Computer Ethics & Social Issues

1. Computer Ethics & Social Issues Freedom of Expression

2. Freedom of Expression • “If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” • George Washington

3. The 1st Amendment • “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” • The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

4. Martin Luther King, Jr.

5. Westboro Baptist Church

6. Freedom of Speech is (mostly) Lawfully Good! • Good idea: • Peacefully assemble to protest abortion clinics due to your religious (ethical) and personal (moral) beliefs. • Bad idea: • Peacefully plant homemade munitions consisting of nails and dynamite to bomb an abortion clinic, a lesbian bar, and the Atlanta Centennial Olympic Park due to your religious and personal beliefs. • That means you, Eric Robert Rudolph!

7. Unlawful Speech • Burning draft cards to protest draft — prohibited because of superior governmental interest. • Words likely to incite imminent violence, termed “fighting words.” • “I’m gonna kill your house, burn down your wife and rape your dog!!!” • Words immediately jeopardizing national security. • That means you, Snowden!!! • Newspaper publishing false and defamatory material — libel. • “Aaron Walker is a Nazi war criminal who stole the Ark of the Covenant and is, in fact, the Least Interesting Man in the World.” – The Steeple

8. Defamation • Libel • Written • An email sent to the CEO of PFUDR Corp. and the local news station which states that he will burn in hell for all eternity for having carnal knowledge of a goat • Slander • Spoken • Upon reading the email on live television, a news commentator remarks that he thinks that the person who wrote that email probably knew what he was talking about, then laughs.

9. Hate Speech Example • “All students of UNG are horrible, evil people who deserve to have their lying tongues ripped from their jaws, be bound to a tree, lashed upon their back until their flesh is ripped away, and then thrown into a pit of raw liquid sewage so that they may finally expire from septic shock.” • Memoirs of a Student of a Better School

10. Hate Speech is Lawful!! • R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul • In St. Paul, Minnesota, a white teenager decided to burn a cross in the front yard of a black family. • The teen was convicted of violating a local ordinance against racist expressions • The conviction was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court on appeal • The ordinance was concerned with the content of the expression, not the method of expression and therefore violated 1st Amendment • No laws against “Hate Speech” since

11. Defamation v. Hate Speech • Defamation • “Aaron Walker is a hideous, disgusting freak who does not deserve to teach a university class because he smells like rotten peaches.” • Hate speech • “University professors are all liberal bastards who deserve to meet Hitler in Hell for always giving students worse grades than they deserve. Let’s send them there.”

12. In the Business World… • Personal blogs, Facebook or Twitter accounts of company employees • Do personal accounts represent the individual, or the business? • Possible legal issues • Client/Partner/Vendor/Customer relations may be endangered • Bottom line: • Perception can cost business $$$

13. In the Computer World… • Freedom of Expression is not always fun. • Why??? • More than 1 in 5 mobile internet searches • The data content of 24% of smartphone users • The internet activity of: • 64% of college men • 18% of college women • The text message content of 19% of 18-24 year-olds

14. Pornography!!!

15. Pornucopia • As an Information Technology professional, you will find: • Porn on PC hard drives • Porn on flash drives • Porn on mobile devices • Porn on network drives • Porn in email • Porn in instant messaging

16. Porntastic • As a business professional dealing with employees you will find: • Your subordinates, your partners, your clients, and your coworkers talking about, viewing, sharing, or making pornographic material on company time, using company equipment, with company assets being endangered due to significant business risk associated with exposing legal and social risks

17. Porn in the U.S.A. • Security and Exchange Commission • One senior attorney at the agency's Washington headquarters spent up to eight hours a day looking at and downloading porn. When he filled up the hard drive on his government computer, he downloaded more porn images to CDs and DVDs that accumulated in boxes in his offices. • One employee tried hundreds of times to access porn sites and was repeatedly denied access. He finally bypassed the filter by using a flash drive, and happily surfed away. He agreed to resign. http://www.examiner.com/article/sec-workers-spent-hours-surfing-porn-instead-of-searching-for-fraud

