if I quickly copied a link only to see a weird AMP version on my desktop.

A range of privacy experts penned a letter discussing their problems with this Google project: “AMP keeps users within Google’s domain and diverts traffic away from other websites for the benefit of Google. At a scale of billions of users, this has the effect of further reinforcing Google’s dominance of the Web.”

Considering that Google already controls much of what is seen and heard online, this is a worrying development.

7. Google’s inconsistent ethical stance, and AI concerns 

The ethics of AI is a delicate subject, one probably deserving of its own article. Of course, Google is heavily invested in AI, and has released a list of principles and objectives for its applications. It has committed to staying away from weapons tech, but admits, “We will continue our work with governments and the military in many other areas. These include cybersecurity, training, military recruitment, veterans’ healthcare, and search and rescue.”

While its technology won’t be used to actively kill people, it would be desirable for Google to ensure that its AI development is safe and ethical. It launched the Advanced Technology External Advisory Council (ATEAC) in 2019, to work on developing AI responsibly, but this was forced to close just a week later, because more than 2,000 Google employees signed a petition criticizing one of the company’s selections for council membership. The Guardian reported that Kay Coles James “has a history of fighting against trans rights and LGBT protections, has advocated for Trump’s proposed border wall, and has taken a vocal stance against abortion rights”.

Then there’s the fact that AI is seen as the next big competitor to Google Search. Take ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer), arguably the most popular example of chatbots designed to answer questions and find information. You’d be surprised at its efficiency:

It’s not perfect, but it may still end up putting writers like me out of a job in a few years!

8. (A Lack of) Diversity

In recent years, Google has rolled back a number of diversity and inclusion initiatives. ‘Sojourn’, a “comprehensive racial justice program created for employees to learn about implicit bias and how to navigate conversations about race and inequality”, was cut entirely.

NBC News reported on this in 2020; after contacting Google employees, it found that:

“Seven current and former employees from across a range of teams and roles at the company said separately that they all believed the reason behind cutting Sojourn and taking employees off diversity projects to move them elsewhere at Google was to shield the company from backlash from conservatives.”

Though the company has seen incremental positive change in direct workforce representation year on year, ethnic representation among its employees is still extremely unequal.

Ethical Google Alternatives

We’ve come up with a list of some of the best ethical alternatives to popular Google-owned products, which are split into individual sections.

Ethical Google Analytics Alternatives:

Launched in 2005, Google Analytics is a platform used to track and report website traffic, and accounts for a significant share of the market for traffic-analysis tools. 

It’s free to use, but by doing so you’ll be handing Google even more of your data. (There’s also a premium version, Google Analytics 360, which features a variety of paid tiers.) If you plan to record website traffic, it’s best to have a transparent policy about any data collected, so we’ve listed a few great ethical alternatives below:

Clicky

For web analytics, over one million websites depend on Clicky to monitor, analyze, and react to their traffic in real time. The service produces detailed reports with a range of additional data available, and you can see how its features compare with the big names in the sector here. 

It’s also compliant with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and works to anonymize visitor IP addresses by default.

AT Internet

AT Internet provides “flawless data quality powered by an advanced, ethical and user-friendly solution”. That ticks the majority of the boxes in terms of what we’re looking for, and it further notes that:

“AT Internet has always held the protection of users’ data and respect for their privacy as a fundamental value and a guiding principle. As a result, our Analytics Suite is fully compliant with the GDPR. We provide our customers with real guarantees, meeting the strictest privacy criteria.”

However, it’s worth mentioning that the company was acquired by Piano Software Inc. in 2021, for an undisclosed sum. We’ll have to wait and see whether this affects the service in the long term.

Plausible

Plausible is marketed as a simple, lightweight alternative to Google Analytics. Its script is 14 times smaller, which should mean quicker load times, and key information is stored on a single page. It’s open-source and available on GitHub, and is committed to giving users full ownership of their data. 

