Digital Media Ethics

Charles Ess

• Publisher: Polity
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781509533459
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Sozialwissenschaften
• Subtopic: Popkultur

The original edition of this accessible and interdisciplinary textbook was the first to consider the ethical issues of digital media from a global, cross-cultural perspective. This third edition has been thoroughly updated to incorporate the latest research and developments, including the rise of Big Data, AI, and the Internet of Things. The book's case studies and pedagogical material have also been extensively revised and updated to include such watershed events as the Snowden revelations, #Gamergate, the Cambridge Analytica scandal, privacy policy developments, and the emerging Chinese Social Credit System. New sections include "Death Online, " "Slow/Fair Technology", and material on sexbots. The "ethical toolkit" that introduces prevailing ethical theories and their applications to the central issues of privacy, copyright, pornography and violence, and the ethics of cross-cultural communication online, has likewise been revised and expanded. Each topic and theory are interwoven throughout the volume with detailed sets of questions, additional resources, and suggestions for further research and writing. Together, these enable readers to foster careful reflection upon, writing about, and discussion of these issues and their possible resolutions. Retaining its student- and classroom-friendly approach, Digital Media Ethics will continue to be the go-to textbook for anyone getting to grips with this important topic.

chapter one
Central Issues in the Ethics of Digital Media

Morally as well as physically, there is only one world, and we all have to live in it.

(Midgley [1981] 1996, 119)

Chapter overview

We open with a classic case-study of cyberbullying that introduces representative ethical issues evoked by digital media. This case-study is accompanied by one of the primary pedagogical/teaching elements of the book – questions designed to foster initial reflection and discussion (for individuals, small groups, or a class at large), followed by additional questions that can be used for further reflection and writing.

After an introduction to the main body of the chapter, the section “(Ethical) life in the (post-)digital age?” provides a first overview of digital media and their ethical dimensions. I also highlight how more popular treatments of these, however, can become counterproductive to clear and careful ethical reflection. We turn next to some of the distinctive characteristics of digital media – convergence, digital information as “greased,” and digital media as communication technologies – that occasion specific ethical issues treated in this volume. We then take up initial considerations on how to “do” ethics in the age of digital media. Finally, I describe the pedagogical features of the book and provide some suggestions for how it is designed to be used – including specific suggestions for the order in which the chapters may be read.

Case-study: Amanda Todd and Anonymous

When Amanda Todd was 12 years old and “fooling around” with friends, including someone looking on via a webcam, the someone asked Amanda to show him her breasts. She lifted her top: the result was a video and pictures that began circulating on the internet – distributed in part as her stalker would develop a new Facebook profile when Amanda moved to a new school. Once friended with Amanda’s new friends, the stalker would distribute the video and photos again, as well as send them to teachers and parents. One of the consequences of the online stalking was offline bullying – not unusual for young adolescents, but now laced with taunts of “porn star” (Bleaney 2012). At one point, Amanda made her first suicide attempt: part of the online response included a series of “jokes” facilitated by tumblr.

Her stalker did not go away, and Amanda’s responses became more and more desperate. In September, 2012, she posted a video on YouTube that described her experience (www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRxfTyNa24A). On October 10, Amanda, now 15 years old, committed suicide. Her death – including her video – attracted significant attention: by February, 2013, it had logged over 4 million views, and has now been seen by tens of millions. Alongside the initial official investigations, the group Anonymous claimed to have identified her stalker and published his name and address: not surprisingly, he received death threats. Meanwhile, “Amanda Todd jokes” – and, presumably, the original pictures and video – continue to circulate online (Warren and Keneally 2012).

first reflection/discussion/writing questions

Amanda Todd’s experience of cyberbullying has become a classic case and example in digital media ethics, in part because of the multiple issues and responses it entails. In addition to cyberbullying, we will explore the privacy issues it raises in chapter 2. We will also take a look at two additional topics evoked here – namely, the risks of “moral panics” in media reporting on such events, and new forms of “vigilante justice” facilitated by internet-connected digital media.

1. Given your experiences – and those of your friends and family – how do you react to Amanda Todd’s suicide after some three years of cyberbullying? For example, does it seem to you that this is indeed a serious problem for those of us living in “a digital age” – i.e., as immersed in a world of digital media more or less seamlessly interconnected and interwoven with our offline lives? Remember here that part of Amanda’s difficulty was that, while she could – and did – physically move and change schools, her stalker was always able to find her again easily through her online profile and activities.

(A) Insofar as you agree that such cyberstalking is problematic – make a first effort at identifying more precisely just what’s wrong here. Of course, there are a wide range of ethical points you can make – beginning with the exploitation (including sexual exploitation) of vulnerable persons (certainly including young girls, but plenty of young boys get bullied as well) by more powerful ones. Moreover, it seems clear that, if Amanda deserved privacy and anonymity – as we will see, argued by deontologists as basic rights of persons – she was not able to have such rights in her online environments. As a last suggestion, what about the ongoing taunts and “jokes” that circulated – and still circulate – in connection with Amanda’s video and suicide: are these sorts of responses ethically problematic, in your view, and/or, as a utilitarian might argue, simply the price to be paid for free speech online?

(B) Whatever your responses to “(A),” now go back and do your best to provide whatever reasons, grounds, feelings, and/or other sorts of claims and evidence that you can offer at this stage to support these first points.

