There is a constant struggle to expand the circle of inclusion for ethical thought in discourse. This is often aimed at natural environments \u00e2\u20ac\u201c animals, plants, ecosystems \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but what about digital persons? With the development of games such as World of Warcraft and EverQuest and online communities such as Second Life, digital beings are becoming an integral part of people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lives. What of our ethical domain transfers into this digital world? This question was debated when an early multi-user role-playing game had a user digitally control and rape other users (Dibbell). What did this mean? The community came together and discussed the issue, but was unable to reach a conclusion. An administrator of the game arbitrarily deleted the offender\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s account. However, the question of ethical dimensions in a digital world was not answered. Do our physical ethics exist in a digital world? They must if the load of information that exists on the Internet is to be dealt with appropriately. We cannot lose the trust that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve built into our system of digital exploration, and this requires us to extend our circle to include our digital personas as well. Has this technology created more harm than good? Barbour warms that, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153technology has created subtle ways of manipulating people and new techniques of electronic surveillance and psychological conditioning.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d What will be the cost of these new techniques to our physical and digital personas?<\/p>\n
I think that it is critical to look at how trust develops on the Internet, maintain this first pass, and then improve on it. When the ability to purchase online became an option, my mom refused to do so. Why? She didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think that should trust online retailers. How can one trust an individual who can memorize and then use your credit card, but not trust a machine that is built to protect your information? There was a barrier between the physical meaning of trust and the virtual meaning of trust. This barrier has crumbled for my mom, and others as well. This is because Internet commerce has found a way to build healthy relationships between the companies and the consumers. However, I know that my mom won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t store her credit card information in their databases. Ease of use has not yet won over her need to feel financially secure. This suggests to me that there are varying levels of trust, and that each time an incident of exposed data is revealed, that level of trust takes another step backwards. So how do we build trust? I think a more open attitude is required here. It is the inability to discern when information is being gathered, and how it is being used, that leads to the breakdown of trust between physical persons and online companies. Building trust is an integral part of the evolution of information and identity on the Internet.<\/p>\n
This is one place where the government could make a big, positive difference. Already having displayed its ability to mine such information (Jordan), the government should now take an active role in regulating how this information can be handled and economized. This would give a legitimacy to the Internet businesses who need to use the information for business practices, but protect the consumer from the potential harms of data mining, accidentally released data, and data solicitation. If the consumer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s voice was backed by a government regulatory agency, then we would start to see the kind of information maintenance needed to help the Internet grow without threatening individual\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s identity\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s. This does not give the government access to this kind of information. Though it is an overseer, it must be one through a black box model. It can check inputs and outputs, and when results are incorrect go back and tweak the inside mechanics, but it should not actively be involved with the data itself. It seems that the government has already shown that it cannot ethically be the body where data is stored and distributed (Jordan), but should attempt to repair the damages done by enacting a more public policy of better governance over data garnered through the Internet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There is a constant struggle to expand the circle of inclusion for ethical thought in discourse. This is often aimed at natural environments \u00e2\u20ac\u201c animals, plants, ecosystems \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but what about digital persons? With the development of games such as World of Warcraft and EverQuest and online communities such as Second Life, digital beings are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQyAq-K","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":43,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2007\/01\/21\/encroachment-in-information-mining-technologies-part-i\/","url_meta":{"origin":46,"position":0},"title":"Encroachment in Information Mining Technologies - Part I","date":"January 21, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Data mining has slowly, and silently, pervaded into the lives of everyday digital consumers. Using Gmail? Look at the advertisements on the right hand side of the screen and notice that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re related to the contents of your e-mail. Are you a social networker? You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve released information about yourself onto\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Information Mining Essay"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":41,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2007\/01\/18\/building-a-case-against-apples-digital-media-business-practices-part-i\/","url_meta":{"origin":46,"position":1},"title":"Building a Case Against Apple\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Digital Media Business Practices - Part I","date":"January 18, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"In an attempt to look at the business and ethical practices of the largest companies in Silicon Valley today, I have done some research and written two papers on Apple's Digital Media and Google's ethical responsibility dealing with information gathering. I will present these over the next couple of days\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "iPod\/iTunes Bundling Essay"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":53,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2007\/04\/06\/encroachment-in-information-mining-technologies-part-ix\/","url_meta":{"origin":46,"position":2},"title":"Encroachment in Information Mining Technologies - Part IX","date":"April 6, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The role of this digital hammer is as the lead actor for progress in human relationships. Is it possible that the Internet can make us more human? I think that if we learn how to use the new wealth of information provided to us, then we will be better able\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Information Mining Essay"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":252,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2010\/02\/01\/ethics-of-haitian-relief\/","url_meta":{"origin":46,"position":3},"title":"Ethics of Haitian Relief","date":"February 1, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"My old friend Ashley sent a blog post detailing how the US Congress has passed a resolution fast tracking giving to Haiti onto people's 2009 taxes such that they can maximize their deductions against the past year even though the tragedy happened this year. Here is a link to the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "just thinking out loud"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":42,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2007\/01\/19\/building-a-case-against-apples-digital-media-business-practices-part-ii\/","url_meta":{"origin":46,"position":4},"title":"Building a Case Against Apple's Digital Media Business Practices - Part II","date":"January 19, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"There hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t been much mentioned about consumer harm as of yet, and so the remainder of this paper will focus on whether the DRM software model that Apple has created harms the consumer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s rights. Apple\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ability to gain access to the music industry\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s catalogue of music came when they demonstrated\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "iPod\/iTunes Bundling Essay"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":664,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2013\/11\/19\/good-bye-28-you-were-an-adventure\/","url_meta":{"origin":46,"position":5},"title":"Good-bye 28. You were an adventure","date":"November 19, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"I turn 29 tomorrow, and I want to tell the story of 28 through photos. I also want to stop for a moment, and just say that I genuinely understand how lucky I am. I don't have many friends, but the ones I have are incredible. I don't have many\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "just thinking out loud"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/MG_9019-300x200.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}