Internet Ethics

Knowledge is power. Knowledge about human psychology is increasingly being produced using natural language processing (NLP) and related techniques. The power that accompanies and harnesses this knowledge should be subject to ethical controls and oversight. In this chapter, we address the ethical pitfalls that are likely to be encountered in the context of such research. These pitfalls occur at various stages of the NLP pipeline, including data acquisition, enrichment, analysis, storage, and sharing. We also address secondary uses of the results (...) and tools developed through psychometric NLP, such as profit-driven targeted advertising, political campaigns, and domestic and international psyops. Along the way, we reflect on potential ethical guidelines and considerations that may help researchers navigate these pitfalls. (shrink)

Advances in AI are powering increasingly precise and widespread computational propaganda, posing serious threats to national security. The military and intelligence communities are starting to discuss ways to engage in this space, but the path forward is still unclear. These developments raise pressing ethical questions, about which existing ethics frameworks are silent. Understanding these challenges through the lens of “cognitive security,” we argue, offers a promising approach.

Goffman’s (1959) dramaturgical identity theory requires modification when theorising about presentations of self on social media. This chapter contributes to these efforts, refining a conception of digital identities by differentiating them from ‘corporatised identities’. Armed with this new distinction, I ultimately argue that social media platforms’ production of corporatised identities undermines their users’ autonomy and digital well-being. This follows from the disentanglement of several commonly conflated concepts. Firstly, I distinguish two kinds of presentation of self that I collectively refer to (...) as ‘expressions of digital identity’. These digital performances (boyd 2007) and digital artefacts (Hogan 2010) are distinct, but often confused. Secondly, I contend this confusion results in the subsequent conflation of corporatised identities – poor approximations of actual digital identities, inferred and extrapolated by algorithms from individuals’ expressions of digital identity – with digital identities proper. Finally, and to demonstrate the normative implications of these clarifications, I utilise MacKenzie’s (2014, 2019) interpretation of relational autonomy to propose that designing social media sites around the production of corporatised identities, at the expense of encouraging genuine performances of digital identities, has undermined multiple dimensions of this vital liberal value. In particular, the pluralistic range of authentic preferences that should structure flourishing human lives are being flattened and replaced by commercial, consumerist preferences. For these reasons, amongst others, I contend that digital identities should once again come to drive individuals’ actions on social media sites. Only upon doing so can individuals’ autonomy, and control over their digital identities, be rendered compatible with social media. (shrink)

Most online platforms are becoming increasingly algorithmically personalized. The question is if these practices are simply satisfying users preferences or if something is lost in this process. This article focuses on how to reconcile the personalization with the importance of being able to share cultural objects - including fiction – with others. In analyzing two concrete personalization examples from the streaming giant Netflix, several tendencies are observed. One is to isolate users and sometimes entirely eliminate shared world aspects. Another tendency (...) is to blur the boundary between shared cultural objects and personalized content, which can be misleading and disorienting. A further tendency is for personalization algorithms to be optimized to deceptively prey on desires for content that mirrors one’s own lived experience. Some specific - often minority targeting -“clickbait” practices received public blowback. These practices show disregard both for honest labeling and for our desires to have access and representation in a shared world. The article concludes that personalization tendencies are moving towards increasingly isolating and disorienting interfaces, but that platforms could be redesigned to support better social world orientation. (shrink)

In this article I investigate online misinformation from a media philosophy perspective. I, thus move away from the debate focused on the semantic content, concerned with what is true or not about misinformation. I argue rather that online misinformation is the effect of an informational climate promoted by user micro-behaviours such as liking, sharing, and posting. Misinformation online is explained as the effect of an informational environment saturated with and shaped by techno-images in which most users act automatically under the (...) constant assault of stirred emotions, a state resembling what media philosopher Vilém Flusser has called techno-magical consciousness. I describe three ways in which images function on social media to induce this distinctive, uncritical mode of consciousness, and complement Flusser’s explanation with insights from the phenomenology of emotions. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: So far in this book, we have examined algorithmic decision systems from three autonomy-based perspectives: in terms of what we owe autonomous agents (chapters 3 and 4), in terms of the conditions required for people to act autonomously (chapters 5 and 6), and in terms of the responsibilities of agents (chapter 7). -/- In this chapter we turn to the ways in which autonomy underwrites democratic governance. Political authority, which is to say the ability of a government to exercise (...) power, may be justifiable or not. Whether it is justified and how it can come to be justified is a question of political legitimacy. Political legitimacy is another way in which autonomy and responsibility are linked. This relationship is the basis of the current chapter, and it is important in understanding the moral salience of algorithmic systems. We will draw the connection as follows. We begin, in section 8.1, by describing two uses of technology: crime predicting technology used to drive policing practices and social media technology used to influence elections (including by Cambridge Analytica and by the Internet Research Agency). In section 8.2 we consider several views of legitimacy and argue for a hybrid version of normative legitimacy based on one recently offered by Fabienne Peter. In section 8.3 we will explain that the connection between political legitimacy and autonomy is that legitimacy is grounded in legitimating processes, which are in turn based on autonomy. Algorithmic systems—among them PredPol and the Cambridge Analytica-Facebook-Internet Research Agency amalgam—can hinder that legitimation process and conflict with democratic legitimacy, as we argue in section 8.4. We will conclude by returning to several cases that serve as through-lines to the book: Loomis, Wagner, and Houston Schools. -/- The link below is to an open-access copy of the chapter. (shrink)

