1. What are the legal, social, and ethical issues arising in the Digital Age? Summarize each.
The Internet and the World Wide Web have grown rapidly from a research project into something that involves millions of people worldwide. Much of the Internet's usefulness comes from the fact that it is shared by users, service providers, and others, in the sense that each depends on the other and needs to support the other. Hopefully, that sort of sharing and respect will continue. Your behavior, your expectations for others, and your activities will make the difference.
"It is important to realize that the Web is what we make it. 'We' being the people who read, the people who teach children how to surf the Web, the people who put information up on the Web. Particularly the people who make links.... The Web doesn't force anything down your throat. If you are worried that your children are going to read low-quality information, teach them. Teach them what to read. Teach them how to judge information." Tim Berners-Lee (Scientific American Dec 97)
Privacy and Civil Liberties
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) was formed in 1990 to, among other things, bring issues dealing with civil liberties related to computing and telecommunications technology to the attention of the public at large, legislators, and court and law enforcement officials. As a nonprofit public interest organization, EFF maintains collections of files and documents.
Email Privacy
When you send a message by e-mail, the message is broken into packets and the packets are sent out over the Internet. The number of packets depends on the size of the message. Each message has the Internet address of the sender (your address) and the address of the recipient. Packets from a single message may take different routes to the destination, or may take different routes at different times. This works well for the Internet and for you since packets are generally sent through the best path depending on the traffic load on the Internet, the path doesn't depend on certain systems being in operation, and all you have to give is the address of the destination. The packets making up an e-mail message may pass through several different systems before reaching their destination. This means there may be some places between you and the destination where the packets could be intercepted and examined. One example of a law to ensure the privacy of e-mail is the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) passed in 1986 by Congress.
Intellectual Property and Copy Right
The notion of ownership of something, whether it has a physical form, does still make sense as intellectual property. There are a number of laws and agreements throughout the world to protect intellectual property rights. The right to copy or duplicate materials can be granted only by the owners of the information. This is called the copyright. Many documents on the Internet contain a statement that asserts the document is copyrighted and gives permission for distributing the document in an electronic form, provided it isn't sold or made part of some commercial venture. Even items that don't contain these statements are protected by the copyright laws of the United States, the Universal Copyright Convention, or the Berne Union. Most of the copyright conventions or statutes include a provision so that individuals may make copies of portions of a document for short-term use. If information is obtainable on the Internet, and there is no charge to access the information, it often can be shared in an electronic form. That certainly doesn't mean you can copy images or documents and make them available on the Internet, or make copies and share them in a printed form with others. Quite naturally, many of the folks who create or work at providing material available on the Internet, expect to get credit and be paid for their work.
Ethical Issues
One of the most significant ethical issues is the freedom of speech and the Internet. The content on the Internet is not regulated and , as a result, does contain materials that are objectionable and inappropriate for children.
As with most cases of technological and scientific development, each new advancement opens up moral and ethical questions and dilemmas with which society must grapple. When it comes to the internet, it is not just one state or one country which must decide about acceptable use of the technology, it is the entire world. Your post explains some of the steps that have been taken to protect privacy, intellectual property, and security on the internet.
ReplyDeleteI recall in the late 1990's that a file-sharing service named Napster was very popular. Napster's technology was used to share digitized music, peer-to-peer. Many people downloaded dozens of songs and burned their own music CD's. Did these users know that what they were doing was illegal? Many probably did not.
Educators must be especially careful to honor the copyrights of all media, including electronic. They must set a good example for students and make sure students understand this concept. Teachers must also take steps to safeguard the privacy of their students in the use of the internet and educate students to protect themselves as well.
There are many many legal and ethical issues surrounding the Internet and it's use As teachers we must be sure to use the internet wisely and correctly. We often think of the internet as being free, but we must remember Copyrights can apply there too. One of the best things about the internet is the ability for anyone to post anything they like on the web. This allows us to find some truly great resources and information, but it likely also means we can find objectionable material. It is simply a matter of learning how to research correctly that will keep you away from this material.
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