It’s great if you prefer a minimalist approach, and also emails users a weekly report including key stats like “pageviews, visitor numbers, top pages and top referrers for the week”.

Countly

Countly is an analytics platform that offers a chunkier experience than Plausible. You’ll still find all relevant information on a single dashboard, but with additional detail about everything from custom actions to tracking individual sessions. Countly gives users full control and ownership of their data. It’s a UK-based company, but all employees work remotely.

Fathom

Fathom Analytics provides “simple, useful website stats” without tracking or storing personal information about its users. Instead, it collects data about trends and insights, so there are no ethical ramifications about optimizing your website traffic. Everything is available via a single screen, and it’s “built on modern, cloud-based technology”.

Ethical Google Search Alternatives: 

Google’s quintessential service, its search bar helped the company to grow into the behemoth we know today.

Over the years, Google has faced numerous complaints about its search functionality. For example, there’s the use of dark patterns to get users to click on ads, or the censored version that was almost released to comply with Chinese regulations. 

After a $5 billion fine for the way Google promoted apps on the Android OS, the company allowed different search engines to be installed as default apps on its devices in Europe. It did so to meet EU regulations – but by proposing an auction, with places going to the highest bidders, its methods still raised eyebrows. 

Ethical search engine Ecosia released a response, saying that it would “not be taking part in Google’s revenue-making auction”. It continued:

“We are calling on Google to cease damaging, monopolistic behavior. Android users deserve the option to freely choose their search engine, and that choice should not be auctioned off to the highest bidder. Google has chosen to give discrimination a different form and make everyone else but themselves pay, which isn’t something we can accept.”

Ecosia

Given the strength of its stance, it’s only fair that we add Ecosia to our list of recommendations. It uses ad revenue from searches to plant trees, so is hard to ignore if you’re looking for an ethical option. Founded in 2009, the browser is completely free, and the company aims to bring reforestation to those areas which need it most. To date, it has planted over 69 million trees and counting, as well as protecting orangutan habitats and helping coffee farmers in Colombia, among other projects.

MetaGer

MetaGer states that it “protects against censorship by combining the results of multiple search engines. Our algorithms are transparent and available for everyone to read.”

In terms of the collection and use of personal information, it says: “By using MetaGer you retain full control over your data. Our anonymizing proxy keeps you protected even when you continue surfing. We don’t track.” This is backed up by its privacy policy, which transparently lists all of the information it does collect.

DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo is a nifty alternative search engine with none of the worrying privacy problems associated with Google. Your IP address isn’t stored, and your user information isn’t logged – meaning search results aren’t skewed by your history and your browsing data remains private. 

DDG is customisable, with options and themes like Dark Mode. It’s also popular, recording 1.3 billion searches per month. It takes time to disconnect from Google’s web, but DDG makes the switch painless.

Searx

Searx is another popular metasearch engine (or search aggregator): an online tool that uses the data of other search engines to produce its own results. In other words, it’s like using multiple search engines such as Yahoo!, Bing, and Google simultaneously. (Roughly 70 are supported at the time of writing.)

It’s self-hosted, and there’s no tracking or profiling of users. Searx protects the privacy of its users in multiple ways, regardless of whether they are public or private. Removal of private data from search requests comes in three forms: 

• Removal of private data from requests going to search services 
• Not forwarding anything from a third party’s services through search services (e.g. advertisements) 
• Removal of private data from requests going to the result pages.

Startpage

Startpage is headquartered in the Netherlands, so users are protected by stringent European consumer privacy laws, including GDPR. 

The service works by removing personal data such as IP addresses, while allowing the user to receive ‘“unprofiled and unpersonalized” search results. You’ll be able to browse websites privately, and search queries are never logged. It’s ideal if you want to avoid the algorithmic results seen when using Google Search.

Ethical Android Alternatives:

Google acquired the Android mobile platform in 2005 for a reported fee of $50 million, prior to its release in 2008. A great success, it proved to be a lucrative purchase. 