Some of the world's most powerful corporations practise what Shoshana Zuboff (2015; 2019) calls ‘surveillance capitalism’. The core of their business is harvesting, analysing and selling data about the people who use their products. In Zuboff's view, the first corporation to engage in surveillance capitalism was Google, followed by Facebook; recently, firms such as Microsoft and Amazon have pivoted towards such a model. In this paper, I suggest that Karl Marx's analysis of the relations between industrial capitalists and workers is (...) closely analogous to the relations between surveillance capitalists and users. Furthermore, three problematic aspects of industrial capitalism that Marx describes – alienation, exploitation and accumulation – are also aspects, in new forms, of surveillance capitalism. I draw heavily on Zuboff's work to make these parallels. However, my Marx-inspired account of surveillance capitalism differs from hers over the nature of the exchange between users and surveillance capitalists. For Zuboff, this is akin either to robbery or the gathering of raw materials; on the Marx-inspired account it is a voluntary sale. This difference has important implications for the question of how to resist surveillance capitalism. (shrink)

YouTube has been implicated in the transformation of users into extremists and conspiracy theorists. The alleged mechanism for this radicalizing process is YouTube’s recommender system, which is optimized to amplify and promote clips that users are likely to watch through to the end. YouTube optimizes for watch-through for economic reasons: people who watch a video through to the end are likely to then watch the next recommended video as well, which means that more advertisements can be served to them. This (...) is a seemingly innocuous design choice, but it has a troubling side-effect. Critics of YouTube have alleged that the recommender system tends to recommend extremist content and conspiracy theories, as such videos are especially likely to capture and keep users’ attention. To date, the problem of radicalization via the YouTube recommender system has been a matter of speculation. The current study represents the first systematic, pre-registered attempt to establish whether and to what extent the recommender system tends to promote such content. We begin by contextualizing our study in the framework of technological seduction. Next, we explain our methodology. After that, we present our results, which are consistent with the radicalization hypothesis. Finally, we discuss our findings, as well as directions for future research and recommendations for users, industry, and policy-makers. (shrink)

Many of us assume that all the free editing and sorting of online content we ordinarily rely on is carried out by AI algorithms — not human persons. Yet in fact, that is often not the case. This is because human workers remain cheaper, quicker, and more reliable than AI for performing myriad tasks where the right answer turns on ineffable contextual criteria too subtle for algorithms to yet decode. The output of this work is then used for machine learning (...) purposes to generate algorithms constructed from large data sets containing thousands of correctly coded observations. The fact that ghost workers are treated as consumers distorts the basic logic of the employment relationship, effectively placing the worker-as-consumer in the worst of both worlds, in which they hold the legal rights of neither group. This puts them in a regulatory limbo position in which they have little or no protection, control, or guarantee of return on investment. This is because the platforms that facilitate ghost work have orchestrated a three-way virtual relationship that absolves all parties of responsibility, while placing nearly all the risks and opportunity costs squarely on the shoulders of the workers. As a result, we believe such a work arrangement as it stands, does not uphold basic standards of Rawlsian justice as fairness. (shrink)

In this panel, we explore the future of value sensitive design (VSD). The stakes are high. Many in public and private sectors and in civil society are gradually realizing that taking our values seriously implies that we have to ensure that values effectively inform the design of technology which, in turn, shapes people’s lives. Value sensitive design offers a highly developed set of theory, tools, and methods to systematically do so.

Two art exhibitions, “Training Humans” and “Making Faces,” and the accompanying essay “Excavating AI: The politics of images in machine learning training sets” by Kate Crawford and Trevor Paglen, are making substantial impact on discourse taking place in the social and mass media networks, and some scholarly circles. Critical scrutiny reveals, however, a self-contradictory stance regarding informed consent for the use of facial images, as well as serious flaws in their critique of ML training sets. Our analysis underlines the non-negotiability (...) of informed consent when using human data in artistic and other contexts, and clarifies issues relating to the description of ML training sets. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has been accompanied on social media by an explosion of information disorders such as inaccurate, misleading and irrelevant information. Countermeasures adopted thus far to curb these informational disorders have had limited success because these did not account for the diversity of informational contexts on social media, focusing instead almost exclusively on curating the factual content of user’s posts. However, content-focused measures do not address the primary causes of the infodemic itself, namely the user’s need to post content (...) as a way of making sense of the situation and for gathering reactions of consensus from friends. This paper describes three types of informational context—weak epistemic, strong normative and strong emotional—which have not yet been taken into account by current measures to curb down the informational disorders. I show how these contexts are related to the infodemic and I propose measures for dealing with them for future global crisis situations. (shrink)

In this chapter we argue that emotions are mediated in an incomplete way in online social media because of the heavy reliance on textual messages which fosters a rationalistic bias and an inclination towards less nuanced emotional expressions. This incompleteness can happen either by obscuring emotions, showing less than the original intensity, misinterpreting emotions, or eliciting emotions without feedback and context. Online interactions and deliberations tend to contribute rather than overcome stalemates and informational bubbles, partially due to prevalence of anti-social (...) emotions. It is tempting to see emotions as being the cause of the problem of online verbal aggression and bullying. However, we argue that social media are actually designed in a predominantly rationalistic way, because of the reliance on text-based communication, thereby filtering out social emotions and leaving space for easily expressed antisocial emotions. Based on research on emotions that sees these as key ingredients to moral interaction and deliberation, as well as on research on text-based versus non-verbal communication, we propose a richer understanding of emotions, requiring different designs of online deliberation platforms. We propose that such designs should move from text-centred designs and should find ways to incorporate the complete expression of the full range of human emotions so that these can play a constructive role in online deliberations. (shrink)

This paper analyses the communicative and epistemic value of retweeting (and more generally of reposting content on social media). Against a naïve view, it argues that retweets are not acts of endorsement, motivating this diagnosis with linguistic data. Retweeting is instead modelled as a peculiar form of quotation, in which the reported content is indicated rather than reproduced. A relevance-theoretic account of the communicative import of retweeting is then developed, to spell out the complex mechanisms by which retweets achieve their (...) communicative goals. The last section outlines the epistemic threats posed by the increasing prevalence of retweeting on social media, linking them to the low reputational, cognitive and practical costs linked to this emerging form of communication. (shrink)