18. The Hard Fact About Porn • Spyware, Adware, Malware • Many porn sites and services on the internet are free of electronically transmitted diseases • No viruses does not mean clean!!! • Spyware and Adware runs rampant • Affected porn downloading and viewing is easily discovered on a computer network • Depending on what kind of porn is being viewed, this becomes a legal issue • Depending on corporate policy, discovery of porn or porn web traffic may be investigated

19. Child Pornography • U.S. Department of Justice: • At any one time there are estimated to be more than one million pornographic images of children on the Internet, with 200 new images posted daily • There is a core of veteran offenders, some of whom have been active in pedophile newsgroups for more than 20 years, who possess high levels of technological expertise

20. Pedophilia Pornography Collecting • National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children: • The obsessive nature of the collecting and the narrative or thematic links for collections, led to the building of social communities on the internet dedicated to extending these collections. Through these "virtual communities" collectors are able to downgrade the content and abusive nature of the collections, see the children involved as objects rather than people, and their own behavior as normal: It is an expression of 'love' for children rather than abuse.

21. Child Porn Availablity • Peer-to-Peer (P2P) services • Limewire • Bittorrent • The DarkWeb • Black market trading and selling of material • Sexting • Either enticing a minor to take and distribute pornographic material or the interception/discovery of such material

22. Typical Child Porn Consumer • High levels of technological expertise • Obsessive nature of collectors and the building of narrative or thematic links • Use of computer and internet technology to access and distribute material • Use of anonymous computer services to attempt to ward off detection

23. Pedophilia and Computer Science Ethics • Pedophiles hide their activities • Computers and Internet have aided their cause • Applications developed for free expression have enabled the proliferation of illegal material • A Computer Scientist must be aware of: • The possible misuse of the fruits of his/her labor • A business IT professional must be aware of: • What is the corporate computing system being used to do? • What is the business doing to prevent the spread of child porn?

24. Sally’s Dilemma • Sally posts a photo on Facebook of her two daughters, aged 4 and 6, playing in an inflatable swimming pool in her (Sally's) backyard. The children are nude. Can she be prosecuted for child pornography?

25. Sally’s Dilemma • This in itself seems innocent enough • Sally is simply showing everyone how cute her kids are. She’s a relatively new mother and the kids aren’t old enough yet to be concerned with sexuality. • Even if the picture is benign, it may be enticing to pedophiles and therefore be offensiveprima facia

26. Sally’s Dilemma • New York v Ferber • the Supreme Court cites the definition of "sexual performance" as any performance that includes sexual conduct by such a child, and "sexual conduct" is in turn defined as actual or simulated sexual intercourse, deviate sexual intercourse, sexual bestiality, masturbation, sado-masochistic abuse, or lewd exhibition of the genitals. • Is Sally in trouble with the law???

27. Obscenity • Miller v. California • Miller owns a mail-order porn shop in Californiaand solicits business via mail • Five of his brochures are mailed to a restaurant in Newport Beach, California • The owner and his mother open the mail, see the brochures and call the police • Miller is charged with violating California Penal Code 311.2(a) dealing with obscene matter (and based upon the outcome of two U.S. Supreme Court cases) • Miller is convicted

28. Miller’s Argument • What is obscenity? • Memoirs v. Massachusetts • Obscene material is material proven to: • Appeal to prurient interest • Be patently offensive • Have no redeeming social value • That definition is too subjective!!! • Miller argued that the definition of what is obscene is different based upon the local society. To uphold such a definition, a national standard of obscenity must be created. • Since he knew this could not be done, he based his argument on the 1st Amendment

29. Miller’s Legacy • U.S. Supreme Court rejected Miller’s argument • Obscene material is not protected by the first amendment • However, it agreed that the definition of obscenity was not objective • Thus was created the Miller Test for obscenity

30. The Miller 3-Pronged Test • The court may subject material to legislation regarding obscenity provided the following 3 criteria are met: • whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards (not national standards, as some prior tests required), would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest • whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functionsspecifically defined by applicable state law • whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value

31. Remember Sally? • Per the Miller Test, she is safe from prosecution