Cyberethics Issues - Essay Example

Cyber ethics Cyber Bullying Introduction: The cyber ethics s are proposed by Microsoft some of them are: do use of the internet to keep in touch with family, friends, work fellows and other people for sharing ideas, get engage with the online community through social media sites and discussions forums, do not become cyber bully and use good language, be respectful with other online friends and don’t try to cheat them in any way, do not encourage cyber bullies, one can report about cyber bullies to authorized people, the core purpose of students should use the internet service for research and useful information (Microsoft, 2013). Cyber bullying is increasing and resulting dangerous outcomes, which is becoming a serious threat in the community. Cyber bullying needs serious concerns for both online community and regulation to overcome this cyber crime. Possible solution of prevention from cyber bullying will be also discussed. Cyber ethics: The safer legal and disciplined use of the internet is the basic understanding of Cyber-Ethics (Cyberethics, 2011). Ethics have some standard rules and principles that are followed by humans. Same standards are followed in cyber activities. The way in which one can behave on the internet comes under cyber ethics. It involves the legal concerns as well, like following the law during internet usage. In digital media, the moral norms and duties should be followed and this comes under the definition of cyber ethics. The ethics that are needful for the internet environment comes under the definition of cyber-ethics. Another name of cyber ethics is computer ethics or internet ethic and all that comes under the spectrum of cyber-ethics. The alone computer user have own personal ethics while interacting with a system, when a same user becomes the internet user more principles involved under ethics and as a whole the user should follow the ethical norms (Tavani, 2006). The reason why one should concern about cyber ethics is to use the internet in a safe manner. The cyber-ethics are equally important as other areas (Pelgrin, 2011). Facebook and MySpace as social networking websites are so popular that these sites are difficult to control. Serious problem of cyber bullying has aroused. Girls commit suicide when their parents had taunted them on identifying their children’s identity. Description of cyber-ethics is explained in many categories regarding cyber-ethics. Some ethical values are common throughout the universe and same actions are applied in everywhere in the world, for example theft, murder, and assault. Same legal and ethical codes are applied in such general issues. Basically ethics revolves around the culture values of the geographic locations (Pelgrin, 2011). Foundation: Legislation necessity for Cyber-ethics The legislation becomes necessary now days for cyber-ethics. Many issues of internet result into criminal activities. In such situations, legislation is demanded the cyber-bullies. Some real examples are provided here as foundation: N.S. cyber bullying legislation allows victims to sue, MacKay says ‘holistic’ legislation to fight cyber bullying coming. In both examples internet has become the reason of violation of the ethical values. The cyber bullies used the scenarios un-ethically. People malign, threaten and taunt the young girls on the online applications used on their mobile phones. Many countries of the world have investigated the role of cyber bullying in the suicide of young boys and girls. Therefore, felony charges must be taken for the online bullying incidences (Alvarez 2013). Focus of attention: legislation for Cyber crimes, Cyber bullies and Cyber ethics The focus of attention on a single moral question that is a common theme in the sources chosen, and it is also the focus of the entire essay. All is related to cyber-ethics, cyber-crimes and cyber bullies. For all these cases there is legislation required that becomes the reason for minimizing the cyber crimes. If cyber-bullies are punished through proper legal process, it will defiantly decrease the cyber-crime rate. Cyber-bulling Cyber-bulling is regarding the cyber crime, this crime sometimes results into suicide cases and increases depression rate in the community. Cyber-bulling happens when a child, pre-teen or teen threatened, harassed, or targeted by other people may be known or unknown through the internet and on digital technologies or cell phones. The process of crime of cyber-bulling is not performed only in one time communication but it takes some time to work fully. Like the criminal activity of making someone harassed through social media or mobile phones will take threatening messaging on a regular interval. One who becomes the victim of cyber-bullies gets more and more depression and eventually commits suicide at-last in maximum cases. The cyber-bullies purposely threaten the targeted persons for many different kinds of reasons they had. Might they find some kind of fun in this criminal activity that makes the other person depressed and the victim can end his life? Whatever the reasons, they people have, all such criminals must get punished by authorities (Pelgrin, 2011). Examples of Cyber-bulling Here some examples are presented for getting more understanding about the crime of