Recent conversation has blurred two very different social epistemic phenomena: echo chambers and epistemic bubbles. Members of epistemic bubbles merely lack exposure to relevant information and arguments. Members of echo chambers, on the other hand, have been brought to systematically distrust all outside sources. In epistemic bubbles, other voices are not heard; in echo chambers, other voices are actively undermined. It is crucial to keep these phenomena distinct. First, echo chambers can explain the post-truth phenomena in a way that epistemic (...) bubbles cannot. Second, each type of structure requires a distinct intervention. Mere exposure to evidence can shatter an epistemic bubble, but may actually reinforce an echo chamber. Finally, echo chambers are much harder to escape. Once in their grip, an agent may act with epistemic virtue, but social context will pervert those actions. Escape from an echo chamber may require a radical rebooting of one's belief system. (shrink)

Les principaux problèmes rencontrés par les scientifiques qui travaillent avec des ensembles de données massives (mégadonnées, Big Data), en soulignant les principaux problèmes éthiques, tout en tenant compte de la législation de l'Union européenne. Après une brève Introduction au Big Data, la section Technologie présente les applications spécifiques de la recherche. Il suit une approche des principales questions philosophiques spécifiques dans Aspects philosophiques, et Aspects juridiques en soulignant les problèmes éthiques spécifiques du règlement de l'UE sur la protection des données (...) 2016/679 (General Data Protection Regulation, « GDPR »). La section Problèmes éthiques détaille les problèmes spécifiques générés par le big data. Après une brève section de Recherche de big data, sont présentées les Conclusions sur l’éthique de la recherche dans l’utilisation du big data. SOMMAIRE: Abstract 1. Introduction - 1.1 Définitions - 1.2 Les dimensions du big data 2. La technologie - 2.1 Applications - - 2.1.1 En recherche 3. Aspects philosophiques 4 Aspects juridiques - 4.1 RGPD (GDPR) - - Étapes du traitement des données personnelles - - Principes du traitement des données - - Politique de confidentialité et transparence - - Finalités du traitement des données - - Confidentialité par conception et confidentialité implicite - - Le paradoxe (juridique) des mégadonnées 5. Problèmes éthiques - L'éthique dans la recherche - Prise de conscience - Consentement - Contrôle - Transparence - Confiance - Propriété - Surveillance et sécurité - Identité numérique - Réalité ajustée - De-anonymisation - Inégalité numérique - Confidentialité 6. Recherche des mégadonnées Conclusions Bibliographie DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.10128.56328 . (shrink)

2020 is the year of the first pandemic lived through the Internet. More than half of the world population is now online and because of self-isolation, our moral and social lives unfold almost exclusively online. Two pressing questions arise in this context: how much can we rely on the Internet, as a set of technologies, and how much should we trust online platforms and applications? In order to answer these two questions, I develop an argument based on two fundamental assumptions: (...) the development stage of today’s Internet is a contingent and not a necessary one and technologies are never neutral. My argument is that today’s pandemic produced an acceleration of the change which started almost 30 years ago, one of online migration, datafication and algorithmization of day to day life, a change in which digital technologies take on the classic role of institutions, both formal and informal. My thesis is a descriptive one, although it has some normative implications: this take over is not just a translation, but a modification or mutation which demands a creative collective answer, although users don’t have direct power over it. When they play the role of institutions, these technologies are surrogates or simulacra. I offer the paradigmatic case of online education, an experiment we were forced into because of the pandemic, in order to show that the institutional matrix of education cannot be reproduced online, due to the limitations of the medium and of the applications, especially those concerning physical presence. In the end I will critically address the question of the role played by Artificial Intelligence in the pandemic, and then I will show that the open source ethics was more useful in approaching scientifically and technologically the problems generated by the epidemic. (shrink)

The Internet has been identified in human enhancement scholarship as a powerful cognitive enhancement technology. It offers instant access to almost any type of information, along with the ability to share that information with others. The aim of this paper is to critically assess the enhancement potential of the Internet. We argue that unconditional access to information does not lead to cognitive enhancement. The Internet is not a simple, uniform technology, either in its composition, or in its use. We will (...) look into why the Internet as an informational resource currently fails to enhance cognition. We analyze some of the phenomena that emerge from vast, continual fluxes of information–information overload, misinformation and persuasive design—and show how they could negatively impact users’ cognition. Methods for mitigating these negative impacts are then advanced: individual empowerment, better collaborative systems for sorting and categorizing information, and the use of artificial intelligence assistants that could guide users through the informational space of today’s Internet. (shrink)

Communicative practices in online and social media sometimes seem to amplify political conflict, and result in significant harms to people who become the targets of collective outrage. Many complaints that have been made about political correctness in the past, we argue, amount to little more than a veiled expression of resentment over the increasing influence enjoyed by progressive activists. But some complaints about political correctness take on a different complexion, in light of the technologically-driven changes to our communicative practices and (...) political discourse. Given the ways in which they are entangled in these new forms of online communication, well-meaning attempts to police the norms of political correctness may end up contributing to individual wrongs, or to destructive social patterns. In this paper we examine these worries, situate them in a broader sociological context, and offer some tentative proposals about how they might be addressed. (shrink)

In the wake of high profile and recent events of blatant privacy violations, which also raise issues of democratic accountability as well as, at least potentially, undermining the legitimacy of current local and international governance arrangements, a rethinking of the justification of the right to privacy is proposed. In this paper, the case of the violation of the privacy of a bullied autistic youngster and the consequent prosecution of 3 Google executives will be discussed first. We will then analyse the (...) arguments made by both academic experts and pundits who agree with Google’s claim that if the first sentence had been left unchallenged, it would have opened the floodgates to several other jurisdictions that would as a consequence have used it as a pretext to increase control on the internet, jeopardising in such a way free speech, which has been seen so far as an inalienable right which should not be censored. Finally, by going beyond the sentences and their immediate contexts, we will propose a theoretical justification of our analysis. Our main claim is that the value of the right to privacy is based on the argument that its violation would undermine citizens’ capacity to participate effectively in democratic politics. (shrink)

