Picket

We are proud to introduce Picket, the world’s first tool to enable users to coordinate website boycotts and stand up against tech monoliths.

We are all aware that tech companies exploit our privacy and sell our personal data without notice. We know that they utilize algorithms intent on inducing controversy and addiction. And we know that they constantly rely on exploitative labor, both domestically (think Amazon warehouses) and internationally.

There’s a disheartening tone of helplessness when discussing the actions and policies of these multinational conglomerates. Their services are embedded into our daily routines, so simply deciding not to use them is unfeasible. And making a stir online fails to bring change because we stand alone behind our devices, far from a mobilized front. We can’t fight injustice when we feel utterly defeated by these tech Goliaths.

BUT ALL IS NOT LOST.

Our solution is inspired by labor organizers. Just as millions of users are locked into a tech juggernaut’s services, many specialized blue collar workers have no option but to work for a regional monopsony. Yet these workers find power in numbers. Labor unions equalize the playing field, transforming lone workers deemed replaceable into an unbreakable, powerful unit with a seat at the table. These unions encourage the populace to “not cross the picket line,” not only mobilizing affected laborers but the community as a whole.

Inspired by this, we built the first digital picket line. With the click of a button, anyone can join a coordinated collective of users determined to push back against unethical tech.

Picket firewalls companies with predatory practices until they participate in negotiations to revert these policies. While a user may pass through to the site (as is, at times, necessary) there is a heavy emphasis on not crossing the picket line. Alternative sites are recommended and the user can view a full explanation of the boycott’s purpose. The aim is to boost the friction between participating users and the respective site by as much as possible. This will center the company’s missteps and swiftly crater site traffic, alarming advertisers and empowering Picket in the negotiation process.

The Commission

Just as labor unions unify under experienced union bosses, we seek to centralize decision-making under a commission of experts:

Amandeep Singh Gill As the UN Office of the Secretary-General’s Envoy on Technology, Gill’s work centers on the intersection between human rights and the digital realm.

Hugo Roy The founder of ToS;DR, Roy was the first legal analyst to comprehensively monitor tech giants’ terms of services for predatory policies.

Arvind Narayanan A professor at Princeton’s Department of Computer Science, Narayanan developed the incredibly influential Do Not Track standard and led Princeton’s Web Transparency and Accountability Project.

J. Trevor Hughes President of the International Association of Privacy Professionals, Hughes leads the world's largest privacy organization with 75,000 members in over 150 countries.

Shannon Scribner As Director of Oxfam’s Humanitarian Department, Scribner has worked on Oxfam’s humanitarian responses in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Ethiopia, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other nations.

Francesca Rossi Rossi is an influential AI ethicist, serving as the president of the Association of the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence and as the chair of the WEF Global Future Council for AI.

Frances Haugen A whistleblower, Frances Haugen disclosed several thousands of Facebook's documents to the Securities and Exchange Commission and The Wall Street Journal in 2021, exposing dangerous trends in the Facebook algorithm.

Saman Amarasinghe Professor Amarasing leads the cybersecurity research at MIT CSAIL, which is pivotal to our mission to ensure security and privacy.

Vincent Conitzer Professor Conitzer leads the tech ethics research at CMU, which goes hand in hand with our AI ethics vision.

With vastly different backgrounds, these experts unite under the commission, individually proposing boycotts and collectively determine Picket’s decision via a majority vote.

Users may also submit proposals for boycotts, and these submissions will populate the commission's feed.

How We Built It

Picket has 3 main components:

A Chrome Extension
Supabase Database Service
An Admin Dashboard

[Chrome Extension Client] <--https--> [Supabase Database Service] <--https--> [Admin Dashboard]

Tech Infrastructure: TechIInfra

Chrome Extension

Programming languages: JavaScript, HTML, CSS

The Chrome extension provides the interface to implement the digital picket line. We decided to create a chrome extension because it gives us complete control over any webpage on the user’s browser.

When a webpage is accessed, the chrome extension identifies the site’s hostname. It then makes a request to the Supabase database service to check if there is an active boycott ongoing for the particular hostname, If there’s an on ongoing boycott, the pop-up interface is shown to the user with information about the boycott, some alternatives to try and a means to cross the picket line.

In addition, the Chrome extension also allows users to propose a boycott. We provide an easily accessible form where they enter the site they want to propose a boycott for and the reason for the boycott. The data is then served to Supabase to be accessed by our admin dashboard.

Supabase Database

Supabase provides an excellent serverless database infrastructure for small, highly scalable, and read-heavy applications like Picket. We were able to reduce the operational complexity of our project by relying on Supabase’s Postgres DB and JavaScript API to quickly and securely store user vote information. Supabase provides worldwide replication of the data, allowing users from across the planet to use the extension. In addition to this, Supabase has excellent authentication features which we were able to use to quickly create user accounts.

Database Schema: Supabase Database Schema

Admin Dashboard

Programming languages: React.js

The admin dashboard allows our experts to manage, vote on and propose boycott proposals. Each boycott proposal has the following schema:

{
           "header": String, // the title of the boycott
           "numUsers": String, // number of users participating in the boycott
           "site": String, // the sitename where this boycott is proposed
           "advocatesLink": String, // a link to the expert about the boycott
        "creator": String, // Name of the boycott’s proposer
           "alternatives": [ // a list of alternatives
               {
                   name: String,
                   link: String
               },
            ]
       },

When the experts vote on a proposition, the percentage of “yes” votes is dynamically calculated. When that percentage crosses 50%, a function adds the boycotted site to the list of active boycotts. This change is immediately reflected on all the chrome extension clients.

Because this is a read-heavy application, Supabase’s CDN helps us scale this implementation. With the CDN available on every Chrome client, we eliminate the need to host a webserver to handle read operations. All read operations happen directly from client to Supabase.

What's Next?

After polishing Picket, we aim to establish a proper commission (first contacting those listed above) and then spreading the word to as many people as possible. The more users that join the picket line, the greater our ability to advocate that these tech giants act ethically.