Ethics of the Internet
Are there any? Should there be? And who decides?
By Diara J. Townes
Ethics are the principles that guide our behavior, focusing our ability and willingness to have a positive impact in our lives and in the lives of others. It underlies our value-based decisions, from the day-to-day to the life-altering, and relies on individual and collective moral reasoning and intent. As philosophers (and college professors) have discussed for centuries, an ethical framework is key for a just, equitable and sustainable society.
Ethical principles exist across industry and institution. There are codes of ethics for doctors, journalists, and clinical researchers. There are guiding principles for law enforcement, the economy, and even global corporate sustainability. And while there are legal, regulatory and policy boundaries for the internet and tech companies such as the Federal Communications Commission which focuses on business activity and accountability, and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which focuses on platform immunity from the repercussions of user posts, there is — to date — no consensus on a set of principles that should guide internet behavior and activity.
Regulation of Big Tech — including efforts to strengthen data protection and user privacy, protect children online and curb mis and disinformation, among other critical issues — continue to evolve as academic research and whistleblower leaks continue to reveal more questionable tech company behavior.
So what determines ethical behavior and activity online? How are our collective and individual lived experiences affected by a lack of digital ethics? And who should be held accountable when there are ethical violations that negatively affect historically marginalized groups and disenfranchised communities?
While not an exhaustive list, what follows is a timeline of work on internet ethics, governance and principles.
- The question of internet ethics publicly started more than 30 years ago when the Internet Activities Board (IAB) published a memo on ethics in internet computing in 1989. This volunteer-led organization stated that “Access to and use of the Internet is a privilege and should be treated as such by all users of this system.” This work defined both the role of the government and the user in the evolving cyberspace.
- In 1992, Dr. Ramon C. Barquin wrote out a set of principles for ethical computing called, “In Pursuit of a ‘Ten Commandments’ for Computer Ethics,” based on the IAB’s memo. He modified their approach to reflect “a set of standards to guide and instruct people in the ethical use of computers.” Barquin’s approach left out a significant issue of nuance, and has received its due criticism.
While the first computer commandment addresses the use of a computer to harm others, what about their files? If that person is using the internet to participate in criminal activity that could cause harm or be otherwise deemed unethical, are their files still considered private? This third ‘commandment’ runs up against the concept and activity of white hat hackers, and is thusly outdated.
- In 1994, Virginia Shea released the Core Rules of Netiquette, a model for describing responsible behavior when communicating and participating in digital spaces, outlining the do’s and don’ts of online communication.
Even with these models, Barquin’s computing commandments and Shea’s ‘netiquette’ rules were built on an assumption of equity in access and impact. It didn’t and couldn’t address the causes and implications for the world’s growing digital divide and environmental impact.
- In 2012, a Declaration for Internet Freedom was issued by the Free Press organization and endorsed by more than 1,500 signatories in government, technology and civil society, including Amnesty International, the Mozilla Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union. They believed in five guiding principles that would both “celebrate and seek to protect the core features of the Internet that have made it such a powerful global platform for free expression and innovation.”
- This declaration was quickly challenged by an alternative set of principles of the same name. Issued by several smaller-scale tech and digital liberty organizations, they believed the original declaration would green-light additional government interventions that historically favors capitalistic governance and neocolonialism models. Their eight principles were underscored by the idea that “what truly matters to Internet policymaking today is the process of technological evolution, not the end result.”
- In 2014, the Internet Rights and Principles Coalition (IRPC) produced a report outlining 10 Internet Rights & Principles. The IRPC is an open network of individuals and organizations based at the United Nations Internet Governance Forum and their primary work revolved around “translating existing human rights to the internet environment to build awareness, understanding and a shared platform for mobilization around rights and principles for the internet.”
- In 2015, following the IRPC’s work, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) published their report, Principles for governing the Internet: A Comparative Analysis for their Series on Internet Freedom. They identified more than 50 Internet-specific declarations and frameworks relevant to Internet principles, with 19 items relating specifically to the need for ethics or addressing unethical behavior. UNESCO leveraged a definition from the 2005 World Summit on the Information Society: “…Internet governance is the development and application by governments, the private sector and civil society, in their respective roles, of shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures, and programmes that shape the evolution and use of the Internet.”