Compartmentalizing our distinct personal identities is increasingly difficult in big data reality. Pictures of the person we were on past vacations resurface in employers’ Google searches; LinkedIn which exhibits our income level is increasingly used as a dating web site. Whether on vacation, at work, or seeking romance, our digital selves stream together. One result is that a perennial ethical question about personal identity has spilled out of philosophy departments and into the real world. Ought we possess one, unified identity (...) that coherently integrates the various aspects of our lives, or, incarnate deeply distinct selves suited to different occasions and contexts? At bottom, are we one, or many? The question is not only palpable today, but also urgent because if a decision is not made by us, the forces of big data and surveillance capitalism will make it for us by compelling unity. Speaking in favor of the big data tendency, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg promotes the ethics of an integrated identity, a single version of selfhood maintained across diverse contexts and human relationships. This essay goes in the other direction by sketching two ethical frameworks arranged to defend our compartmentalized identities, which amounts to promoting the dis-integration of our selves. One framework connects with natural law, the other with language, and both aim to create a sense of selfhood that breaks away from its own past, and from the unifying powers of big data technology. (shrink)

In this position paper for the 2019 CSCW workshop Good Systems: Ethical AI for CSCW I propose one tool and one idea for navigating the complex ethical problem space that results from the interaction of human and/or AI agents in shared, hopefully cooperative, computing environments.

Odată cu creșterea volumului de date pe Internet, în media socială, cloud computing, dispozitive mobile și date guvernamentale, Big Data devine în același timp o amenințare și o oportunitate în ceea ce privește gestionarea și utilizarea acestor date, menținând în același timp drepturile persoanelor implicate. În fiecare zi, folosim și generăm tone de date, alimentând bazele de date ale agențiilor guvernamentale, companiilor private și chiar cetățenilor privați. Beneficiem în multe feluri de existența și utilizarea Big Data, dar trebuie să ne (...) amintim de asemenea că „nu există nimic gratuit”. Există riscuri în utilizarea Big Data, un fel de parte întunecată. Schimbările de piață pot fi obținute prin utilizarea Big Data: în timp ce acestea pot fi pozitive pentru cineva, ele pot dăuna altcuiva. Riscurile potențiale provin și de la agențiile publice. Este clar că datele mari pot aduce beneficii cetățenilor și companiilor, dar trebuie să fie echilibrate de o conștientizare sporită a „părții întunecate” a Big Data în exploatarea noilor capacități și oportunități pe care le oferă tuturor . -/- CUPRINS -/- 1. Big Data - Definiție - Caracteristici - Clasificarea datelor mari - Arhitectura - Tehnologii - Oportunități - Provocări - Critici - - Criticile paradigmei Big Data - - Criticile modelului "V" - - Criticile de noutate - - Criticile execuției Big Data - 1.1 Viața datelor mari - - Nașterea - - Copilăria - - - Educație - - - Divertisment - - Adolescența - - - Servicii online - - - Comunicații mobile - - - Servicii de streaming - - Adulți tineri - - - Căutarea de locuri de muncă - - - Servicii bancare și asigurări - - - Utilități - - - Dating online și pornografie - - Vârsta medie - - - Servicii de sănătate - - - Aplicații pentru îngrijire și aplicații pentru sănătate și fitness - - - Căutarea de locuri de muncă - - - Dating online - - Bătrânețea - - - Îngrijirea sănătății - - Moartea - 1.2 Aplicații - - Guvern - - Dezvoltare internațională - - Fabrici - - Sănătate - - Educaţie - - Mass-media - - Asigurare - - Internetul obiectelor (IoT) - - Tehnologia informației - 1.3 Studii de caz - - Guvern - - - China - - - India - - - Israel - - - Regatul Unit - - - Statele Unite ale Americii - - Cu amănuntul - - Ştiinţă - - Sport - - Tehnologie - - Activități de cercetare - - - Prelevarea de date mari - 1.4 Agenda europeană privind societatea digitală - - Cadrul juridic - - Peisajul opiniei părților interesate - 1.5 GDPR - - Etapele procesării datelor personale - - Principiile procesării datelor - - Politica de confidențialitate și transparența - - Scopurile procesării datelor - - Confidențialitate prin design și implicită - - - Paradoxul (legal) al Big Data - - Domeniul teritorial al GDPR - - Definirea datelor mari, a datelor personale și a datelor anonime - - Etapele procesării datelor cu caracter personal - - Principii de prelucrare a datelor - - Politica de confidențialitate și Transparența - - Scopuri de prelucrare a datelor - - Confidențialitate prin design și confidențialitate în mod implicit - - Paradoxul (legal) al datelor mari 2. Analiza Big Data - 2.1 Analitica - - Analitica vs. analiză - - Aplicații ale analiticii - - - Optimizarea marketingului - - - Analiza oamenilor - - - Analiza portofoliului - - - Analitica riscurilor - - - Analitica digitală - - - Analitica securității - - - Analitica software-ului - - Provocări - - Riscuri - 2.2 Analitica predictivă - - Definiție - - Procesul de analitica predictivă - - Tipuri - - - Modele predictive - - - Modele descriptive - - - Modele de decizie - - Aplicații - - - Managementul relațiilor cu clienții analitic (CRM) - - - Protecția copilului - - - Sisteme de suport decizional clinic - - - Analiticile colecțiilor - - - Vânzări încrucișate - - - Retenția clienților - - - Marketing direct - - - Detectarea fraudelor - - - Prezicerea rezultatelor deciziilor legale - - - Previziuni privind portofoliul, produsele sau economia - - - Managementul riscului de proiect - - - Acceptanța (Underwriting) - - Tehnologia și influențele big data - - Tehnici analitice - - - Tehnici de regresie - - - - Model de regresie liniară - - - - Modele de alegere discretă - - - - Regresie logistică - - - - Regresie logistică multinomială - - - - Regresie probit - - - - Logit versus probit - - - - Modele pentru serii de timp - - - - Analiza supraviețuirii sau a duratei - - - - Arborele de clasificare și regresie (CART) - - - - Funcții spline adaptive de regresie multivariate - - - Tehnici de învățare automată - - - - Rețele neuronale - - - - Perceptron multistrat (MLP) - - - - Funcții radiale de bază - - - - Mașini cu vectori de suport - - - - Bayesiene naive - - - - Vecinul k-cel mai apropiat - - - - Modelarea predictivă geospațială - - Instrumente - - - PMML - - Critici - 2.3 Analitica prescriptivă - - Istorie - 2.4 Studiul critic al datelor - - Perspective critice - - Abordare: Pragmatismul și etica discursului 3. Etica Big Data - Datele personale ale copiilor - Rolul instituțiilor - - State naționale - - Bănci - Articole relevante de știri despre etica datelor - Legislație relevantă privind etica datelor - 3.1 Principii ale eticii Big Data - - Etica în cercetare - - Conștientizarea - - Consimţământul - - Controlul - - Transparența - - Încrederea - - Proprietatea - - Supravegherea și securitatea - - Identitatea digitală - - Realitatea ajustată - - De-anonimizarea - - Inegalitatea digitală - - Confidențialitatea - - Financiar - - - Cât de mult merită datele? - - Deschidere - 3.2 Probleme etice în cercetare - - Etica cercetării pentru cercetarea socială - - Principalele aspecte etice ale cercetării sociale - - - Intimitate - - - Consimțământ informat - - - De-identificarea - - - Inegalitate – Diviziune digitală - - Integritatea cercetării - - Probleme emergente - - Aviz legal - 3.3 Aspecte filosofice - 3.4 10 reguli de bază în lucrul cu Big Data - - Concluzie Referințe Despre autor - Nicolae Sfetcu - - De același autor - - Contact Editura - MultiMedia Publishing . 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The dominant legal and regulatory approach to protecting information privacy is a form of mandated disclosure commonly known as “notice-and-consent.” Many have criticized this approach, arguing that privacy decisions are too complicated, and privacy disclosures too convoluted, for individuals to make meaningful consent decisions about privacy choices—decisions that often require us to waive important rights. While I agree with these criticisms, I argue that they only meaningfully call into question the “consent” part of notice-and-consent, and that they say little about (...) the value of notice. We ought to decouple notice from consent, and imagine notice serving other normative ends besides readying people to make informed consent decisions. (shrink)

