Personal identity and codes of ethics in digital society
Individual identity
Identities have a crucial role in preserving self-continuity and promoting self-esteem, and recognition of self-identity can be achieved through letting people organize their knowledge about themselves and interact with society. However, whether personal identity changes in a digital world and whether the use of Information Technology affects the adjustments in personal identity in social networks is the first aspect regarding the implication of digital society that is discussed in this paper.
Free expression on the Internet
In the modern world of the Internet, everyone can hide their identities and express opinions on current news, entertainment events, texts or videos posted by Internet users in front of their computer screens. Liking, following, commenting and sharing are perhaps the most direct and common procedure in which ordinary people participate in the social network on a daily basis.
On the one hand, according to Article 10 of Human Rights Act 1998, everyone should have the right to hold their own opinions and express them freely through the Internet and social media. For example, commenting on current events on Twitter or official news websites is a form of public participation in politics, which is conducive to the development of democracy. Meanwhile, the protection of personal privacy on the Internet is also of concern. While everyone is free to express their opinions, they also have a right to ‘the protection of personal data concerning him or her’, which is indicated as a fundamental right identified in the EU law.
On the other hand, the digital world is not a place outside the law and the boundaries of online speech need to be clarified. Referring to the examples provided by Qianzi, cyberbullying and malice on the internet can threaten people’s real life. Therefore, regulations should be passed to control the behaviour of freedom of expression in order to ensure that individual and public interests are not infringed. By incorporating the EU fundamental rights charter into the UK domestic legislation, posting racist, defamatory, terrorist and other objectionable comments on the Internet is also punishable by law. However, the global regimes may lack a precise legal system along with corresponding punishment methods that have deterrent effects, which act as ‘gatekeeping mechanism’ that are limited through dynamics of network and IT restraints.
Self-image building on digital platforms
In addition to expressing one’s opinions anonymously on the Internet, people can also show their “unreal life” on social media. Instagram, Twitter, Weibo, Wechat Moments. etc, these are all software that I regularly browse every day, which are also the sources of my negative emotions. Lavish parties, excellent achievements, a bright future and so on, I seem to have become accustomed to comparing my real life with that shown by bloggers or Internet celebrities leading to anxiety and self-doubt attitude.
However, there is always a barrier between the Internet world and real life, where false marketing and self-branding strategies could exist behind the shaping of personal figures online. The media-based social comparison and frequent exposure to the media could also generate negative effects on self-esteem and self-evaluations supported by experiments. Therefore, personal subjective perception and the ability to sift through information on the internet are important. A good use of online platforms could generate a positive effect. For example, we can find suitable job opportunities and like-minded people through the LinkedIn website or APP. Connecting oneself to the online world with a positive and healthy mindset can, to a certain extent, exploit the good value of the digital world.
A uniform ethical standard?
As with the above discussion of the online environment that should also be subject to law, the second point of discussion is whether the prevailing ethical norms of society should be applied uniformly both in the real and online world.
With the advancement of technology and its gradual penetration into people’s daily lives, building a digital culture without an ethical framework may have the risks of diminishing the value of humanity. For instance, through the integration of the Internet into medicine area, there are more than 2000 websites and almost 55% of adults from the United States access the Internet to gain medical or health-related information. The ethical codes may be challenged on the Internet and potential conflicts between the codes of medical ethics and financial interests of medical companies, for instance, whether the internal link between ‘physician-patients’ should be broken or replaced by the new e-commercial relationship of healthcare ‘provider-consumer’.
Problems involving the negative impacts of cybercrimes on the Internet for medical records, the unverified quality of medical information online, the lack of standardized fees for online advice and medicine selling and so on are unresolved which require the intervention of ethical guidelines. In my opinion, despite there are differences in responsibilities of healthcare service providers online and traditional doctors in real life, the confidentiality of individual medical information should be protected and obligations to make sure the patient’s health and the public trust remain the primary concern should be preserved, where the basic bottom line of medical ethics codes are necessary to be upheld.
However, there are practical difficulties to realize the same ethical standards in both digital world and reality. The ethical risks of autonomous driving may be one of the biggest issues of ethical codes encountered in the development of AI nowadays. Similar to the classic ethical paradox of the ‘tram dilemma’, when faced with an unavoidable traffic accident, whether to prioritise the personal safety of the vehicle owner or to minimise fatalities and protect public interests is the question that needs to be considered when developing and designing software for AI driving. The application of AI in autonomous driving needs to contemplate more problems and evaluate different factors in specific situations, which requires the support of more data calculations and technologies along with the improvement of ethical and legal rules in the digital world.
Conclusion
In general, there are some differences between the real world and the online world, especially in terms of individual identity and moral principles. In the digital society, information can be contacted more quickly to meet personal needs and make our life more convenient, but it will also be accompanied by the occurrence of corresponding problems such as addiction to the Internet affecting physical and mental health, personal information leakage and so on, where the two sides of digital world are expected to be balanced in the future.
Self-reflection
After almost three years of studying a single and traditional course, I chose the Digital Society course in my final semester purely out of personal interest — a desire to gain a unique insight into an unknown field of knowledge. As I am writing this last assessment I can also confirm that my expectation is not disappointed, that I did learn a lot of new things in this course.
Firstly, as a law student, essentially all of my exam format is essay writing, and this course unlike law, is mainly a blog-based assessment which permits me to use informal language in writing styles. Also, the course gave me a lot of discretion in the choice of topics, which suggests that I could choose based on my own research interests and encouraged me to learn more about that field.
Additionally, the course has also enabled me to learn new knowledge and skills in a new area. For example, in the topic of small cities, I learned how “information and communication technology” are integrated into urban facilities to improve their quality and performance, especially the technology and citizen factors behind the three different levels of smart cities. Meanwhile, the flexibility of the course allows me to plan my personal learning progress and to ensure that I would complete the tasks at different stages through Prepare & Reflection, which is more autonomous than traditional lectures. It is also a great way to learn from peers as I can draw inspiration from their previous works when completing each assignment, constituting a unique learning experience during this course. The biggest challenge I encountered from this course and assignment is the copyright issue for the quoted images. I learned from my mistake that the intellectual property rights of others should be protected and copyright free with proper citation patterns that can be used in the blog.
Moreover, Topic 9 which focused on employability for the future digital world let me connect the digital society with the possible jobs and works in my future career. With the continuous development of artificial intelligence technology, it is worth thinking about what new jobs will appear in the future and what positions can be replaced by AI technology, as well as what types of talents are needed correspondingly. As a law student, I hope to keep up with developments in the field of artificial intelligence in my future practice and contribute to the improvement of laws and regulations in this field. My major may also be directly related to the skills needed in my future career, but the ‘transferable skills’ or the ‘higher level cognitive skills’ such as communication ability and critical thinking ability are beneficial to enhance my competitive competence in the workplace and help me ‘stand out’ as distinguished in an era of rapid technological development.