cyber-bulling. How people get affected and how many lives are wasted by such criminal activities. Rehtaeh Parsons Suicide, Amanda Todd case, Hannah Smith suicide, Lain Lerouge case, Rebecca Ann case are some examples of cyber-bullies. Rehtaeh Parsons Suicide: The suicide of Rhtaeh Parson is due to the activity of cyber-bullies. The case is from Canada where two men are charged for providing child pornography in the case of cyber-bulling. The girl Rahtaeh was 17; she killed herself for becoming the victim of cyber-bullies. She found her pictures of rape online. According to her mother a boy took that photos and distributed online purposely for bulling her daughter in 2011. In her case two criminals are charged for child pornography and distribution Amanda Todd case: Amanda Todd is another Canadian teenager who took her life and commit suicide. She was the victim of cyber-bullies after long online battle in a school. She meets and talks with new friends online through webcam and “At one point, a stranger flattered her into flashing the camera”. After the incident one year later she was contacted by bullies through Facebook and threats started for her. That stranger knows all personal detail about her, about school, friends and family. The bully distributed her naked pictures online among family and friends of her. She was in the great depression and anxiety. She changed two schools and also changed her friends group but the bully is tracing all the way changing her life. At last she committed suicide and took her life for making her life out of depression and anxiety. Audrie Pott case: The case of United States about the 15 year’s old Audie Pott California girl, she hanged herself and took her life for sexually assaulted by her friends and the pictures were shared online. Hannah Smith suicide: The father of Hannah smith says the daughter was the victim of cyber-bullies. Hannah Smith was 14 and killed herself after bullied from a social networking website on the internet. The posts from her social networking page found threatening and telling her to die. The father of Hannah has demanded the tight command should apply to the websites working as social media website. From her father, e-petition was started to safe the situation for dealing with such cyber-bullies. Lain Lerouge case: Lain was 15 and school girl, she was contacted through Facebook by a professional footballer. She was unaware that she is going to the victim of bullies. The person contacted her regularly on the internet and phone. After sometime a good relationship was developed among them, that time bully finally asked the girl for naked pictures of that girl. She refused for this and again treated normally. Once when she received a call from Birmingham dialing code instead of London code as the bully told about, after this incident she traced the Facebook account was owned by a girl and purposely used for bully activities. Although she was escaped from getting trapped by a bully, but for other case she suffered a lot. Rebecca Ann case: Rebecca was only 12 years old from Sedwick, she faced the cyber-bullies for round about two years. The group of five to six girls was the reason of her death. They did bullies with her and distributed online on Facebook. The girl reported complains at school for bullies but they continued the crime of bullying and finally she committed suicide. Keeley Houghton was jailed for doing cyber-crime and gets the part of cyber-bullies. Such penalties consequently become the reason for decreasing the crime rate of internet. The girl posted the online death threat for the girl of her age. She posted the threat on social media site. She was jailed for this criminal activity and was also feeling regret for this. Legal concerns have some standard rules applied in cases when someone violates the law. For every particular violation of laws, there are legal solutions available. Ethical issues common in societies should adopt the already developed legal solutions. Same rule is required for cyber ethics, all ethics related to cyber issues should be related with legal solutions. This will make the cyber crimes on a minimum level. When cyber crimes have particular penalties against them and are adopted in the society, it defiantly affects positively on cyber ethics and improves the cyber ethics norms (Pelgrin, 2011). There are laws available for general computer crimes. Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 (CFA Act) is one of them. The decision of the penalty depends upon the information gained and accordingly imprisoned. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) was written as sunset clause for wiretaps and this law is revised for different kinds of penalties for criminals and terrorist activities. Computer Security Act of 1987 is another important law applied for providing information security. This law was developed by the guidelines of two agencies, National Security Agency (NCA) and National Bureau of Standards (NBS) (Amran, 2012). The major area of information security is regarding privacy, the security of information that is personal and owned by someone specifically. Cyber bullies use this personal information to harm other people. Personal information of an individual is treated as a commodity for many organizations. Gathered information from different sources and collected in the central location is called Database. These databases of such private information are further used by different agencies and organizations for specific use. The databases must be accessed by authorized government agencies. In the case when such personal and private information is leaked out, it could make a negative impact on society and harm many people through different ways. Personal information can be used for criminal activities as in case of cyber bullying. Rise in the cyber bullying has created issues for parents to shield their children. Stealing the social networking identity and setting up the false accounts berate the kids, which also becomes difficult for parents to stop this cycle. My position on challenges of cyber bullying is that most of the people cannot judge the harm associated with this issue in cyber ethics. Parents, teachers, adolescents and law enforcement agencies cannot predict the outcomes of cyber bullying) (Amran, 2012). Internet users must know what they are disagreeing with others. Parents need to draw the boundaries, which are helpful for children in prevention of cyber bullying. Schools’ websites must give continuous professional development in order to address the growing havoc of cyber bullying. Principal, teachers and even all members in community should participate in eradication of the destructive behaviour of cyber bullying (Garland and Tadeja 2013). School based counseling is essential for the extensive victims of the cyber bullying. It is also important to educate the children about the use of new technology when they communicate and share information with other people online. They do not communicate face to face with other people. Parents must have good relationships and share the information and foster the trust. Parents’ monitoring of the children for use of computers must be continually looked. It has been also noted that most children access the Facebook on their mobiles and computers at homes. Excessive use of the Facebook for children is creating many concerns for the parents. Again in this case, parents can monitor the use of Facebook by their children. Facebook and MySpace like websites can carry the bullying pictures and messages. It becomes harmful on the involvement of adults in this online community. There is a list of laws available for protection of cyber issues. All of them are used for minimizing the cyber crimes and maximizing the cyber ethics. Thus, prevention of cyber bullying lies in talking with children about the social websites, Facebook etc. and ask them to report immediately at first harassment and bullying. A law should be drafted that must check the origin of the bullying persons. There is a need to increase the level of confidence in our children, if they are facing such a situation when they become the victims of bullies. They have to face the fear and not to feel isolated. Therefore, better solution of cyber bullying incidents mostly occurring in school age children lies in the better parenting than laws. From the above discussion, it is seen that cyber bullying is a harmful acts on the online media. Several reported incidence show that how cyber criminals cheat the innocent children for their sexual harassment purposes. Parents’ monitoring of their children for the use of social media websites is a best solution to eradicate the rate of cyber bullying among children. Conclusion: In this paper, cyber ethics (cyber bullying) and their legal concerns are briefly discussed. Privacy of identity in cyber bullying has been the concern in the computer ethics. Acts like computer Fraud and Abuse act 1986 (CFA) and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 FISA) are also included. Development of code of ethics is also focused in the paper for the privacy of customers’ information and theft identification to overcome the cyber bullying in the community. Prevention of cyber bullying has been discussed to control the cyber crimes particularly in school children with several examples. Prevention of cyber bullying among school children has been discussed in reference of regulations, parents and teachers at schools. References: Alvarez, L., (2013). Girl’s Suicide Points to Rise in Apps Used by Cyberbullies, Available from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/14/us/suicide-of-girl-after-bullying-raises-worries-on-web-sites.html Accessed on 22/11/2013. Amran, A. (2012). Law 483 cyberethics, Available from http://www.slideshare.net/ammariyyadbamran/law-483-cyberethicshttp://www.slideshare.net/ammariyyadbamran/law-483-cyberethics Accessed on 10/11/2013. Cyberethics, (2011). Cyber ethics, Available from http://www.cyberethics.info/cyethics1/ Accessed on 10/11/2013. Garland, V., and Tadeja, C. (2013). Educational Leadership and Technology: Preparing School Administrators for a Digital age, Routledge. Microsoft, (2013).Practice cyberethics, Available from http://www.microsoft.com/security/online-privacy/cyberethics-practice.aspx Accessed on 11/11/2013. Pelgrin, W. (2011), “Creating a Cyber-Secure Environment at Home”, Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Centre, Volume 6, Issue 2. Tavani, H.T. (2006), Ethics and Technology: ethical issues in an age of information and communication technology. Wiley Sons Read More