Technological advances are bringing new light to privacy issues and changing the reasons for why privacy is important. These advances have changed not only the kind of personal data that is available to be collected, but also how that personal data can be used by those who have access to it. We are particularly concerned with how information about personal attributes inferred from collected data (such as online behaviour), can be used to tailor messages and services to specific individuals or (...) groups. This kind of ‘personalised targeting’ has the potential to influence individuals’ perceptions, attitudes, and choices in unprecedented ways. In this paper, we argue that because it is becoming easier for companies to use collected data for influence, threats to privacy are increasingly also threats to personal autonomy—an individual’s ability to reflect on and decide freely about their values, actions, and behaviour, and to act on those choices.4 While increasing attention is directed to the ethics of how personal data is collected, we make the case that a new ethics of privacy needs to also think more rigorously about how personal data may be used, and its potential impact on personal autonomy. (shrink)

This paper investigates whether search engines and other new modes of online communication should be covered by free speech principles. It criticizes the analogical reason-ing that contemporary American courts and scholars have used to liken search engines to newspapers, and to extend free speech coverage to them based on that likeness. There are dissimilarities between search engines and newspapers that undermine the key analogy, and also rival analogies that can be drawn which don’t recommend free speech protection for search engines. (...) Partly on these bases, we argue that an analogical approach to questions of free speech coverage is of limited use in this context. Credible verdicts about how free speech principles should apply to new modes of online com-munication require us to re-excavate the normative foundations of free speech. This method for deciding free speech coverage suggests that only a subset of search engine outputs and similar online communication should receive special protection against government regulation. (shrink)

According to psychological research, people are more eager to help identified individuals than unidentified ones. This phenomenon significantly influences many important decisions, both individual and public, regarding, for example, vaccinations or the distribution of healthcare resources. This paper aims at presenting definitions of various levels of identifiability as well as a critical analysis of the main philosophical arguments regarding the normative significance of the identifiability effect, which refer to: (1) ex ante contractualism; (2) fair distribution of chances and risks; (3) (...) anti-aggregationist principles that recommend the distribution of bad effects and the concentration of good ones. I will show that these arguments, although connected with interesting philosophical problems regarding e.g. counterfactuals, aggregation, or probability, are unconvincing. (shrink)

Social media platforms allow users to perform different speech acts: status updates could be assertives, a like is an expressive, a friendship request is a directive, and so on. But sharing (or "retweeting") seems to lack a fixed illocutive status: this explains why present controversies concerning the sharing of misinformation have been debated in legal procedure and discussed from the point of view of personal responsibility without reaching a general consensus. The premise of this paper is that the diffusion of (...) false or unwarranted information could be better analyzed if we consider sharing a precisely definable speech act. I will describe some dominant interpretations of the act of sharing that are not, however, sufficient to fully explain it. As an alternative, it will be shown that there is a specific illocutive structure of the act of sharing, which not only consists in asserting the "shareworthiness" or the relevance of a content, but is primarily comparable to an "attention-orienting" directive. (shrink)