Android is currently the most popular mobile operating system (OS) in the world, and has held this crown since 2011. (Estimates put Android’s market share at roughly 71% during the last quarter (Q4) of 2022.)

However, in 2018, the European Commission found that Android had used its mobile OS to illegally “cement its dominant position”. The commission fined the company $5 million, and threatened “further penalties of up to 5% of its average global daily turnover” unless changes were made.

Similarly, Google was fined a further £127 million in September 2021 for “allegedly preventing smartphone makers like Samsung from using customised versions of its Android operating system” in South Korea. 

The chairwoman of the Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC), Joh Sung-wook, said in a statement that its “decision is meaningful in […] that it provides an opportunity to restore future competitive pressure in the mobile OS and app markets”.

Apple may be a slightly better option in terms of privacy (aside from its draconian walled garden), but what ethical operating systems are there?

LineageOS

How about “a free and open-source operating system for various devices, based on the Android mobile platform”?

LineageOS extends the functionality and lifespan of mobile devices from more than 20 different manufacturers, thanks to an open-source community of contributors from around the world.

It also removes a lot of bloatware, while still including many useful and essential apps such as AudioFX and FlipFlap. It also offers a range of features that aren’t available on the Android OS.

Replicant

Replicant also fits the bill: “a fully free Android distribution running on several devices, a free software mobile operating system putting the emphasis on freedom and privacy/security”. 

Replicant uses LineageOS’s source code as a base, with parts of the code reworked to remove anti-features that can spy on the user. Most importantly, Replicant does not include any of LineageOS’s proprietary components (programs, libraries, firmwares), instead providing some free software replacements. The rest of the system is also adapted so that these replacements can function correctly. However, it only runs on a few classic devices.

Purism Librem 5

The Purism Librem 5 is marketed as a mobile phone “for anybody and everybody interested in protecting his/her data, communicating privately to your loved ones, or supporting a future of protecting your digital rights”. That should be pretty much everybody, and Librem has kept its promises: the phone is built with PureOS, an open-source operating system not based on either Android or iOS. It’s the perfect choice if you’d like to stay away from this traditional duo – although it is expensive. 

There’s also now a new version, in the form of the Librem 5 USA. While it has the same features and look of the Librem 5, all its electronic components are made in the company’s US facility, and the entire phone is assembled in the States.

Ethical YouTube Alternatives:

I hate what YouTube has become. 

YouTube is undoubtedly the largest video-sharing website in the world, with content on almost every topic uploaded constantly. Yet despite being popular enough to give bigger content creators full-time jobs, the platform has faced a variety of issues over the years. 

As with Android, it was acquired by Google – for $1.65 billion, in 2006. YouTube is now another cornerstone of Google’s services, but it has been subject to problems and issues ranging from the content itself to censorship on the platform.

And, since the service has been heavily monetised, it’s almost unusable, with even 30-second videos featuring multiple ads. Maybe Google will end up killing YouTube for good, after increasingly ruining the experience with each successive update.

PeerTube

The ethical alternative most similar to YouTube has to be PeerTube. Financed by French non-profit organization Framasoft, it’s a “decentralised video hosting network, based on free/libre software”. In plain English, PeerTube is a network with many different hosting providers, and you’re free to either join or host your own. PeerTube UK is one example of a network it’s possible to join. The platform has a similar layout to YouTube, and since it was only released in October 2018, expect more features and updates in the coming months.

DTube 

DTube aims to become an alternative to YouTube, allowing users to watch or upload videos on the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) and share or comment on the immutable STEEM blockchain, while earning cryptocurrency. 

Because of the decentralized nature of IPFS and the STEEM blockchain, DTube is not able to censor videos or enforce guidelines. Only users can censor content, through the power of their up- and downvotes.

But best of all, there are no adverts. The crypto angle makes DTube slightly suspect, but it’s a viable method for circumventing the usual advert-driven business model. It’s also very similar to YouTube’s layout and overall design.

