When Ethics Fail to Translate to Events in the Virtual World or the Internet Ethics Blues
Originally printed 12/20/01
Joyce Kasman Valenza
Last night I went to sleep with a bad case of the low-down, disappointed Internet ethics blues.
The news people on NPR were talking about the proliferation of Pro-Ana (anorexia)/Pro-ED (eating disorder) sites. They reported that young women suffering from life-threatening conditions are offering a dangerous new brand of support and tips on how-to maintain and disguise their illness from friends, parents, and doctors.
I went to school and tested how easy the Ana sites and chat groups were to find. Though, due to political pressures, many have recently been purged from major hosts like Yahoo, I was able to locate scores of sites celebrating "the life style" on my first search. The Pro-Ana Commandments appeared on several sites.
Highlights of this document include: "If you aren't thin you aren't attractive; Being thin is more important than being healthy; You must buy clothes, cut your hair, take laxatives, starve yourself, do anything to make yourself look thinner; Being thin and not eating are signs of true will power and success."
I was at the peak of my worrying when . . . I noticed two girls, whose school pictures I had helped to scan the day before, in the process of uploading those photos onto a picture rating site. Their plan was to finish the upload and pass study hall rating the faces of the young men on the site. I discouraged them. We talked about things like kindness and valuing people for more than their looks.
I phoned my college daughter for her take on all this. She noted that this was just one of a genre of online rating services. "It's common practice," she said, "to post pictures of people you know without their knowledge and expose them to criticism and potential public ridicule."
Another friend told me about a site that, in addition to being highly insulting to homosexuals, solicits damaging stories about students, teachers and administrators.
After lunch . . . An English department colleague stopped by with what she believed was a plagiarized paper. We checked a few blocks of text in a full text search engine. Indeed, it was taken word for word from a Web page and it wasnšt at all difficult to track. Did the student really think we wouldnšt follow up on suspicions?
Later that afternoon . . . I walked up to a student displaying obvious frustration while sitting at a workstation. I asked if I could help. "Mrs. Valenza," he whined, "my dad didn't buy the whole Microsoft Office suite. I just need PowerPoint, and I can't seem to download it from the network. Can you help?"
At the end of the school day . . . I sat down to check my email. Among the business stuff was an entirely unsolicited "special offer" hawking the łbest hacking tools ever released." The specials included computer bombs, viruses, software serial numbers, and Trojan horses. The email promised that I could "gain total control over any PC connected to the Internet" and that I could "flood ANY cell phone." I was promised access to "6000 of the most dangerous viruses in the archive." The email suggested, "send them to your enemies or infect your local school network! I LOVE YOU, Melissa, they are all online in our archive!" If the message wasnšt kid-generated, it was clearly kid-focused. The last time I spent a lot of time investigating the hacker subculture I was convinced (well maybe almost) that my student hackers were merely motivated by a challenge to explore, discover secrets and never, ever wanted to be noticed, and generally meant no real harm.
I reported this email to the National Infrastructure Protection Center and my local FBI office.
So I am feeling dejected and disappointed and intensely blue.
We are dealing with a wide array ethical issues relating to information technology. Is the perceived anonymity afforded by information technology creating an environment where students arenšt "doing the right thing" because they sense no danger of getting caught? Are students doing online things they wouldnšt ordinarily do in a face-to-face world? Are the values we try to instill in our children translating clearly to a virtual world?
"When students start using technology, they start operating in a new world: a virtual world," said my colleague Doug Johnson, an expert on information technology ethics, who defines an ethical action as łone that does not have a damaging impact on oneself, other individuals, or on society.˛ In the virtual world, Johnson believes that "behaviors may not be as easily judged to be right or wrong. One of the most significant reasons that computer ethics deserve special attention is because of our rather human ability to view onešs actions in the intangible, virtual world of information technologies as being less serious than onešs actions in the real world."
My guess is the student who needed PowerPoint would never think to walk into the local office super store and actual steal the box. My guess is the hackers would probably never consider breaking into our labs with a hammer and bashing our monitors. The girls eager to rate themselves and others wouldnšt be all that happy about a face-to-face rating/insult session. And my guess is that the young women who maintain those anorexia sites would never think to ask us to support their dangerous interest as a school club; they wouldnšt dare let their parents know the reason behind such a gathering at home.
The Internet is a community in which real people communicate and do business. Networks and software are property. Insults and bad advice do harm even when you cannot see the person receiving them.
Johnson reminded me "all technological tools are really no more good or evil than a hammer. A hammer can be used to build a cathedral or break out its windows - it's neutral."
So how should we respond when we observe young people using technology in unkind and irresponsible ways? As for activities that are truly harmful, the Ana sites, for instance, Johnson has clear advice "Once a technology gets life-threatening, instruction in its safe use goes from being advisable to mandatory. Safe use is not optional when it comes to scuba diving, firearms use, or highway driving."
As parents, and teachers, and librarians, and adults who care about teens, we need to pay close attention. We need to guide, instruct, and counsel. How can we sleep at night if we donšt?