This volume compiles international contributions that explore the potential risks and chances coming along with the wide-scale migration of society into digital space. Suggesting a shift of paradigm from Spiral of Silence to Nexus of Noise, the opening chapter provides an overview on systematic approaches and mechanisms of manipulation – ranging from populist political players to Cambridge Analytica. After a discussion of the the juxtaposition effects of social media use on social environments, the efficient instrumentalization of Twitter by Turkish politicans (...) in the course of the US-decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital is being analyzed. Following a case study of Instagram, Black Lives Matter and racism is a research about the impact of online pornography on the academic performance of university students. Another chapter is pointing out the potential of online tools for the successful relaunch of shadow brands. The closing section of the book deals with the role of social media on the opinion formation about the Euromaidan movement during the Ukrainian revolution and offers a comparative study touching on Russian and Western depictions of political documentaries in the 2000s. (shrink)

This paper applies a virtue epistemology approach to using the Internet, as to improve our information-seeking behaviours. Virtue epistemology focusses on the cognitive character of agents and is less concerned with the nature of truth and epistemic justification as compared to traditional analytic epistemology. Due to this focus on cognitive character and agency, it is a fruitful but underexplored approach to using the Internet in an epistemically desirable way. Thus, the central question in this paper is: How to use the (...) Internet in an epistemically virtuous way? Using the work of Jason Baehr, it starts by outlining nine intellectual or epistemic virtues: curiosity, intellectual autonomy, intellectual humility, attentiveness, intellectual carefulness, intellectual thoroughness, open-mindedness, intellectual courage and intellectual tenacity. It then explores how we should deploy these virtues and avoid the corresponding vices when interacting with the Internet, particularly search engines. Whilst an epistemically virtuous use of the Internet will not guarantee that one will acquire true beliefs, understanding or even knowledge, it will strongly improve one’s information-seeking behaviours. The paper ends with arguing that teaching and assessing online intellectual virtues should be part of school and university curricula, perhaps embedded in critical thinking courses, or even better, as individual units. (shrink)

Мета статті – з’ясувати концептуальний контекст виникнення нових медіа. Задля цього здійснено огляд ключових для нових медіа ідей Алана Кея та Теда Нельсона, а саме: перетворення комп’ютера на персональний метамедіум за допомогою користувацького інферфейсу та ідеї гіпертексту. Підкреслено, що створення медіа на базі комп’ютерних технологій супроводжувалось впливом медіа-теорії Маклюена та поєднанням технічного і гуманітарного дискурсів. Від початку створення нових медіа осмислювалась їхня метапозиція щодо традиційних медіа через здатність перших до симуляції наявних медіа-форм та створення нових. Теоретичні підвалини нових медіа як (...) проекту дають змогу дійти висновку, що вони можуть природньо вписуватись у культурологічні студії. (shrink)

Responding to Danaher et al. on self-tracking technologies, I argue that human lived experience is becoming increasingly mediated by generalized, statistical information, which I term our "infotality." Drawing on the work of Foucault, I argue that infotality is historically novel and best understood as the product of biopolitics, healthism, and informatics. I then critique the authors' "stance of cautious openness,” which misunderstands the aims of the technology in question and the fundamental ambiguity of the role information plays in the achievement (...) of human wellbeing. Self-tracking technologies are not primarily designed to change behavior; they are designed to create and sustain the desire for their use. I conclude by suggesting that infotality names a new way to fall for an old ruse: the promise that more information means more wellbeing. (shrink)

If one lives in a city and wants to be by oneself or have a private conversation with someone else, there are two ways to set about it: either one finds a place of solitude, such as one’s bedroom, or one finds a place crowded enough, public enough, that attention to each person dilutes so much so as to resemble a deserted refuge. Often, one can get more privacy in public places than in the most private of spaces. The home (...) is not always the ideal place to find privacy. Neighbours snoop, children ask questions, and family members judge. When the home suffocates privacy, the only escape is to go out, to the coffee shop, the public square. For centuries, city streets have been the true refuges of the solitaries, the overwhelmed, and the underprivileged. -/- Yet time and again we hear people arguing that we do not have any claim to privacy while on the streets because they are part of the so-called public sphere. The main objective of this chapter is to argue that privacy belongs as much in the streets as it does in the home. (shrink)

Copyright is at the centre of both popular and academic debate. That emotions are running high is hardly surprising – copyright influences who contributes what to culture, how culture is used, and even the kind of persons we are and come to be. Consequentialist, Lockean, and personality interest accounts are generally advanced in the literature to morally justify copyright law. I argue that these approaches fail to ground extensive authorial rights in intellectual creations and that only a small subset of (...) the rights accorded by copyright law is justified. The pared-down version of copyright that I defend consists of the right to attribution, the right to have one’s non-endorsement of modifications or uses of one’s work explicitly noted, and the right to a share of the profit resulting from the commercial uses of one’s work. I also cursorily explore whether contribution to another person’s work gives rise to moral interests. (shrink)

“Filter bubble”, “echo chambers”, “information diet” – the metaphors to describe today’s information dynamics on social media platforms are fairly diverse. People use them to describe the impact of the viral spread of fake, biased or purposeless content online, as witnessed during the recent race for the US presidency or the latest outbreak of the Ebola virus (in the latter case a tasteless racist meme was drowning out any meaningful content). This unravels the potential envisioned to arise from emergent activities (...) of human collectives on the World Wide Web, as exemplified by the Arab Spring mass movements or digital disaster response supported by the Ushahidi tool suite. (shrink)

