Prosocial Design Values in the Global Majority: A Pro-Social Recap

When Julia first met Sabhanaz Rashid Diya at a small conference last year and mentioned Prosocial Design Network, Diya immediately asked: "How much of the research that you aggregate is from the Global South?"

It was refreshingly direct and showed that Diya is someone who gets straight to the point. That exchange set the tone for a thoughtful conversation about how assumptions in prosocial design can overlook values outside the West, such as collective rights and social cohesion, and how the field might better reflect the diversity of global perspectives in its work.

Diya has a broad background across journalism in Dhaka, global nonprofit work, philanthropy, and most recently as Head of Public Policy for Bangladesh at Meta. She currently leads Tech Global Institute. Her experience means she has seen how Western frameworks influence the design of technology used worldwide, particularly in places that did not shape those frameworks.

Which Internet Are We Talking About?

Diya opened by challenging the idea of a single unified internet. Instead, she described four dominant paradigms:

1. a Silicon Valley internet focused on innovation, speed, scale, ship first and fix later
2. a DC internet shaped by markets, US case law, and the courts that define acceptable speech
3. a Chinese internet driven by sovereignty and national control
4. a European internet grounded in compliance, accountability, and human rights jurisprudence

These value systems shape product decisions, content policies, safety expectations, and regulation. Despite the fact that much of the world accesses the internet from the Global South, China is the only model originating from there, but it stands apart as a unique case and isn’t representative of the broader region.

A Practical Example: How Nudity Rules Break Across Cultures

Diya used nudity moderation as a way to show how Western frameworks fail when applied universally.

In the United States and Europe, the conversation focuses on classification: how much nudity counts, what artistic exceptions mean, and ongoing nipple debates. 

But in South Asia, the issues are much different. Even mild or implied nudity can put the woman depicted at physical risk. A policy built for Western social norms can unintentionally endanger women. In parts of Africa, meanwhile, nudity is a part of heritage and cultural expression, and it defies European and US norms around nudity. Applying US and European standards can reinforce colonial norms rather than reflect local ones. One global rule can fall apart when applied in different regions. It is a clear example of how responsible tech cannot rely on universal defaults without local input.

Is The EU Model The Best We Have?

The Digital Services Act (DSA) often comes up as the current benchmark for platform governance. Diya acknowledged that Europe has moved furthest on transparency and accountability, largely because Silicon Valley and DC models have not protected users well.

She also encouraged caution about assuming the EU model can be simply copied elsewhere. The DSA works within an environment that includes strong courts, civil society, and institutional checks, upheld by mechanisms like the European Court of Human Rights, oversight and enforcement by the European Commission, political coordination through the European Council, and an active civil society ecosystem of digital rights organizations. 

Transplant the same rules to a context without those structures and the result can shift from safety to repression. Data access requirements could enable surveillance. Local representation rules could increase state pressure on platforms. As Diya noted, the DSA assumes an environment with the “might and strength and precedence set by the European Court of Human Rights”. In places where those protections do not exist, a law designed for accountability may instead become a tool for repression and political control.

The lesson: what works in Europe may not translate without adaptation.

Rethinking Privacy And Stewardship

Another point Diya raised was how Western frameworks often assume privacy is an individual right. In many parts of the world, privacy is understood through a collective data governance model, where information belongs to and is managed by the community, not the individual. In Indigenous contexts, this is tied to stewardship and shared responsibility. In other regions, the state is seen as the steward for privacy, and the expectation is that the state will keep people protected.

Diya stressed that none of this is inherently better or worse than the individual rights model. It is simply a different value system reflecting different understandings of responsibility and protection that are often missing when responsible tech is framed through a Western lens.

Where To Begin Bridging The Gap

No single global regulatory model is likely. But Diya offered three ways to reduce value conflict in design and governance.

1. Question the assumption that scale requires uniform policy: Platforms already deal  with distinct compliance regimes in the United States, European Union, and India. Localization is possible, even if it is not always convenient.
2. Bring Global Majority participation in at the definition stage: Not only during implementation. Who defines harm shapes what interventions follow. Many harm taxonomies are created without voices from the majority of the world’s users.
3. Think in terms of communities, not only countries: Shared value systems sometimes map more closely by socioeconomic experience than by country. A New York parent and a Jakarta parent may have more in common than two neighbors in the same city.

Diya closed by noting that we are unlikely to reach a point where all values can be accommodated, but through deliberative, co-creation processes we can reduce how far they drift apart.

Watch the full conversation with Sabhanaz Rashid Diya:
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About the Prosocial Design Network

The Prosocial Design Network researches and promotes prosocial design: evidence-based design practices that bring out the best in human nature online. Learn more at prosocialdesign.org.