2. A common phenomenon in reporting on new technologies in “the media” is that of a “moral panic” (Drotner 1999). That is, stories are often developed around sensational – and so very often the sexual – but risky possibilities of a new technology. Sometimes a panic ensues – e.g., cries for new efforts somehow to regulate or otherwise restrain clearly undesirable behaviors and consequences. Such panics are not always misplaced: they can sometimes inspire responses and changes that may effectively improve our social and ethical lives. But for us, the difficulty is that such a “moral panic” reporting style has us frame (if we don’t think about it too much) new technologies and their possibilities in an “either/or” dilemma: we are caught between having to reject new technologies – e.g., as they lead, in this case, to the stalking and suicide of a young girl – or defending these technologies wholesale (as, for example, the US National Rifle Association finds itself compelled to do in the wake of every new school shooting: Pane 2018).

Reflect on some of the examples of media coverage given here, as well as others that you can easily find on your own, perhaps with the help of the Wikipedia article on Amanda Todd (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_of_Amanda_Todd). Compare these more popularly oriented accounts with more empirical research on cyberbullying, e.g.:

Sonia Livingstone, Lucyna Kirwil, Christina Ponte, and Elisabeth Staksrud (2014). In their own words: What bothers children online? European Journal of Communication, 29(3), 271–88. DOI: 10.1177/0267323114521045.

Global Kids Online (2018). http://globalkidsonline.net/2018_summary.

The Pew Research Center. www.pewinternet.org/2018/09/27/a-majority-of-teens-have-experienced-some-form-of-cyberbullying.

Given the realities of young peoples’ experiences online (which, be sure to notice, vary considerably from country to country), does it seem to you that more popular coverage provides a much needed and useful service in calling our attention to the sorts of social and ethical problems that new media make possible? And/or: do you see any risks here of such coverage falling into a “moral panic” style of reporting? Either way, the key point is to provide evidence – including examples (carefully cited, please) that support your claims and observations.

3. Especially in the face of what seems to be (a) the clear injustice of stalkers and pedophiles using internet-connected digital media and the sorts of anonymity afforded in online communication, including popular social network sites (SNSs), to harass young people to the point of suicide, vis-à-vis (b) at least the initial inability of “traditional” law-enforcement agencies to identify and track down such perpetrators, it is tempting to applaud the efforts of Anonymous to do what the authorities apparently can’t. But, in this instance, rather than speeding up justice, the “trial by Internet” – beginning with the “outing” of the alleged stalker online, followed by quick condemnation – resulted in a second injustice. Despite their prodigious hacking abilities, Anonymous apparently erred, and the wrong man was targeted with death threats and other harassment (Warren and Keneally 2012).

(A) How do you respond to this set of problems? That is, does it sometimes seem justified for groups such as Anonymous to intervene in such cases – i.e., when the legal authorities initially appeared to lack the technical sophistication needed to track down stalkers such as the one who pursued Amanda Todd? And/or: might the risks of such “trial by Internet” – beginning with the erroneous accusation of the wrong person – outweigh its possible benefits (such as – occasionally – getting the right person when the authorities can’t)?

Again, the key point is to provide support for your claims and observations, beginning with evidence (e.g., how often does a group such as Anonymous succeed where others fail?) and arguments that will hold up to critical scrutiny.

(B) In January 2014 (slightly over a year after her suicide in October 2012), Dutch police arrested Aydin Coban. Amanda Todd is alleged to be but one of his more than 30 victims; following Coban’s trial and conviction in the Netherlands on charges of internet fraud and blackmail, he is to be extradited to Canada to face charges related to the Amanda Todd case (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_of_Amanda_Todd).

How do these subsequent developments affect or change (if at all) your initial reflections and arguments above on Anonymous and “trial by internet?” For example, given these more promising outcomes through the work of law enforcement authorities – when given enough time – what happens to initial (more short-term?) arguments in favor of “trial by internet?” Alternatively: what if, in the subsequent seven years following Todd’s death, these authorities had in fact failed to come up with a likely suspect and evidence to bring him or her to trial? The larger point here is to begin to reflect on how far into the future our ethical decision-making must stretch – e.g., in order to consider possible consequences several years down the road that might affect our current ethical decisions and judgments. (This is an important consideration in the discussion of utilitarianism in chapter 6.)

Introduction

Most certainly, in the industrialized world, our lives are inextricably interwoven with what are sometimes called “New Media” or digital media. Current generations are sometimes referred to as “digital natives,” indicating that they have been born into and grown up in a world saturated with these technologies. More broadly, an influential European Commission “Digital Futures” project used in its title the term “Onlife,” as developed by information philosopher Luciano Floridi (2015) to highlight how the once distinct domains of “life online” and “life offline” are now (more or less) seamlessly interwoven in an “Onlife.” At the same time, contemporary media coverage of digital media frequently highlights important, often frightening, ethical issues these entanglements entail. Beyond our opening examples of cyberbullying and “trial by Internet,” it is easy to find stories highlighting how violence in games appears to lead to horrific, real-world violence, ranging from school shootings to the July 22, 2011, killings in Norway, including 69 young people on the island of Utøya (Daily Mail Reporter 2012). Similarly, the long-standing debate over whether pornography consumption results in increased sexual aggression, especially toward women and girls, continues (e.g. Wright, Tokunaga, and Kraus 2016). More broadly, numerous episodes and developments have forced attention to how our immersion in digital media technol...