Ethical Issues in Cyberbullying - Case Study Example

Cyberbullying Bullying used to be an activity that children and young adults encountered when they left their homes and went to school.  Now, due to the evolution of technology, kids are being bullied within their own homes; not only by other kids, but by other people as well. Bullying is not a new phenomenon, but the Internet has added potency to it. The Internet has provided bullies with a platform through which they can increase their access to their victim(s) and amplify their actions beyond the traditional school borders (Owens, 2010). How is cyberbullying more unethical than traditional bullying? Cyberbullying is a growing epidemic and an ethical dilemma that needs to be contained. It is defined as “the use of information and communication technologies to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behavior by an individual or group, that is intended to harm others” (Owens, 2010). Cyber bullying involves using technology, such as cell phones and the Internet, to harass another person. Cyberbullying is more dangerous than traditional bullying for the following reasons: (1) it is location independent; (2) it offers the ability to bully without a face-to-face confrontation (Meech, 2007); (3) it is difficult to trace or discover because of problems in identification; (4) it can be rapidly scaled to a large audience in a short time; and (5) there are neither codes of conduct nor procedures currently in place to deal with it (Owens, 2010). Cyberbullying is more unethical because as the world evolves, technology has become pervasive and a key component of our continued existence as a cohesive society. It is difficult to envision lives being lived without cyber-interaction especially among the youth. It is therefore vital for people to practice respect of each other in the virtual community just as much as in the physical world. Cyberbullying breaks this communal respect that is being nurtured online. Today’s youth need to be taught that even when no one can see what they are doing online, their actions affect other people. Furthermore, even if they can’t see those results, they need to know that the consequences are not only present and real but can also be catastrophic. An example of cyberbullying A good example of cyber-bullying is the Amanda Marcuson case (Harmon, 2004). Amanda, a new eighth-grade student, reported her classmates for stealing her pencil case. But at the end of the day when she went home, the girls that she had reported begun sending her insulting instant messages on her home computer. Amanda’s mother took her away from the computer to watch a basketball game with the rest of the family but the electronic insults were automatically routed to her cell phone. By the end of the game, Amanda’s had received the insulting instant messages to the maximum capacity of her cell phone. This case highlights how technology can be used to amplify adolescent cruelty (Harmon, 2004). Amanda was pursued not only from within her bedroom but to the basketball game. Amanda Marcuson’s case manifests the more unethical nature of cyberbullying in comparison to traditional bullying. In traditional bullying, Amanda’s tormentors would only have had access to her while at school. In this instance, it can be seen that Amanda had nowhere to hide from her classmates invectives. Cyberbullying reaches into the victim’s private space such that he/she lacks a safety zone. This complete exposure if the victim to his/her perpetrators has the potential to make the victim give up, fall into depression or even commit suicide because he/she feels trapped. If it were traditional bullying, Amanda would have been able to feel secure once she got home. This ability to make victims feel hopeless irrespective of their location makes cyberbullying to be more unethical than traditional bullying. Two theories, utilitarianism and deontology, can be used to show that cyberbullying is indeed more unethical than traditional bullying. Utilitarianism emphasizes doing the most good for the most people. In this case, it would imply that decreasing or eliminating cyberbullying promotes good cybercitizenship which decreases the risk of depressive disorders or suicides and lessens the “voice” of bullies in general. Decreasing or eliminating cyberbullying will therefore result in the best consequence for the society (most people). On the other hand, deontology illustrates how cyberbullying is ethically worse than traditional (physical) bullying. Utilitarianism According to the theory of utilitarianism, the right action is understood entirely in terms of consequences produced. The principle of utility states that a moral act is that which produces the greatest good for the most number of people. Following from this definition, it is clear that cyberbullying does not benefit the greater good. This means that cyberbullying is unethical. The only beneficiaries of cyberbullying are the bullies. However, at this juncture it needs to be clarified whether to address cyberbullying under the principles of act utility or under the principles of rule utility. In act-utilitarianism, we are required to promote those acts which will result in the greatest good for the greatest number of people while in rule-utilitarianism we are required to follow those rules which will result in the greatest good for the greatest number of people. The question is: should we look at cyberbullying as individual acts and address them as such or should we establish rules to prevent it? On the outset, having rules to control cyberbullying seems like the best bet to curbing it. Rules level the playing field in terms of telling everyone what is ethical and what is not such that those individuals who may be unable to calculate the consequences their actions on other people’s welfare, are assisted in making that decision. On the contrary, the problem with rule-utilitarianism is that in some situations the utility of breaking a certain rule could be greater than keeping it. So how then will we be able to curb cyberbullying, if even rules do not assure us of the greatest utility? The World Wide Web has proven to be a challenge to most of the traditional way of thinking from the how to run businesses, how to market to how to police it. It is one of the few areas in life where the wisdom of crowds seems to be effective. The Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) movement has been able to show that individuals can form effective teams and produce magnificent software without being managed. FOSS has also shown that individuals can respect proprietary technology without the need for legal contracts. This leads us to the argument that cyberbullying could possibly be curbed by promoting moral cyber-citizenship. Moral