Invidious

Invidious is a browser app which doesn’t collect any data about its users. An open-source front-end alternative, it’s great if you’re not willing to give up on YouTube completely. It also supports the various search filters provided by the video hosting platform.

All you have to do to get started is select a public ‘instance’ from the list and you’ll be able to start watching videos straight away. 

Ethical Chrome Browser Alternatives:

It’s entirely possible that you’re reading this right now on the Chrome browser: another Google service that’s a leader in its field, somewhat justifiably. Personalized results make it easier to find what you’re looking for – but every interesting entry is liable to be added to your advertising profile in some shape or form.

Removing yourself from Chrome will go some way to curbing the data Google can collect about you, so we’ve listed a couple of great privacy-focused alternatives below:

Brave

The Brave browser is a fast, private, and secure web browser for PC, Mac, and mobile. (It’s also what I’m using to write this review.)

Other browsers claim to have a ‘private mode’, but these only hide the history within your own browser. Brave lets you use Tor (short for ‘the Onion Router’;free, open-source software for anonymous communication) within a tab. Tor not only hides your history, it masks your location from the sites you visit by routing your browsing through several servers before it reaches your destination. These connections are encrypted to increase anonymity.

It’s also exceptionally fast, as it blocks all ads and trackers while in use. (I’ve blocked over 200,000 adverts over a period of roughly six months, saving just under three hours in total.) 

Adverts on Brave use a crypto token called a Basic Attention Token (BAT), which is paid to the user at the end of the month. You can also choose to hide ads entirely, as I’ve done in the image above.

Tor

The Tor browser is well-known in privacy circles, as it blocks third-party ads and trackers while you’re online. Despite being blocked by some mobile internet providers, it’s perfectly safe, and the nonprofit’s mission is to “advance human rights and freedoms by creating and deploying free and open source anonymity and privacy technologies”. 

Tor was used to great effect by protestors during the 2010 Arab Spring, although the privacy features have seen it used for the sale of illegal drugs and distribution of paedophilic images. In such cases, the company will work with law enforcement agencies to apprehend those involved.

Firefox

Mozilla’s Firefox was briefly the second-most-used web browser, before being surpassed by Chrome in November 2011. At the time, Firefox was noticeably slower when loading pages, and took up a lot of memory. Though eventually overtaken by the lightweight Google Chrome, Firefox has improved massively in recent years. 

It has focused on improving privacy as well as performance, with features including Total Cookie Protection and Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS, which uses encryption for secure communication) by default. Firefox is also completely free to use, and runs on open-source software.

Safari 

The lightweight Safari browser, which has made a number of notable improvements in terms of privacy and security, is only available on Apple devices. It comes with a number of useful tools and features, such as the ability to block cross-site trafficking and ad targeting. It’s the default browser on Apple platforms, and features a built-in password manager that works across all devices. 

Performance is brilliant, as it’s designed to work with either your Mac or iPhone, producing some of the best possible speeds.

Ethical Gmail Alternatives:

Released in April 2004, Gmail is a free, advertising-supported email service. Over 1.8 billion users worldwide make Gmail the second most popular email platform behind Apple (iCloud). By comparison, just 500 million use Microsoft Outlook and only 230 million have signed up to Yahoo Mail. 

But, in a world of data-driven digital marketing, can you trust an email service owned by Google, and what ethical alternatives are available?

StartMail

StartMail is based in the Netherlands and complies with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) privacy laws – some of the most stringent regulations for the protection of consumers’ personal data.

It offers 10 GB storage, and you’ll be able to use your own domain, create temporary email addresses, and send password-encrypted messages. 

Interestingly, anonymous payments can be made with Bitcoin. As a premium service, personal accounts come in at $35.99 per year, while business accounts with custom domain support and centralized billing are also available.

Runbox

An independent, private Norwegian company, Runbox is headquartered in Oslo. The company’s email service was launched in September 2000, with key personnel from Runbox Solutions involved ever since. 

