Talk:Cyberethics

Problems: Contradictions, Assumptions, Lack of focus
I believe the sections Definition and Ethics is Not Universal need to be either removed or greatly edited down. Much of this is not really necessary and covered elsewhere (let people use wikilinks), or arguably wrong: Ethics is Not Universal assumes relativism.

The Ethical Fallacies section is rife with problems. In The Computer Game Fallacy, "Programmers believe if a software program is working then it must be free of errors." is very obviously wrong: programmers are the one set of people always anxious about undiscovered bugs. The Hacker's Fallacy appears to contradict itself, first it claims hackers don't work in self interest, and then that they do. Believing the "hacker's code" to be flawed also contradicts the earlier assumed relativism. The Free Information Fallacy apparently fails to see the figurative meaning of "information wants to be free". This statement has never meant that information has will, rather it points out how it is much easier to free information (e.g. exchange it in a p2p network) that to control it (almost every DRM scheme has exploitable flaws). The Ethical Fallacies section as a whole is more about people not realizing the harm to others or illegal actions they can do, rather than having bad ethics (whatever those may be). Given this, and the obvious mistakes, I believe it should be removed completely.

Intellectual Property is an issue outside of the US as well. There should also be links to the other articles we have on the intellectual property debate.

There needs to be an introduction before the contents.

I would make changes myself, but I'd like to hear what others think before excising large sections of an article.

-- Wingedsubmariner (talk) 00:30, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Rewrite (Aug 29, 2008)
I just submitted a large edit, basically rewriting the article. I made the necessary changes I mentioned above, along with many more to cleanup the article, including deleting large sections that had nothing to do with ethics, or were too broad to belong here. I tried to give it a clearer focus, centering it on the several current debates in cyberethics, adding sections on censorship and sexuality, and splitting intellectual property into sections on intellectual property violations and software ownership. These sections are sort of stublike but they provide a beginning. I left the section on Codes of Ethics in Computing. Its long and its relevance is debatable, but it does provide examples for some of the preceding discussion. -- Wingedsubmariner (talk) 04:14, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Reorg/Add/Cpyed (Feb 5, 2009)
In response to the original posting by user:Wingedsubmariner I have Reorg/Add/Cpyed the article in an effort to better centralize and define cyberethics and the debate over cyberethics. Although I believe the structure to be much improved and expanded, I am certain that more breadth can be added to the topic of cyberethics. Perhaps of critical importance, I think that 2 subcategories should be added to the category: 'Privacy'; 'Individual Rights' and 'Consumer Rights'. Unfortunately given the already large extent of my edit I did not have time to properly research and add these subcategories. A detailed summary of the changes made can be found below:

--DKL (talk) 11:46, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * add: Cyberethics (Intro), rm: The emergence of personal computers and, internet have led to, intellectual property rights, software <br *ownership, censorship, and sexuality
 * ext lk:misq.org, legalaffairs.org
 * link: 'Spyware'
 * add 'Privacy': governments and
 * link: 'Government'
 * add: 'Property'[h2], property category txt
 * link: 'Property'
 * ext lk: sdoj.gov
 * recat [h2: Intellectual Property Rights] to [h3: Intellectual Property Rights]
 * link: 'Intellectual Property Rights'
 * add: emergence of
 * rm: mp3
 * add: such as mp3, peer-to-peer
 * link: 'peer-to-peer'
 * add: previously seen on prgrams such as napster or now seen through communication protocol such as BitTorrent
 * link: 'Napster', 'BitTorrent', 'Ethics of file sharing'
 * mv: 'Software Ownership' to 'Intellectual Property Rights' (mrgd)
 * add: We also see similar debate over intellectual property rights in respect to
 * add:'Digital Rights Management (DRM)' [h3], digital rights management category txt
 * link: 'Digital Rights Managment'
 * add: 'Security' [h2], security category txt
 * link: 'cybercrimes', 'Hacker (computer security)'
 * add: 'Accuracy' [h2], accuracy category txt
 * recat 'Censorship' to 'Accessibility, Censorship and Filtering'
 * add: Accessibility, Censorship and Filtering category txt
 * link: 'content-control software', 'internet censorship'
 * add: censorship and filtering are used to
 * rm: -sion of suppression, of, on the internet
 * add: and filtering, and filtering, and filtering;
 * rm: :
 * add: what
 * rm: harmful influences online. The information in question can be anything from
 * add: is considered by a governing body as harmful, indecent or illicit
 * link: 'Golden Shield Project'
 * ext lk: yahoo! case
 * rm: political speech, hate speech, to pornography including child pornography
 * add: 'Freedom of Information' [h3], freedom of information category txt
 * link: 'free speech'
 * ext lk: A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace
 * add: 'Digital Divide' [h3], digital divide category txt
 * link: 'digital divide', 'global digital divide'
 * recat 'Sexuality' [h2] to 'Sexuality and Pornography' [h3] (mrgd)
 * dl link: 'cybersex'
 * add:sexuality and pornography category txt
 * link: 'pornography', 'internet pornography'
 * ext lk: bbc.co.uk, reuters.com
 * add: 'Gambling' [h3], gambling category txt
 * link: 'gambling'
 * ext lk: boston.com, nytimes.com
 * link: 'Online gambling#Legality'
 * add: 'Organizations Related to Cyberethics' [h2], Organizations Related to Cyberethics category txt
 * link: 'IFIP'
 * ext lk: SIGCAS
 * link: 'EPIC', 'EFF"
 * ext lk: ICIE, CCSR, Cyber-rights.org
 * link: 'Ethics of Technology', 'Internet Research#Ethics', 'Internet Privacy', 'Digital Rights', 'Open Source#Ethics', 'Internet Bias', 'International Freedom of Expression Exchange', 'Network Neutrality', 'E-democracy'


 * Thanks DKL! The article looked pretty bony after I was done with it, I was really hoping for help fleshing it out.
 * Wingedsubmariner (talk) 01:43, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Lead section needs work
The lead did not define the topic (per WP:LEAD), so I rewrote it. Though it still doesn't seem to capture the essence of cyberethics (to give a clear understanding of what is and is not within its scope). If you can improve the description or provide a better one, please do. The Transhumanist 06:33, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

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Improvements
Dear editors and readers. I am working on improving and extending this article as part of a University of Virginia project,. The goal is to add more references, extend the content and provide a more universal approach to the topic (the last part will probably be most challenging). I started this work in my sandbox. Should you have comments, please let me know. Thanks!--Jetam2 (paid) (talk) 15:08, 8 March 2024 (UTC)
 * So, I added chapters on theory and challenges. Feel free to comment.--Jetam2 (paid) (talk) 16:19, 14 April 2024 (UTC)