I would first like to address the issue of the separation of form and content. I found the first reading to be very reaffirming because it confirms what I have always felt about the web. This reading response, along with all of the previous reading responses, are being hosted on neocities, a site that gives free hosting for basic HTML and CSS sites. The idea is to be a spiritual successor to geocities by providing people an easy space in which to truly control the form of digital creation.
I am using neocities because I feel like form is a key part of how my reading responses. I feel that using a different, more controlled form, such as those provided by Weebly or Wordpress, would limit my ability to affect my message. I'm also using neocities for web-based story that I am working on, for the same reason.
The interesting thing about the concept of splitting form and function is that it began as a purely technical concept. The principle is to speed up development and changes by reducing the amount of repetitious code. If you want to change the size of all the headers, it makes sense to change it for all of them at once rather than manually do it one at a time. However, this principle has been stretched to the point of not being able to alter form. Weebly is great if you don't understand programming and you need a quick website, but it prevents true control of messaging.
Yes and no.
I'm going to tackle the yes first. The internet is like a blank piece of paper. Is there some bias in the design of a blank sheet of paper? Maybe, but mostly the design is decided by practical limitations. The same is true of the underlying technology of the internet.
In that sense, and to that degree, the arguments that tech is neutral have merit. The technology of packet-switching, networking, HTML/CSS, and such are not biased in any notable way, in the same way that a lightbulb isn't biased.
The argument of neutral tech breaks down when we start discussing the uses of these technologies. For example, is the design of facebook neutral? No. Emphatically not, as pointed out in the readings. Are web surveys neutral? Again, no. The bias becomes relevant as soon as human preferences start to play a more significant role than technical limitations. As soon as humans can put their creative stamp on things, as soon as humans are allowed to make decisions based on preferences rather than necessity, bias plays a role. Tech is neutral like a mirror is neutral; it reflects us as a society and the values we hold. Tech does not reflect all of society, though; The mirror is angled by those who control it to flect certain parts more than others.
And who controls the web? Everyone who uses it, though some (like the designers at facebook, twitter, etc.) have seized more control than others. We get fed a myth by tech companies that we are not in control of the internet, that we need them to provide us with the tools to use the internet. But this myth is exactly that; a myth. If no one used facebook, facebook would not control the web. It is as simple as that.
User experience is at the core of the problem, in many ways. UX is a purely human process. The role of a UX designer is in fact to deneutralize tech as much as possible, in order to make it as human as possible. The role of the UX designer is to harness our biases to improve our experience. That role, however, is steeped in responsibility. Bias is a powerful force, to be handled with care, and examples such as badly designed forms forcing false dichotomies make this apparent.
UX can be taken too far, being used as a way to influence people in a way that removes from them the control that they should have over both form and content. There can be a tendency towards simplicity in UX theory that can actually end up removing useful parts of a design (cough cough, iPhone 7)
There is also the problem of nudging, in which users are influenced into decisions by the form and framing of their interactions with tech.