In its current form, the company was founded in March 2011, and is owned by employees, board members (77.54% in 2018), and close associates. That’s a great start, and its ethical credentials are proudly stated on its website: 

“We take our ethical responsibility seriously and will always make our best moral judgments with regards to our customers, our employees, our partners, and our shareholders. We will act ethically with regards to the principles that govern Norwegian legislation, such as human rights, freedom of speech, and environmental rights. We comply with Norwegian laws and regulations, and we will never intentionally compromise them.”

ProtonMail

ProtonMail is a Swiss end-to-end-encrypted email service protected by the country’s robust privacy laws; users’ data can’t be shared with third parties, and no personal info is required to open an account. ProtonMail is an open-source project and basic accounts are always free. It can be used without installing any additional software, and there are apps for iOS and Android to complement its web version. 

The company “[does] not have access to the contents of emails on [its] servers thanks to zero-access encryption”, while its paid plan vastly upgrades storage, as well as allowing for a custom domain name.

However, it’s worth noting that Proton made the news in 2021 after handing over the IP address of a French climate activist following “a legally binding order from Swiss authorities”. In response, the service noted:

“There is a difference between security/privacy, and anonymity. As we wrote in our public threat model (published back in 2014), ‘The Internet is generally not anonymous, and if you are breaking Swiss law, a law-abiding company such as Proton Mail can be legally compelled to log your IP address.’ This cannot be changed due to how the internet works. However, we understand this is concerning for individuals with certain threat models, which is why since 2017, we also provide an onion site for anonymous access (we are one of the only email providers that supports this).”

Tutanota

Another open-source, end-to-end-encrypted option, Tutanota claims to be “the world’s most secure email service”. However, it does collect metadata, including sender, recipient, and the date of the message. Free, with 1 GB of storage allocated to private users, its email systems are powered by green energy. Profits from the business version of its website are donated to non-profit organizations, while iOS and Android apps are available for mobile devices. You can check out the roadmap listing a range of upcoming features here.

Mailbox.org

Mailbox.org offers a combination of email and cloud storage from €1 per month. Powered by eco-friendly energy, with servers located in Germany, it was released in the wake of the Edward Snowden revelations in 2013, providing a “secure, ad-free, anonymous, and tracking-free email service”. The company goes the extra mile to ensure eco-friendliness, using options like public transport or car-sharing for travel and renewable energy in its offices. The Mailbox.org client is available on mobile and desktop, and comes with a packaged cloud office suite which can be used for editing documents and organizing appointments via an address book.

Fastmail

Fastmail is a privacy-focused company, taking aim at competitors like Gmail and Outlook with its premium service. Giving the user “complete ownership and control of their data”, calendars and contacts are available via one app, in addition to email. All users have an ad-free experience, while extra features like users’ own email domains and additional online storage are available for purchase. 

A 30-day free trial means you can give it a try if you’re not sure about paying for an email address, while basic plans come in at $3 per month.

Ethical Google Drive Alternatives:

Google Drive is a file storage and synchronization service with over one billion users worldwide. Google Docs is seen as an industry standard for many companies, as it allows anyone with an account to create, edit, and share documents and spreadsheets. Accounts include 15 GB of storage for files and images, but this is shared across Gmail and Google Photos. Though highly functional, Drive is susceptible to spammers.

Its terms of service promise not to use or share “your files and data with others except as described in our Privacy Policy”. In turn, the privacy policy states: “We use the information we collect to customise our services for you, including providing recommendations, personalised content and customised search results. Depending on your settings, we may also show you personalised ads based on your interests. For example, if you search for ‘mountain bikes’, you may see an ad for sports equipment when you’re browsing a site that shows ads served by Google.”

So though it’s free, some of your information may be used for anything from personalized adverts to general improvements to the service. 

If you’re worried about the privacy of your Google Drive data, here are a couple of alternatives:

Nextcloud

Nextcloud is a viable solution: “Unlike competitors, we offer hosting strictly through partners and have absolutely no incentive to lock our customers into a SAAS [software as a service] solution.” 