cybercitizenship would imply that: (1) we deny cyberbullies an audience for example by reporting them even where we are not the victims; (2) we mark out cyberbullies on the net; (3) we share information on cyberbullies, even where we are not the victim, with law enforcement so that decisive action may be taken against them. Deontology Deontological thinking is based on the notion that we have a duty to do certain things and not to do others. Doing “right” has precedence over doing “good”. “Right” has to do with actions while “good” has to do with outcomes (“Ethical Theory - Deontology,” 2011). Whereas Utilitarianism focuses on the outcomes of cyberbullying to define it as being unethical, deontology refers to the act of cyberbullying itself as being unethical. Deontology suggests that the same punishment for physical bullying should apply to cyberbullying. A physical act of violence is the same as mentally torturing someone until they harm themselves. Moreover, as demonstrated in cases of domestic abuse, verbal abuse is sometimes even more damaging in the long term than physical abuse. The principles of deontology categorically denounce cyberbullying on the basis that the action in itself is not right. Immanuel Kant, a major deontological thinker, supports this denunciation through his well-known three categorical imperatives. This paper shall now make use of Kant’s categorical imperatives to better explain why cyberbullying would be viewed as being unethical by deontologists. Kant’s first categorical imperative states that we should act only in ways that we are willing to see being applied universally (Alexander & Moore, 2007). Even bullies themselves do not enjoy being bullied. Here, too we find that cyberbullying incites a deeper level of meanness than physical bullying (Harmon, 2004) because the perpetrator cannot see the effect of her act on her victim, for example Amanda Marcuson’s tormentors would not have sent her over 50 hurtful messages if they saw the impact of the first few missives that they sent to her. Kant’s first maxim seeks to reinforce the idea of personal choice in ethics. Would cyberbullies confidently say that they are happy if all of us acted as they do? The fact that this question gives a negative response implies that cyberbullying is unethical. Both cyber and traditional bullies employ bullying in order to gain advantage over their victims. Bullies seek to intimidate other people so that they can be manipulated for the bullies gain. This behavior goes against Kant’s second maxim which states that we should treat people as ends and never as means. Bullies treat their victims as a means to getting something done for them. In the Amanda Marcuson case we can only conjecture about the motives of her bullies. One guess is that they bullied Amanda to pass the message to her that they had some form of dominion over her and as such had the right to steal her property and not get reported to the teacher. Kant’s third maxim states that we should act as if our behavior was establishing a universal law that will govern other people who are under similar circumstances. This means that when we when we engage in any act, we are indirectly setting a rule that we are willing to have anyone in the world follow. It is difficult to envision cyberbullies agreeing to this maxim because they themselves would not like to be harassed on the Internet. In fact, unlike traditional bullying where the perpetrator may get comfort in being seen as a macho man, cyberbullies take confidence in the fact that they cannot be seen. Traditional bullying in some ways resembles the animal kingdom where the physically strong dominate the physically weak. As such it would be easier to see it being accepted as a universal law than cyberbullying. Summary of the two theories Both utilitarianism and deontology express the vision of doing the right thing. Both theories prove that the long term and significant effects on society would be extremely positive if cyberbullying was decreased or better still curbed. Utilitarianism focuses on the consequences of cyberbullying and concludes that it is an unethical act. The consequences of cyberbullying are greater than the consequences of physical bullying for the reasons that it for one incites a deeper level of meanness, then it has the ability to infiltrate the victim’s privacy independent of where he/she and also because it is difficult to detect unless the victim speaks out – which is often difficult to do because he/she feels humiliated. Deontology, on the other hand, denounces the act of cyberbullying irrespective of its consequences. From deontology, specifically through the use of Kant’s maxims, it can be seen that cyberbullying fails to meet all three maxims which means that it is not a moral act. Conclusion Principles of utility suggest that we should perform acts that offer the greatest good to the most number of people. Deontology illustrates to us that bullying is wrong and therefore cyberbullying is wrong. From the discussion it has been seen that cyberbullying is more dangerous than traditional bullying for several reasons such as: its location independence; its secret perpetrator nature; the difficulty to trace or discover it; its ability to rapidly scale; and the lack of codes of conduct and procedures to deal with it (“Cyberbullying - Computer Ethics,” 2011). Finally, this paper argues that the best way to deal with cyberbullying could possibly be through promoting moral cyber-citizenship. This will be a civil process that would follow the success of organized cybercommunities such as the Free and Open Source Software community. References Alexander, L., & Moore, M. (2007, November 21). Deontological Ethics. (E. N. Zalta, Ed.)The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-deontological/ Cyberbullying - Computer Ethics. (2011, August 5). . Retrieved August 6, 2011, from http://www.ohio.edu/people/tl303308/cyberbullying.html Ethical Theory - Deontology. (2011, August 5). . Retrieved August 6, 2011, from http://www3.sympatico.ca/cogito/Gr11/deontology.html Harmon, A. (2004, August 26). Internet Gives Teenage Bullies Weapons to Wound From Afar. NYTimes.com. Retrieved August 5, 2011, from http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/26/education/26bully.html?scp=1&sq=Internet%20Gives%20Teenage%20Bullies%20Weapons%20to%20Wound%20From%20Afar&st=cse Meech, S. (2007, May 1). Cyber bullying: worse than traditional bullying. Tech & Learning. Retrieved July 31, 2011, from http://www.techlearning.com/article/7284 Owens, L. (2010, April 1). Phoebe Prince -Tragic Case of (Cyber) bullying. Internet Safety for Kids & Families. Retrieved July 31, 2011, from http://internetsafety.trendmicro.com/phoebe-prince-tragic-case-of-cyberbullying  Read More