Global Internet Ethics
CSC 540 - Social, Ethical, and Professional Issues
By: Kevin Taylor
Introduction of topic
The internet has grown into something amazing since it first came available to the public. Citizens from countries from around the world are able to access countless amounts of documents, PowerPoint presentations, images, videos, and more. Due to the number of people with access to the internet and all the information within it, standards must be put into place. Today we see these standards as recommendations (from the World Wide Web Consortium [W3C]), internet standard documents (from the Internet Engineering Task Force [IETF]), request for comment documents (also from the IETF), standards from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and ECMA International, and the Unicode standard from the Unicode Consortium.
It should be noted that the above list of standards are not a list of internet rules, but more similar to guidelines or specifications. It should also be known that in attempting to develop global guidelines for internet users is the first time in history that a mutually agreed upon list was/is in development. In the attempt to do this, the progression of the world population as a whole. There is no bias when making these specifications, such as country of origin, sex, political or religious views, and so on. This shows that we, as a global population, have the ability to work together to create something great that would be able to provide us all with cooperation for one another. This leads into the question of what exactly we are trying to maintain and why should we try to maintain it.
Throughout this paper there will be an examination of several main topics. The beginning topic will be over understanding what global ethics are and why we should care. Afterwards, the first main topic of internet “laws” will be introduced. It will be discussed if there are in fact laws that govern the internet as a whole and all websites within, or if the above guidelines are all that us everyday user has to go by. Furthermore, if a standard (“law”) is broken or not followed in general, are there any repercussions or will your country allow what you have done under local freedoms. The second main topic within this paper will concern cyberbusiness in the economy today. Cyberbusiness is very popular today due to anyone being able to conduct business internationally with ease. This is good news for those countries with technology readily available, but what will happen to the counties who cannot keep up, and does this hold the possibility of a economic fallout. The last main topic of this paper will focus on the massive amount of information anyone can get to. With global education being more and more possible, should there be a limit to what can be found online. There is also the concern of online schooling in that if one is able to find all they need and more online, is there a reason to have public schooling or universities? These topics will be broken down and analyzed in this paper to hopefully inform those unfamiliar with the subject at hand.
What are “global ethics”?
What are “global ethics” and why should the concept be important? Ethics can be defined as the branch of philosophy dealing with values relating to human conduct, with respect to the rightness and wrongness of certain actions and to the goodness and badness of the motives and ends of such actions. On a global scale, this definition becomes more important in a sense. We all have morals of what is right and what is wrong, but when you go online you come in contact with people from other countries that, more than likely, you will never meet or have any contact with. With this in mind, how you act and how you treat that other person is a direct reflection of you and your home.
When you talk so someone else online you do not know who is on the other end. Some of the times it could be someone older than you, sometimes someone that is younger, and sometimes someone from halfway across the world. If you happen to fall in that last category, you will have no idea of cultural differences that could offend the other user. This can happen from direct talking or even from websites that you develop. This is where standards to create websites come into play, so that you must limit what you say. In the case of direct talking, there is no way to punish those who do the talking, however, it is possible to monitor who says what and when. There is still free speech as far as talking online goes, but buttons can be pressed that cause authorities to get involved.
Do “laws” Exist?
As stated before, there are no laws of the internet. There are, however, guidelines/standards which in theory would allow everything to run smoothly. The beginning of this paper mentioned the top contributors to the internet standardization today, which will be explored in depth now. To begin, the most notable to contribute to recommendations for internet standards is W3C. W3C creates its standards to allow web developers to maximize their potential without exploitation. To quote the W3C website directly, “The W3C mission is to lead the World Wide Web to its full potential by developing protocols and guidelines that ensure the long-term growth of the Web”. W3C was founded by the same man who invented the world wide web, Tim Burners-Lee. On the W3C website anyone is able to look up all of their current web standards (Web Design and Applications, Web of Devices, Web Architecture, Semantic Web, XML Technology, Web of Services, and Browsers and Authoring Tools).
The second committee that helps maintain internet stability is the IETF. The IETF promotes voluntary internet standards focusing in internet protocol standards (TCP and IP). According to the IETF website, “The mission of the IETF is to make the Internet work better by producing high quality, relevant technical documents that influence the way people design, use, and manage the Internet.”. The organization formed in 1989 under the United States government. Three years later they became a standards developer. Within the IETF there are sub groups that specialize in specific topics. Each group is given a respective chairperson as well as a charter which lets the members know what the main topic is and what is expected of them.