The company’s mission is to develop software for decentralized and federated clouds as alternatives to centralized cloud services. It’s 100% open source, and has a strong focus on sustainability, privacy, and security.

NordLocker 

NordLocker is developed by Nord Security, the well-known cybersecurity company which is also behind NordVPN. Its encrypted solution comes with a free, 3 GB lifetime plan, which upscales depending on the amount of data required.

It says: “NordLocker was designed to bring privacy back to you. You hold the encryption key. That’s why no one else, not even us, knows what you encrypt or store on the cloud.”

LibreOffice

LibreOffice is an offshoot of OpenOffice, created by the non-profit Document Foundation. It is a completely free and open-source office suite, available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. It includes a range of apps analogous to Google Drive’s word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation programs, plus many others. It’s also highly compatible with Microsoft Office apps and has a similar interface to that popular Microsoft service. 

There’s no real-time co-authoring, but another alternative is available if that’s a make or break feature:

Etherpad

If you’ve used Google Docs, you’ll know how handy it is to be able to collaboratively edit a project in real-time. Etherpad is an open-source online editor with good functionality and customisation options, developed by volunteer contributors on GitHub. As you can see from the image above, it’s easy to color-code different parts of a document to different authors, and there’s a chatbox for talking things out. 

Originally a Google competitor when first released in 2008, Etherpad was quickly snapped up by the giant. The software was acquired and discontinued, but later released as open-source in 2009 following an “outcry from users”.

CryptPad

CryptPad is ideal if you’re looking for a collaborative office suite that is end-to-end encrypted and open-source. 

You’ll find a range of tools, including spreadsheets, text, presentations, forms, kanban (a scheduling system for lean manufacturing), a whiteboard, and more. The software is free to use, as well as offering paid plans with additional storage and priority support for individuals, teams, and organizations.

Ethical Google Maps Alternatives:

The main ethical concern with Google Maps is arguably the privacy users have given away in the name of progress. You’ll never get lost, but if you leave the app open with location services running, Google will always have a rough idea of where you are.

OpenStreetMap

OpenStreetMap is a collaborative tool which “powers map data on thousands of websites, mobile apps, and hardware devices”. The project was inspired by Wikipedia, and is developed by millions of users. 

The service can be used positively, such as when, in the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian, “107 volunteers from around the world logged on to their computers and, over the course of five days, used satellite imagery and mapping software to identify and draw more than 1,600 roads and 9,000 buildings.” Among other examples, it also helped following a devastating earthquake in Haiti in 2010, and has worked to map Ebola-affected areas in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Its deeds speak for themselves, and as it’s classified as ‘open data’ everyone is “free to copy, distribute, transmit and adapt our data, as long as you credit OpenStreetMap and its contributors”.

Mapstr

Mapstr allows mobile users to “keep track of all your favorite places around the world, tag them, and find them on your very own map”. 

Unlike many other mapping platforms, privacy is key here, including the ability to choose what you share and with whom. Nothing is made public, including “your places, your custom places, your comments, the pictures you add, and the information you change”.

OsmAnd

Built using data from OpenStreetMap, OsmAnd provides global offline map browsing and navigation with various tools for Android and iOS. It’s ideal if you’re aiming to save data, or if you need a reliable map while you’re abroad without internet access. It’s free, but a pro version uses a subscription-based model.

Ethical Google Translate Alternatives: 

Google Translate makes it easier to understand the insults I receive online, and there’s no denying that it’s a slick piece of tech – when it works. 

It’s also improving all the time, as we’re handing the company so much of our information. However, there are still multiple ongoing teething problems, and it’s another market Google owns a significant share of.

DeepL

DeepL is a premium service available in 26 languages which you can test out for free, up to a limit of 5,000 characters. It says: 

“With DeepL’s advanced features, you can simplify your workflow, save valuable time, and scale your translation needs without compromising on translation quality.”

The pro version will translate entire documents, including alternative translations, while also offering the choice between a formal or an informal tone, and integration tools.

