User:Nicole Willard-Moore/Communication ethics

Article Draft:
Online communication

As today’s society adapts to the prevalence of the Internet for its plethora of online outlets, resources, and knowledge, it has also come to develop and reshape the expanse of communication and the utilization of ethics thereof. Social media platforms, namely, allow for both casual communication as well as formal communication throughout their respective services, both of which can apply similar ethics as to what is practiced in other settings such as in-person communication. Informal or casual communication, for example, can refer to the way in which an individual chooses to voice themselves on social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and more, whereas platforms such as Zoom can serve both formal and informal purposes such as in seeing friends or attending a meeting by utilizing both audio and camera tools. The Internet, in regard to the application of these programs, supplies individuals with communicative tools and an expansive reach that allows users to interact with one another efficiently through various services.

The expeditious nature and efficiency of the Internet and its availability of resources provides users with the ability to share and consume information in adaptable ways- whether said information is ethically communicated or possibly corrupted is relative to the provider of said information as well as how the observer perceives it. As alluded to in the introductory paragraph of this article, deceptive occurrences such as “fake news” is an ever-growing, present concern due to the rapidity of media sharing in today’s society and, as a result, the broad, extended access to the Internet by any user. Free speech is another prominent argument brought up in regard to ethical communication, analyzing and counter-analyzing what is appropriate and what is not appropriate under particular circumstances, or arguing that what is deemed “appropriate” should not be supervised in the first place. As a result of the topic's inconsistent and debatable nature, regulations attempt to maintain civility and limit discordance between users online to ensure privacy, protection, and proper use of a service, program, or platform. Regulations set by online platforms attempt to maintain control of ethical communication by filtering out and inspecting questionable or malicious content across various services. This act of security, in most cases, can be effectuated by the users as well, permitting a user to report activity such as a comment or account that they believe may be violating the rules of a program or service.