The third organization that contributes is the International Organization for Standardization, or the ISO. The ISO is responsible for publishing the standards they create with the help of the International Electrotechnical Commission, or IEC. The joint committee was created in the late 1980's to develop and maintain IT standards. A second committee was founded in the late 2000's focusing on energy efficiency, but there will be no focus on it throughout this paper. There are currently 163 countries out of the 206 countries of the world belonging to ISO and following their standards system. Anyone is able to go on their website to view their standards and even purchase copies of and standard they have in place whether it be IT related or not.
Another contributor to world standards would be Ecma International (previously ECMA). Ecma attempts to develop standards and reports that better the use of technology and consumer electronics as a whole. All Ecma International standards and reports are readily available in print or electronic. Since Ecma was established they have continuously contributed to worldwide standardization for the betterment of technology. They have published hundreds of standards and reports and over half of those have became an international standard we use today. Some examples of standards we still use that Ecma published would be the specification of ECMAScript (or JavaScript) [ECMA-262/402], the specification of C# [ECMA-334], the Eiffel programming language [ECMA-367], or the new Dart programming language specification [ECMA-408].
Can an actual law be broken online?
As seen above, there are no actual laws that are directly related to internet standards. This raises the question if it is possible to get in trouble for breaking a law in another country that might not be illegal in the country it was committed. It turns out that the country in which the action is legal would just be an example of a local law on the internet and would no be applied to everyone. This could be very confusing since the person who did nothing wrong would then be found guilty of committing a crime. After knowing this though, should it be allowed to put the person on trial for something that only another country would find to be illegal?
The short answer to this would be no, they cannot be put on trial unless the crime is of great significance. An example of this would be cyberbullying someone to the point that they commit suicide or child pornography would (or at least should) result in being arrested followed by jail time. If someone in China viewed an American website then more often than not they would view it as a violation of speech. However, in this specific case, the owner of the website in question would not get in any legal trouble for speaking his or her mind, but the website would be blocked.
Global Businesses Ethics
What has become more and more popular would be online shopping and businesses. In theory, this is great for all first-world countries since it should strengthen or even expand the economy. These countries will thrive but the other countries that may not be as technological advanced will fall further behind. This may cause no negative repercussions, however, countries attempting to gain economic strength will continue to stagger if they cannot afford the top of the line technology. This in turn could turn citizens against their government just because of small economic depressions. All of this could be prevented if the idea of international online businesses is re-evaluated. The last main issue with this would be the bridge between the rich and the poor. It could be assumed that rich countries will get to the point where the poorer countries will not matter anymore.
Global education.. good or evil?
The last topic to be covered is the ethics of global education. To elaborate, this means should all the information found online be so easy to access. Almost anyone with a computer and internet connection will be able find any book, many presentations, and any published academic journal from various databases. With this in mind, it could be possible that the use of public schools and public or private universities would serve no purpose if the same education could be had for free.
Along with gaining a academic education from online resources, anyone in the world could learn about present day news or history. This sounds very nice seeing that third world countries are less privileged than others, but the possibility of reading the wrong article will exist. A country such as North Korea (hypothetical situation, it is doubtful citizens will ever have internet access) that has citizens that go online would find many documents that conflict with everything they know. For starters, they would find that there exists many religions throughout the world and not just seeing their leader as a deity. Also they would see how the rest of the world views their country and leader as well as seeing how the rest of the world goes about its business on a day to day basis. Both academic and news articles have many benefits for the world, but the negatives could almost outweigh the positives.
Overview/closing
In closing, there exists a global set of ethics which is actually just the morals that someone possesses. There are no laws that maintain order when anyone is online, but there are standards to what you can say and there are the special cases in which you can in fact break a “local law” online that puts you in jail. There are several committees that meet to discuss the changes to standards and guidelines of programming languages, what you can put on a website, and more. On top of internet regulations, there are also the risks of having too much information online that can be accessed by anyone. This problem can be related to international business relations or education purposes. Overall, the internet is an amazing commodity that we tend to take for granted. The ethics that we use online should be thought about so that everyone is able to enjoy the freedom the internet has given the world, lest we bring down what is relied on so much.
References
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"Internet Society." Internet Society News. Internet Society, n.d. Web. 12 Apr. 2015.
"W3C." World Wide Web Consortium (). W3C, n.d. Web. 11 Apr. 2015.
"Welcome to Ecma International." Welcome to Ecma International. Ecma International, n.d. Web. 12 Apr. 2015.
Bynum, Terrell. "Computer and Information Ethics." Stanford University. Stanford University, 14 Aug. 2001. Web. 10 Apr. 2015.