It also offers an offline dictionary app called Linguee, which translates various languages, including German, French, and Italian.

Ethical Google Authenticator Alternatives:

Google Authenticator uses two-step verification to provide an additional layer of security when signing in. It’s always smart to have an authenticator of some sort, but you don’t have to use the Google-branded solution.

Authy

Authy is a solid two-factor authentication (2FA) alternative. It’s completely free, with no hidden fees or adverts.

“In a nutshell, Authy is a product of Twilio, a company that makes it easy for businesses to communicate with individuals (and vice versa) by providing developers with access to complete software solutions. These businesses pay for authentications generated by Twilio’s pre-built authentication software, the Authy API [application programming interface]. The Authy app is free for end users because, in essence, it’s paid for by businesses working with Twilio to ensure you stay protected.”

Authy 2FA will work with any site that prompts you to use Google Authenticator, or any other time-based one-time password (TOTP) service.

FreeOTP

FreeOTP is a simple open-source, two-factor authentication application available on both the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store. It’s sponsored and officially published by Red Hat, and has one of the cleanest privacy policies I’ve ever seen:

Ethical Google Calendar Alternatives: 

Google Calendar isn’t the best option in terms of privacy, as it’s not ideal for the company to have even more information about the average user. Also, if you use the service for work or school, your administrator may be able to view your calendar. 

The company argues that: “Google respects your privacy. We access your private content only when we have your permission or are required to by law.”

Nevertheless, we’ve tracked down an open-source option for mobile users:

Etar

For Android users, Etar (from the Arabic إِيتَار) is an open-source calendar app available on the Play Store. (It’s also available as part of F-Droid, which we’ll get into below.)

As it explains: “On Android there are ‘Calendar providers’. These can be calendars that are synchronized with a cloud service or local calendars. Basically any app could provide a calendar. Those ‘provided’ calendars can be used by Etar. You can even configure which ones are shown and[,] when adding an event[,] to which calendar it should be added.”

Ethical Play Store Alternatives: 

What about the Google Play Store itself? The platform is used for apps and varied digital content. There are a number of external alternatives on the market, such as the Amazon Appstore, while the Epic Games Store could be strong competition in the long run. 

In the present, there is a sole alternative worth mentioning:

F-Droid

F-Droid is an installable catalog of free and open-source software (FOSS) applications for the Android platform. It’s powered by user donations and updated regularly with new features and languages. This non-profit also has a strong track record in terms of data and privacy:

“​​F-Droid respects your privacy. We don’t track you, or your device. We don’t track what you install. You don’t need an account to use the client, and it sends no additional identifying data when communicating with our web servers, other than its version number. 

“We don’t even allow you to install other applications from the repository that track you, unless you first enable ‘Tracking’ in the AntiFeatures section of preferences. Any personal data you decide to give us (e.g. your email address when registering for an account to post on the forum) goes no further than us, and will not be used for anything other than allowing you to maintain your account.”

How to Avoid Using Google

Google Search is easy to avoid, but it’s almost impossible to replace all of its products and services if you spend any time online. Business is business, but the company might have a stake in everything from the phone in your pocket to documenting your online shopping habits.

Escaping Google’s web is a tough task, but the least you can do is ensure that you’re giving it the minimum of your personal information. Its apps and services are well made, but it’s down to you to decide whether that’s worth the ethical trade-off.

We’d welcome any suggestions for apps that we haven’t covered, or additional ways to keep your data safe from Google. Check out our list of resources and organizations if you’d like to find out more!

Organisations

• Internet Society (link)
• Privacy International (link)
• Reclaim the Net (link)
• The Document Foundation (link)

Further reading

• ‘Google Will Always Do Evil’ (link)
• ‘How Tech Companies Deceive You into Giving Up Your Data and Privacy’ (link)
• Reddit: ‘r/degoogle’ (link)
• ‘Google AMP Can Go to Hell’ (link)

Featured photo by Reza Rostampisheh on Unsplash

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