Ethics on Internet

Facebook and all the other social-networking sites that exist nowadays have become such a regular part of our lives that we rarely stop to reflect about the way they are changing our society and ourselves. Thanks to the instant, 24/7, availability of Internet anyone anywhere can, technically, obtain any kind of information about any place, company or person in the world. This “advantage” of Internet if often taken for granted, and it’s somewhat dangerous side effects are seldom discussed or considered. Perhaps one of the least discussed aspects is the way they affect our ethical stands.

Personally, I believe that, when it comes to ethic in Internet, one of the most important points to take into consideration is the accountability of the content’s writer/producer. While many web sites are useful and strive to post accurate, confirmed information, there also exists many others where this is not the case. While in certain situations this does not represent a problem, the opposite is also true. A good example of this would be a medical website.

Most of the people who access a medical website looking for advice or reference automatically assume that the content that is posted there is true. However, there is no way to guaranty this every time and, furthermore; there is nothing that prevents a person from starting a completely false website dedicated to health.

This exemplifies some of the ethical implications of this “democratization” of the new digital communication means: just because you are able to write anything in a somewhat anonymous way, this does not mean you lose the responsibility to back the facts you are stating with some sort of proof. In this sense, there is not much difference between the ethics that are supposed to lead the journalist of any print media and any blogger, webmaster or writer online.

Nevertheless, there is also the need to pose the question: what are the obligations of the site’s users? Ethical rules should not be a concern only for content writers, but to every user. This is the case, for instance, of the use of the anonymity granted by the system’s platform.

In the same way as a blogger can post false information in his site sheltered in this ambiguity, any reader can break his usual pattern of behavior in the online world, accessing contents that he would ordinarily condemn or reject.

Basically, I consider that many of the ethical rules we apply in our interactions in the offline world everyday are easily transferable to the online world. This does not mean, however, that there are not some very specific and complex new ethical conflicts that emerge thanks to the new media available. Nevertheless, if some of the basic society-rules are maintained, it is easier to judge these ethical dilemmas.