Forum reminds public of ethics in digital communications

CEBU, Philippines - Ethics has become a more important issue now that we are in the age of digital communications, according to Nick Wilwayco of Smart Communications, the online services manager of the Public Affairs Group at Smart Communications.

Wilwayco was speaker in yesterday’s forum on social media ethics as part of the Press Freedom Week Celebration held at the Albert van Gansewinkel Hall of the University of San Carlos-Main Campus.

Wilwayco said that while social media has a great potential for community development, these also pose risk for great harm, cruelty and even crime. Because most things are now easily accessible online, the issue of ethics has become more important than ever, she stressed.

“Major concerns here include privacy of information, limits and extent of freedom of expression, copyright, issues of libel and cyberbullying. There are also other areas which fall into the clearer criminal aspects such as pornography, identity theft, financial scams and the like,” she added.

The debate about Internet ethics is not just a national issue but global.

“Digital can be good. Technology in itself isn’t bad. It’s how people use it. For online ethics is not about the black and white battle of good versus evil. It’s about values and differences in values should be addressed through advocacy, education and lively debate,” she added.

She shared to forum participants the Brookings Institute’s 10 commandments of Internet Ethics, foremost of which is not to use digital to harm other people, not to cause harm to other’s digital works, not to illegally access other people’s private and confidential files and not to use digital to steal from other people.

The rest of the commandments include not to use digital to bear false witness, not to use or copy proprietary software which one has not paid for, not to use other people’s digital resources without proper attribution, not to appropriate other people’s intellectual output as one’s own, to always think about the consequences of one’s digital actions and to always use digital in ways that ensure consideration and respect for other people.

 “Online, it’s easy to judge, it’s easy to react. Let’s pull back and exercise the same kind of ethical considerations before we share, comment or like. We may know the other person’s screen name but we can never really know their full story,” she said. —JPM (FREEMAN)