To examine ethical issues, it is first necessary to define ethics. Today, we consider ethics as a “rational process founded on certain principles.” However, I think a more applicable definition to this project is the ethical theory that existed in ancient Greece. There, ethics was the study of what was good both for the individual and for society. We will look at some problems online and how they can be good and/or bad for society. Cyberethics is simply the study of ethics on the Internet.
“Ethics begins when elements within a moral system come into conflict.”
Cyberethics is often referred to as information system ethics. Information system ethics can be defined as “The study of moral, legal and ethical issues involving the use of information and communication technologies”
There are many unique challenges we face in this information age. They derive from the nature of the information itself. Information is the medium through which the mind expands and increases its ability to achieve its goals, often as a result of input from another mind. Thus, information forms the intellectual capital from which human beings build their lives and ensure their dignity.
However, the creation of intellectual capital is vulnerable in many ways. For example, the intellectual capital of people is affected when they lose their personal information without being compensated for it, when they are prevented from accessing information that is of value to them, when they have disclosed information that is private to them or when they discover that the information their life depends on is wrong. The social contract between people in the information age must address these threats to human dignity. The ethical issues involved are many and varied in the ethics of information systems.
Ethics is necessary in information systems to overcome the following ethical problems.
Privacy: What information about oneself or one’s associations must a person reveal to others, under what conditions and with what guarantees? What things can people keep to themselves and not be forced to reveal them to others?
Accuracy: Who is responsible for the authenticity, fidelity and accuracy of the information? Similarly, who will be liable for misinformation and how will the injured party be compensated?
Property: Who owns the information? What are fair and equitable prices for your exchange? Who owns the channels, especially the airways, through which information is transmitted? How should access to this scarce resource be allocated?
Accessibility: What information does a person or an organization have the right or privilege to obtain, under what conditions and with what guarantees?
Information System Ethics explores and evaluates:
or the development of moral values in the field of information,
or the creation of new power structures in the field of information, information myths,
o hidden contradictions and intentionality in information theories and practices,
or the development of ethical conflicts in the field of information. etc
Now let’s take a look at privacy with the following examples. A few years ago, Florida lawmakers gave the go-ahead to place monitors in bathrooms at Tallahassee Community College to determine if the facility was being underutilized. Students and teachers vehemently protested that the monitors violated their privacy. State officials said the value of the information obtained through the study outweighed the threat to privacy. Other issues, such as the collection of private data from users who use the Internet through traffic control, are strongly related to the policy of each one, since that information can be used for illegal purposes. These kinds of privacy issues need to be properly addressed so that they do not exploit one’s freedom. One question I kept thinking about when I was building my website was whether it was ethical to take an image of someone’s home page and use it on my website without giving credit to the source. Such ethical issues are included in ownership.
One of the reasons why topics like online gambling and pornography have become such a storm of controversy in cyberspace is the simple fact that so many people have access to websites. Simply put, if no one had access to pornography online, no one would care. With this comes another “Censorship” issue that needs to be dealt with efficiently as it is not easy to implement. Ethical issues can also be religious, moral, or any other. These kinds of issues are not easy to deal with.
Similarly, let’s take China into consideration on the issue of “Censorship”. China has implemented Internet censorship methods that are a bit more difficult to circumvent for people who are generally unfamiliar with the way the Internet works. There is, for example, the Internet censorship implemented in China, which uses a list of prohibited words that are censored on the fly. When users in China request a web page, the incoming page is first inspected by government servers and blocked if a prohibited term such as “Democracy” is present. Human censors are also actively watching what people are browsing on the Internet and blocking websites when they see fit.
Internet crime is also increasing continuously. Computer crime is a general term that covers crimes such as phishing, credit card fraud, bank robbery, industrial espionage, child pornography, kidnapping of children through chat rooms, scams, terrorism cyber and viruses. , spam and so on. All of these crimes are facilitated and computer related crimes. Many recent cases seen as the Microsoft website were closed for a while, resulting in a great loss for Microsoft. Similarly, NUST, one of the most highly regarded universities in Pakistan, was hacked and redirected to another domain. Credit card fraud has grown increasingly. Leaking military information from the Internet is another Internet crime. Software known as Google Earth, which displays information about different locations, including military grounds or can lead to planned robberies, is becoming an ethical issue around the world. Many people protest against this information leak, but still it cannot be denied that it is one of the main improvements in information technology.
The question of how to police these crimes has already been raised, but this task is turning into an uphill battle. Since the first cybercrime law, the Counterfeit Access Devices and Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1984, governments have been trying to track down and stop criminals online. The FBI in different countries have tried many programs and investigations to detect Internet crime, such as creating an online crime registry for employers. One of the reasons is that hackers use a computer in one country to hack another computer in another country. And that criminal does not work alone. Loosely organized groups, which security experts call “web gangs,” do much of the illegal activity online. The structure of web gangs can follow the model of traditional organized crime, in which group members may never come into contact with each other and may never be aware of who they are working for.
Conclusion:
We live in an exciting moment in history. The widespread availability of computers and Internet connections provide unprecedented opportunities to communicate and learn. Unfortunately, while most people use the Internet as a powerful and beneficial tool for communication and education, some people exploit the power of the Internet for criminal or terrorist purposes.
We can minimize the damage these people do by learning ourselves and by teaching young people how to use the Internet safely and responsibly. The term “cyber” refers to a code of safe and responsible behavior for the Internet community. Practicing good cyber ethics involves understanding the risks of harmful and illegal behavior online and learning how to protect ourselves and other Internet users from such behavior. It also involves teaching young people, who may not realize the potential for harm to themselves and others, how to use the Internet safely and responsibly.