The internet of things is increasingly spreading into the domain of medical and social care. Internet-enabled devices for monitoring and managing the health and well-being of users outside of traditional medical institutions have rapidly become common tools to support healthcare. Health-related internet of things (H-IoT) technologies increasingly play a key role in health management, for purposes including disease prevention, real-time tele-monitoring of patient’s functions, testing of treatments, fitness and well-being monitoring, medication dispensation, and health research data collection. H-IoT promises many (...) benefits for health and healthcare. However, it also raises a host of ethical problems stemming from the inherent risks of Internet enabled devices, the sensitivity of health-related data, and their impact on the delivery of healthcare. This paper maps the main ethical problems that have been identified by the relevant literature and identifies key themes in the on-going debate on ethical problems concerning H-IoT. (shrink)

Online shaming is a subject of import for social philosophy in the Internet age, and not simply because shaming seems generally bad. I argue that social philosophers are well-placed to address the imaginal relationships we entertain when we engage in social media; activity in cyberspace results in more relationships than one previously had, entailing new and more responsibilities, and our relational behaviors admit of ethical assessment. I consider the stresses of social media, including the indefinite expansion of our relationships and (...) responsibilities, and the gap between the experiences of those shamed and the shamers’ appreciation of the magnitude of what they do when they shame; I connect these to the literature suggesting that some intuitions fail to guide our ethics. I conclude that we each have more power than we believe we do or than we think carefully about exerting in our online imaginal relations. Whether we are the shamers or the shamed, we are unable to control the extent to which intangible words in cyberspace take the form of imaginal relationships that burden or brighten our self-perceptions. (shrink)

In this chapter, we analyze the relationships between the Internet and its users in terms of situated cognition theory. We first argue that the Internet is a new kind of cognitive ecology, providing almost constant access to a vast amount of digital information that is increasingly more integrated into our cognitive routines. We then briefly introduce situated cognition theory and its species of embedded, embodied, extended, distributed and collective cognition. Having thus set the stage, we begin by taking an embedded (...) cognition view and analyze how the Internet aids certain cognitive tasks. After that, we conceptualize how the Internet enables new kinds of embodied interaction, extends certain aspects of our embodiment, and examine how wearable technologies that monitor physiological, behavioral and contextual states transform the embodied self. On the basis of the degree of cognitive integration between a user and Internet resource, we then look at how and when the Internet extends our cognitive processes. We end this chapter with a discussion of distributed and collective cognition as facilitated by the Internet. (shrink)

Статтю присвячено феномену Інтернет-фольклору, який розглядається на прикладі візуального образу персонажа «бітард». Наведено деякі аргументи для обґрунтування доцільності вживання поняття «Інтернет-фольклор», описано особливості комунікації через специфічний тип анонімних форумів – іміджборд, а також процес формування фольклору іміджборд. Проаналізовано один із елементів цього фольклору – персонаж «бітард», як відображення досвіду користувачів форумів. Описано його визначальні риси та головні характеристики.

This review makes a case for scholars putting up their works online and for removing pay-walls of any kind. Therefore, this review is in sync with the stated aims of philpapers.org.

In order to fight massive vandalism the English- language Wikipedia has developed a system of surveillance which is carried out by humans and bots, supported by various tools. Central to the selection of edits for inspection is the process of using filters or profiles. Can this profiling be justified? On the basis of a careful reading of Frederick Schauer’s books about rules in general (1991) and profiling in particular (2003) I arrive at several conclusions. The effectiveness, efficiency, and risk-aversion of (...) edit selection all greatly increase as a result. The argument for increasing predictability suggests making all details of profiling manifestly public. Also, a wider distribution of the more sophisticated anti-vandalism tools seems indicated. As to the specific dimensions used in profiling, several critical remarks are developed. When patrollers use ‘assisted edit- ing’ tools, severe ‘overuse’ of several features (anonymity, warned before) is a definite possibility, undermining profile efficacy. The easy remedy suggested is to render all of them invisible on the interfaces as displayed to patrollers. Finally, concerning not only assisted editing tools but tools against vandalism generally, it is argued that the anonymity feature is a sensitive category: anons have been in dispute for a long time (while being more prone to vandalism). Targeting them as a special category violates the social contract upon which Wikipedia is based. The feature is therefore a candidate for mandatory ‘underuse’: it should be banned from all anti-vandalism filters and profiling algorithms, and no longer be visible as a special edit trait. (shrink)

Recent disclosures suggest that many governments apply indiscriminate mass surveillance technologies that allow them to capture and store a massive amount of communications data belonging to citizens and non-citizens alike. This article argues that traditional liberal critiques of government surveillance that center on an individual right to privacy cannot completely capture the harm that is caused by such surveillance because they ignore its distinctive political dimension. As a complement to standard liberal approaches to privacy, the article develops a critique of (...) surveillance that focuses on the question of political power in the public sphere. (shrink)

У статті досліджено феномен віртуальної тілесності, яка не тільки посідає важливе місце у сфері зацікавлення гуманітарних наук, а й увійшла як елемент повсякденності в життя значної частини сучасного людства завдяки мережі Інтернет. Розглянуто концепції поєднання віртуальності та тілесності, ключові підходи до аналізу цього поєднання. Предметом аналізу стали анонімні форуми як яскравий приклад конфігурації віртуального тіла, радикально відмінний від інших через анонімний спосіб репрезентації. Інформація, яку індивід викладає в публічний доступ, сприймається як його втілення в буквальному сенсі слова, а цифровий формат (...) інформації впливає на характеристики буття віртуального тіла індивіда. (shrink)

