JasonMorrison.net

Even before I worked at Google, I was pretty impressed by the “don’t be evil” motto.  Not that I think any company is perfect or that anyone can hire only saintly employees - but it’s impressive when anyone recognizes the ethical implications for what we do as programmers and web developers.

Now that I work there, I can tell you that everyone really seems to take it to heart (disclaimer:  this is my personal blog and I am not representing my employer in any way).  At this point, you may be asking, “programs are just lists of instructions, web sites are just products, what’s the ethical dilemma?”

I’ll give you an example.

I’m a big fan of Facebook, I think they’ve really done a great job building a social networking system, and it’s been very useful for keeping up with friends all over the world.  But I also have an account at LinkedIn, and Flickr, and Yelp, and an address book in Thunderbird, and another on my iPhone, and…  you get the picture.  So I’m trying to collect all my contacts together in one system (Gmail) so I can just import/export to keep all these different social networking systems up to date.

But Facebook doesn’t have a function to export a list of contacts and email addresses.  What’s more, they’ve apparently actively blocked attempts by developers to build systems to do it and disabled people’s accounts.

They are, of course, not legally obligated to let you export your contacts.  And if I were building a social networking site, it probably wouldn’t be the first feature I would implement.  But ethically, I think, they should do so.  Why?  We can refer to Kant’s categorical imperative or Jesus’ golden rule:  They should build open systems because they would like other systems to be open.

They certainly take advantage of the openness of other systems, allowing you to import contacts from Gmail.  Google’s social networking site, Orkut, will happily export your contacts, and I don’t think that’s an accident.  The engineers and product managers at Google make conscious choices to do the right thing.

But wait…  am I really asking them to make it easy for their users to take their data and go over to a competitor?  Isn’t that a bad business practice?

It’s possible, but beside the point.  I’m sure you and I could think of plenty of things that are profitable but morally repugnant.  What’s more, I don’t think it is a bad business practice at all.  I think that the walled garden approach is a sign of desperation rather than innovation.  Orkut is not the only one that lets you take your data with you - LinkedIn allows exports, for example.

Paul Graham wrote a really interesting post about this recently:

When you’re small, you can’t bully customers, so you have to charm them. Whereas when you’re big you can maltreat them at will, and you tend to, because it’s easier than satisfying them. You grow big by being nice, but you can stay big by being mean.

If you’d like to read more about this subject and see what some developers are doing to make your data more portable, check out DataPortability.org.

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Friedman, B., & Nissanbaum, H.  (1996). Bias in computer systems.  ACM Transactions on Information Systems, 14(3), 330-347.

 

In this article Friedman and Nissenbaum look at bias in software systems. Although the word bias can cover a number of related concepts, the definition used here is something that systematically and unfairly discriminates toward one party or against another. The authors see three main classes of bias in computer systems: Preexisting bias, when an external bias is incorporated into a computer system, either through individuals who have a hand in designing the system or via the society the software was created in; Technical bias, where technical considerations bring about bias (from limitations, loss of context in algorithms, random number generation, or formalization of human constructs); and Emergent bias, where bias emerges after design when real users interact with the system (for example, when new information is available but not in the design, or when systems are extended to new user groups). A number of illustrative examples are given, and the authors look at a number of specific software systems and point out existing or potential biases. One of the systems is the The National Resident Match Program (NRMP), used to match med school graduates to hospitals. In this system, if a student’s first choice of hospital and hospital’s first choice of student do not match, the students’ second choices are run against the hospitals’ first choices. Overall, the result favors the hospitals. Two steps are proposed to rectify bias – diagnosis and active minimization of bias.

This is an extremely interesting subject, and and I doubt most users and programmers are any more aware of it now than they were in 1996. One more recent article, (http://web.mit.edu/21w.780/Materials/douglasall.html) which sought to turn literary criticism toward video games by pointing out cultural biases, also mentions the lack of study in this area. With so many people spending so much of their day interacting with software, why do these kinds of articles seem so few and far between? On the other hand, the particular examples chosen are illustrative but not very current. All three of the systems were large-scale, mainframe-type software that users interacted with in a very small sense. Would the risk of bias be even greater for a system which is largely a user interface?

One clear implication is shown in the diagnosis stage of removing bias—to find technical and emergent bias, designers are told to imagine the systems as they will actually be used and as additional user groups adopt them, respectively. So the charge is one-third ‘know thyself’ and two-thirds ‘know the users.’ The very notion of looking for bias is probably foreign to many user interface designers (in fact, few of the programmers I’ve met are even aware that accessibility guidelines exist for blind, deaf, and other users). The authors’ proposal that professional groups offer support to those designers who detect bias and wish to fight it is a nice thought but doubtful. Few programming or UI organizations can exert any kind of pressure or drum up much bad publicity, or if they can, I haven’t heard of it (which I suppose means they can’t).

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Compiled by Jason Morrison

Last updated 28 Oct 1999

The following links send you to sites I’ve found useful in my search for a system of ethics for the internet. The plan is to eventually compare this ethical system or series of systems with those used by journalists. Because of the structure of the net, it may prove useful to define three different groups for which systems of ethics may be written:

1. Users (who view web pages, purchase products, etc.),
2. Publishers (who create and maintain web pages, write articles, and sell products),
3. and Governing Bodies (who maintain domain names, national governments, and other groups in a position to enhance/alter the flow of information between the above).

