The Anti-thesis Principle
Alerta exists to prevent civic harm. This is its first purpose and the rule that orders all subsequent decisions.
The platform forgoes competition for the attention of those who use it. The measure of Alerta's success is the civic action that occurs outside the platform as a consequence of what occurred within. Prolonged screen time constitutes a signal of operational failure.
The following mechanisms are explicitly prohibited: persuasive notifications oriented toward retrieving the absent user; retention metrics converted into product objectives; gamification designed to maximize interaction; variable reward intervals characteristic of addictive design; and any functionality whose primary justification is the increase of usage time.
When a product proposal enters tension with this article, the article prevails. The decision to withdraw a feature for incompatibility with the Anti-thesis Principle requires no additional demonstration; the concurrence of two members of the editorial council suffices.
Commentary
This article fixes the boundary that separates Alerta from the attention economy. The platform recognizes that civic technologies exist whose business model coincides with that economy, and that such a model produces, over time, a predictable degradation of voice, content and public trust. Alerta forgoes that trajectory from its origin.
The name of the article (anti-thesis) responds to a philosophical tradition that opposes one position to another in order to produce a subsequent synthesis. The anti-thesis indicated here is that of persuasive design: Alerta is born as an explicit counter-proposal to a generation of digital products that confuse activity with value.
Cross-references
- Article III · Reciprocity as antidote to extraction
- Article X · Algorithmic agency respects this principle
- Chapter VI · Saphi Intelligence operates under this limit