The term ‘digital alienation’ is used in critical IS research to refer to manifestations of alienation online. This paper explores the difficulties of using a traditional Marxist analysis to account for digital alienation. The problem is that the activity people undertake online does not look coerced or estranged from the creator’s individuality, both of which are typically seen as necessary for the production of alienation. As a result of this apparent difficulty, much of the research has focused on the relationship (...) between digital alienation and digital labour. -/- This paper attempts to overcome these difficulties by discarding the traditional approach. We argue one can better understand digital alienation by focusing on the relationship between user intent and technical infrastructure, rather than concerns with labour. Under the existing economic model dominating the internet, free services are financed by recording user activity and then using the products of this commercial surveillance to sell information about people to others. We show how the real harm in current online business models is that commercial surveillance is being used to commodify private life. Seeking to define personal data in more precise terms, we will introduce two new concepts necessary for a detailed discussion of any ethical issues regarding personal data - the digital shadow and the digital persona. We will then show how affordances in current online systems are tuned to commodification of the user’s personality. We will then explore the nature of online surveillance and show how affordances combine with the surveillance economy to produce digital alienation. (shrink)

This paper will identify three central dialectics within cloud services. These constitute defining positions regarding the nature of cloud services in terms of privacy, ethical responsibility, technical architecture and economics. These constitute the main frameworks within which ethical discussions of cloud services occur. The first dialectic concerns the question of whether it is it essential that personal privacy be reduced in order to deliver personalised cloud services. I shall evaluate the main arguments in favour of the view that it is. (...) To contrast this, I shall review Langheinrich’s Principles of Privacy-Aware Ubiquitous Systems [24]. This offers a design strategy which maintains functionality while embedding privacy protection into the architecture and operation of cloud services. -/- The second dialectic is concerned with the degree to which people who design or operate cloud services are ethically responsible for the consequences of the actions of those systems, sometimes known as the “responsibility gap.” I shall briefly review two papers which argue that no one is ethically responsible for such software, then contrast them with two papers which make strong arguments for responsibility. I shall show how claims for no responsibility rest on very narrow definitions of responsibility combined with questionable conceptions of technology itself. The current shape of cloud services is dominated by a tension between open and closed systems. I shall show how this is reflected in architecture, standards and organisational models. I will then examine alternatives to the current state of affairs, including recent developments in support of alternative business models at government level, such as the House of Lords call for the Internet to be treated as a public utility (The Select Committee on Digital Skills, 2015). (shrink)

English - language Wikipedia is constantly being plagued by vandalistic contributions on a massive scale. In order to fight them its volunteer contributors deploy an array of software tools and autonomous bots. After an analysis of their functioning and the ‘ coactivity ’ in use between humans and bots, this research ‘ discloses ’ the moral issues that emerge from the combined patrolling by humans and bots. Administrators provide the stronger tools only to trusted users, thereby creating a new hierarchical (...) layer. Further, surveillance exhibits several troubling features : questionable profiling practices, the use of the controversial measure of reputation, ‘ oversurveillance ’ where quantity trumps quality, and a prospective loss of the required moral skills whenever bots take over from humans. The most troubling aspect, though, is that Wikipedia has become a Janus - faced institution. One face is the basic platform of MediaWiki software, transparent to all. Its other face is the anti - vandalism system, which, in contrast, is opaque to the average user, in particular as a result of the algorithms and neural networks in use. Finally it is argued that this secrecy impedes a much needed discussion to unfold ; a discussion that should focus on a ‘ rebalancing ’ of the anti - vandalism system and the development of more ethical information practices towards contributors. (shrink)

I suggest that the social justice issues raised by Internet regulation can be exposed and examined by using a methodology adapted from that described by John Rawls in 'A Theory of Justice'. Rawls' theory uses the hypothetical scenario of people deliberating about the justice of social institutions from the 'original position' as a method of removing bias in decision-making about justice. The original position imposes a 'veil of ignorance' that hides the particular circumstances of individuals from them so that they (...) will not be influenced by self-interest. I adapt Rawls' methodology by introducing an abstract description of information technology to those deliberating about justice from within the original position. This abstract description focuses on computing devices that users can use to access information and information networks that information devices use to communicate. The abstractness of this description prevents the particular characteristics of the Internet and the computing devices in use from influencing the decisions about the just use and regulation of information technology and networks. From this abstract position, the principles of justice that the participants accept for the rest of society will also apply to the computing devices people use to communicate, and to Internet regulation. (shrink)

This essay accounts for part of the moral, social and legal problems behind the attempts for justifying and implementing the so-called right to be forgotten in the Internet. Such right implies that –under certain circumstances–individuals are entitled to demand that search engines remove links containing their personal information. Our inquiry reflects on a ruling issued by the Court of Justice of the European Union and made public on May 13th 2014, as well as on the recommendations conveyed in Article 29 (...) of the Data Protection Working Party, the practice of Google and the report of its Advisory Council. (shrink)

In this article we raise a problem, and we offer two practical contributions to its solution. The problem is that academic communities interested in digital publishing do not have adequate tools to help them in choosing a publishing model that suits their needs. We believe that excessive focus on Open Access (OA) has obscured some important issues; moreover exclusive emphasis on increasing openness has contributed to an agenda and to policies that show clear practical shortcomings. We believe that academic communities (...) have different needs and priorities; therefore there cannot be a ranking of publishing models that fits all and is based on only one criterion or value. We thus believe that two things are needed. First, communities need help in working out what they want from their digital publications. Their needs and desiderata should be made explicit and their relative importance estimated. This exercise leads to the formulation and ordering of their objectives. Second, available publishing models should be assessed on the basis of these objectives, so as to choose one that satisfies them well. Accordingly we have developed a framework that assists communities in going through these two steps. The framework can be used informally, as a guide to the collection and systematic organization of the information needed to make an informed choice of publishing model. In order to do so it maps the values that should be weighed and the technical features that embed them. Building on our framework, we also offer a method to produce ordinal and cardinal scores of publishing models. When these techniques are applied the framework becomes a formal decision–making tool. Finally, the framework stresses that, while the OA movement tackles important issues in digital publishing, it cannot incorporate the whole range of values and interests that are at the core of academic publishing. Therefore the framework suggests a broader agenda that is relevant in making better policy decisions around academic publishing and OA. (shrink)