The third category seems to have the most rigorous ethical systems devised, not by members of that category but usually by watchdog-type organizations and free speech organizations. In short, those with a vested interest in the actions of members of category three.

Category one, on the other hand, is a bit less interesting. Most of what I’ve found so far are lists of ‘netiquette’ dos and don’ts. Still, there may very well be something more out there, and I will continue to look.

I have yet to find much in category two, but I believe that is because most web publishers approach their work as and extension of their current profession, i.e. journalists, advertisers, scholars, etc. It is also interesting to note that because of the ease of publishing on the web, John Q. User from category one may also have a homepage placing him in category two as well. The lines between one and two are often blurred by the nature of the medium.

Please note: the links within each category are not organized by relevancy. I do not guarantee the veracity of the information contained in any of these sites.

1. Users

Netiquette Home Page (albion.com) — very comprehensive, but typically newbie-oriented, netiquette resource. Includes the entire book Netiquette by Virginia Shea.

The Net: User Guidelines and Netiquette — Seems to be Florida Atlantic University’s netiquette page. Contains guidelines for FTP, Newsgroups, etc. in addition to the web, but isn’t very interesting.

“Scientology v. the Internet,” The Skeptics Society — Very old, but very interesting look at Scientology’s actions against users of a Usenet newsgroup. Brings up ethical use issues.

2. Publishers

“Ethics in Journalism,” Society of Professional Journalists Includes the SPJ Code of Ethics, a well established guide journalists should follow.

Books: Computer Aided Research - Information Malpractice (Poynter Online) — decent rundown of opportunities for error in electronic database based reporting.

Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility — This site, from Grate Britain, has information pertaining to category three as well. It is an excellent resource–has links to many professional ethics systems and a wealth of scholarly publications and other periodicals. Though their own commentary is not incredible, the site is impressively comprehensive.

Search Engine Watch — This site could be said to be aimed at the standards and practices of a specific type of internet content provider: search engines. Has info on how much of the web each covers and how well they do it, as well as updates on new technology, pay listings, etc.

Center for New Media — Part of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. Very little on ethics, but they do have some interesting prototypes–new ways of doing journalism on the web.

Cyberwire Dispatch — Though it seems to have ceased publication in February, 1998, this site gathered and released some very well written articles about the net, written primarily by professional journalists. No longer up to date, it contains a great deal of context for net ethical issues.

Professional Presence Network — Perhaps the best site for category two yet. Has its own code of ethics for net publishers which seems very comprehensive and interesting.

HateWatch : An Educational Resource Combating Online Bigotry — Perhaps more concerned with morals than ethics (?), hatewatch is one of the authorities on hate groups and movements on the web.

3. Governing Bodies

Computer Science Professionals for Social Responsibility — Very good, comprehensive site, includes a set of seven principles.

Electronic Privacy Information Center — Concerned with privacy, free speech, and cryptography.

Global Internet Liberty Campaign — coalition of other rights groups, GILC is slightly more concerned with speech than privacy.

Digital Future Coalition — Organization for the establishment of intellectual property/fair use rights and practices.

Database Data Site — Property/use site, with big players signed on to its mission statement, follows specific bills in Congress.

World Intellectual Property Organization (United Nations agency) — a sort of world authority on property/fair use. Includes the Standing Committee on Information Technology (SCIT).

EFFweb - The Electronic Frontier Foundation — Group responsible for the blue ribbon internet free speech campaign. They provide updates, releases and commentary, usually on legislation dealing with online speech, privacy, etc. Some of the best commentary around, but few links.

Worthwhile Periodicals

Salon.com — Web based magazine with very complete coverage of a number of net issues and cultural issues.

• “Inside the Columbine High investigation” — This Salon article by Dave Cullen is a good example of the net serving as a watchdog of other news media.

The New York Times on the Web — We all know what the NYT is. The often have links to related sites in articles, though usually official sites (government, corporate, etc).

FEED Magazine — Their technology section sometimes covers internet ethical concerns. This site, though it takes some getting used to, also has a wealth of discussion.

Slashdot — Very up-to-date, very tech savvy publication. Not a magazine, but a magazine-styled message board for those on the cutting edge. May contain tons of info on different ethical concerns, but some of it may turn out to be inaccurate.

Sites of Some Interest

“An Atlas of Cyberspace,” Cyber-Geography Research — Though not concerned with ethics, really, this site gives interesting perspectives on the growth and organization of the web, along with some beautiful images.

Ethics Updates Home Page — This seems to be a very comprehensive site with resources on the entire field of ethics. Because it is not internet-specific, it may or may not apply to this study.

HotBot Directory/ Computers & Internet/ Ethics — HotBot is one of the few engines/directories with a section specific to this subject. Duplicates many of the links here.

Rhodes Philosophy Internet Resources — Very large directory of philosophy sites online, though not directy usefull for this investigation.

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The Project

This started as a journal-style project for The News and the Net, a course at Ohio Wesleyan University. The more I looked, the more interesting the state of ethics on the web seemed. In journalism, just as in law and medicine, there are written systems of ethics. The net competes with and complements traditional journalism–is there any system of ethics for those distributing information through it?

This is a project attempting to answer that question and then compare it to the accepted system of ethics in journalism. The first step is research, and since this is a project about the web, the research is primarily on the web. This is also an experiment–usually no one gives out lists of their sources before they write a paper.

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