Follow up post: The Individual, Identity and Ethics 2018–2019
Thank you to everyone that attended the talk yesterday on how digital society can impact on individuality, identity and ethics. John touched on many points throughout the discussion and introduced a number of topics that could be useful for your Digisoc3 assignment.
Digital immigrants vs Digital natives
Yesterday we spoke about the differences between ‘digital immigrants’ and ‘digital natives’. Digital immigrants were born before the digital age, whereas digital natives were born in the era of the digital age. This introduces a digital divide within society. The digital divide is mostly a product of the generational divide, but is also, sadly, dependent on economic status. It seems that the younger or wealthier you are, the more confident you are with technology.
Communication
Digital society has drastically changed the way we communicate. Years ago, conversations were private, opinions were heard by few and, most importantly, conversations were forgotten within days. Nowadays, celebrities are facing backlash based on statuses/tweets they posted years ago. Celebrities such as Kevin Hart, Zoella and Laura Lee have apologised for insensitive or offensive posts made in their past.
No, one could argue that celebrities are meant to be role models to their audience. How could they post such offensive tweets? But you see, many of these celebrities didn’t understand the magnitude of their actions years ago. The idea of the internet being permanent and open for people to see may not have been thought through at the time. With websites such as twitter in its infancy at the time, maybe people didn’t realise that old tweets would ever be resurfaced.
The example we spoke about was Mhairi Black, an MP for the Scottish National Party (SNP). Mhairi Black was voted in at a very young age, at just 20. Once she entered parliament, old tweets from the MP resurfaced from when we she was at school. These tweets could be labelled offensive and crude. This could have been a real source of embarrassment for Mhairi, who had to face her teenage tweets face on. It begs the question: does what we post in the past diminish our rights to change an grow as a person?
Digital Ethics
The internet appears to be a bit of a grey area in terms of legality and jurisdiction. During the session, we spoke about the cases of Ashley Maddison and The Panama papers.
The Panama Papers
The Panama Papers are leaked documents from a company called ‘Mossack Fonseca’. It revealed that numerous prominent figures, such as David Cameron and Simon Cowell, were not paying the right amounts of tax. Now, who is at fault? Who should be prosecuted? The clients, the company or the hackers?
Ashley Maddison
Ashley Maddison is a dating site for married people that gained notoriety when account details were leaked to the media. People were able to identify who was using this service. This had severe consequences for people’s lives. Not only were marriages and families destroyed, but people lost their jobs and even took their own lives. Again, who is to blame? The clients, the hackers, the company or the media?
These examples show just how complex the internet can be. It is difficult to place fault or prosecute.
‘The internet if the first thing that humanity has built that humanity doesn’t understand, the largest experiment in anarchy that we have ever had.’ — Eric Schmidt
Investigatory Powers Bill
It appears that there is increased government interference and monitoring of the internet, particularly within this post 9/11 world. It is believed that monitoring the use of the internet, or apps that utilise the internet such as Whatsapp, could reduce terrorism and radicalisation. However, not all governments have the same level of monitorisation.
The Investigatory Powers Bill is a recent act in parliament that is in place to prevent terrorism. It would require data on all UK citizens to be stored for 12 months. This bill has had a lot of backlash from the public, with some considering it a breach in privacy. Others are concerned that this data could be leaked, or their information could be hacked. Currently, this bill aka the “Snoopers Charter” is blocked.
Congress vs Sundar Pichai
During our session, we watched the CEO of Google, Sundar Pichai, being questioned by US congress. Instead of questioning Pichai about the sheer amount of data collected by the company, they continued to discuss how Google could be bias to a certain political party. This was a wasted opportunity from congress, who could have asked Pichai about how data is collected and used. They could have delved into the possibility of producing a search engine for China further, or discussed a possible opt in scheme for data collection. However, they chose not to do this and from the video we could see that the people in charge just don’t understand how Internet searches actually work.
It makes us wonder whether the leaders of society truly understands the threat of big tech companies. If not, who is truly in charge? The government or Google? It seems that the power may not be in the right hands.
Can things get better?
The internet is officially 30 years old. People have argued that the internet today is not what it was initially designed for. The internet has taken a direction which may possibly be for the worst. It seems that there are three inherent things that need to be addressed in order to improve the internet that we have today:
- Malicious intent
- System Design
- Unintentional consequence
By addressing these three key issues, the internet could be a better and safer place within the next 30 years.
What do you think?
Please leave your comments below on what you thought of the session, we’d love to see what ideas you have!
Please email digisoc@manchester.ac.uk with any questions or problems.