- Most recently, the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University has taken on the work of studying technology and internet ethics, among other areas of ethical consideration. While the center was established in 1986, prior to even the IAB’s memo, Irina Raicu, director of the Internet Ethics program, discussed in 2017 how they determined their principles by asking the following critical questions:
“Will this produce the most good and the least harm?”
“Does this respect the rights of all of the relevant stakeholders?”
“Does this treat people fairly?”
“Does this serve the community as a whole, not just some of its members?”
“Does this lead me to act as the sort of person I want to be?”
- In 2019, Ray Klump, associate dean of the College of Aviation, Science, and Technology at Lewis University, reviewed the applicability of the computer ethics commandments, redefining the effort in terms of the Mozilla Foundation’s Internet Health Report, which turns to experts around the world to answer the question: “What can be done to make the internet healthier?” The annual report elevates voices, research and solutions around five key themes: decentralization, privacy and security, openness, web literacy, and digital inclusion.
Issues around equity and access are highlighted by the IRPC, the Mozilla Foundation and several frameworks from the extensive UNESCO report, but highlighting problems and recommendations for solutions isn’t the same as implementing solutions. And with a third of the world’s population still offline, usage of the internet and the harm and danger experienced by vulnerable communities will only increase.
Still, even with the decades’ long effort to define and establish internet ethics, Big Tech mottos such as ‘move fast and break things’ and “don’t be evil,” paired with competitive market practices such a limiting interoperability, have acted as the internet’s guiding principles. Just and ethical design of artificial intelligence and algorithms is often applied as an afterthought or in reaction to harassment, community damage and demands for change. And only recently has practical consideration been given for the environmental impact of powering the internet and its mechanics, as Northwestern University Associate Professor Moya Bailey artfully described in her Just Tech essay. An equitable, digitally-connected environment relies on “sustainable and non-exploitative internet infrastructures that attend to the people and resources throughout the digital supply chain.”
If the current version of the internet is unable to align or comply with our evolving ethics and principles and reflect its role and moral responsibility in society, then perhaps we need to investigate what framework actually surrounds our shared digital space. Several organizations are working to explore and build new frameworks, guardrails and the like, encouraging meaningful changes in tech and internet spaces, such as the Center for Countering Digital Hate, All Tech is Human, Partnership on AI and the ACLU.
Its in this vein of centering ethics around collective equity that I am turning to Burning Man’s 10 Principles to illustrate what our future internet community could look like. These principles are an ethical framework for all stakeholders-participants and organizers during the event, and the Default World the community returns to at the end of the temporary communal experience. Its a practice whose efficacy is based on consensus and whose implementation is transparent, in that everyone’s a practitioner.
“No Spectators” is the motto for this radical desert experience, an expression that directly rebuffs this long-held internet activity of lurking (turned-cyber-stalking). At Burning Man, everyone is a participant and has a responsibility, from scrambling eggs for camp breakfast to hammering rebar into the earth for the community shade structure.
In our future internet, all stakeholders are expected to take up a role, from the corporate leaders of industry to the local librarian. Just as a curious first-time Burner, people will make the leap from “lurker to poster,” joining the discussion and ensuring our individual and collective internet experiences align with our established ethical framework. And rather than viewing our interconnected world from a global perspective, we could pivot our lens to the community level, as Bailey described and as Burning Man has demonstrated with its Black Rock City camps and regional Burns.
Despite inaccurate or overblown interpretations by Insta-flashy ‘SiliBros’, this is not a party in the desert. Its a communal experience that depends on its members committing to the 10 Principles to be a success. Similar to the original role of the government and tech companies in the early days of the internet, BMOrg builds and maintains the infrastructure for the city. Like the Burners, they strive to make appropriate changes and value-based decisions to ensure the city is a just and equitable space.
The last 30 years have seen an evolution of our internet ethics and principles to meet the newest iterations, interactions and innovations of the net. And society has adapted around those changes, for better and for worse. Let’s design collaborative ethical frameworks and make the internet and tech space evolve instead.
