Description about ethical theories

2. Introduction
Ethical Issue
Should social sites like Twitter should ban people
promoting terrorism and other malicious behavior ?
Explanation of
Ethical Issue
with Examples
Ethical
Theories
Ulitilitarian
Rights
Theory
Social
contract
theory
Justice
Conclusion
Reference list
and Q&A

3. Introduction
What is Twitter ?
Twitter is an online news and social networking service
where users post and interact with messages, "tweets",
restricted to 140 characters.
How terrorists are using social media ?
Terrorists groups are 'embracing the web' more than ever

5. Should Twitter (and other Social Media companies), ban users
that promote terrorism and/or other malicious behavior?
Big companies that run Social Media websites (e.g. Facebook,
Twitter, YouTube, etc.) have policies which every user must
abide by upon account creation.
These policies state how users are allowed to use their
services (what they are allowed to post, punishments for
breaking the policies, etc.).

6. “That the end justifies the means”
It considers the rights of everyone equally,
but overall the aim is to provide as much
benefit to as many people as possible.

7. The Good:
 Stopping the growth of terrorist groups.
 Stopping the promotion and incitement of
 Violence.
 Stopping the incitement of fear.
 Stopping posting images of murder victims.
The Bad:
 Everyone has a right to free speech
 However twitter does not have to give people a platform to promote
their hate speech.

8.  With this ethical theory, the benefit far
outweighs the harm.
 In conclusion:
 Under Utilitarianism, it is ethical for twitter to
ban malicious twitter accounts.

9.  Everyone has rights that they are entitled to. (Freedom of
speech, right to education, right to privacy, etc.)
 Everyone has freedom of speech, but promoting terrorism is
abusing your right, and breaking Twitter's Terms of Service,
which everyone must abide by.
 People do post inappropriate things on Twitter sometimes,
but it ends up getting filtered. Terrorism themed tweets have
been added to the spam filter.

10.  Twitter is doing the right thing by banning users that
promote this malicious content. Even though people may
complain about it, Social media is not the place for this. All it
does is fill people with unnecessary fear.
 Abusing your rights, most of the time, is not tolerated by
society.

11.  In the “state of nature” there are no rules
 The strong prey on the weak
 Instead of enduring a state of nature, we can decide
to contract together
 For example, one person may want to kill and rob
another. But that person could also be killed by
another with similar intentions. It makes more sense
to give up that state-of-nature right to kill and rob if
everyone agrees not to do it.

12. So as we participate in social media, there is clearly
acceptable and non-acceptable activities, both implicit
and explicit. To that end, to register on a social
networking site, we all of course have to accept the
terms of services, which restricts something/requires
giving up some freedom of action or is an explicit set of
constructs.
In recent years, governments have pressured tech
companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Google to do
more to combat online radicalization on social-media
platforms, which terrorist groups have used to recruit
and spread propaganda.
Twitter announced that it had removed 299,649
accounts for the promotion of terrorism in the first half
of 2017, and 935,897 accounts between August 2015
and June 2017. Notably, Twitter said its own internal
controls have allowed it to weed out accounts without
requests from the government, increasing its
efficiency: 75 percent of the accounts Twitter has
removed were suspended before even posting their
first tweet, Twitter says, and 95 percent of account
suspensions “were the result of our internal efforts to
combat this content with proprietary tools.”
Using automated tools is a necessity for a platform
with 328 million users like Twitter. Facebook and
YouTube have likewise adapted algorithms to combat
extremist content, instead of removing it manually,
which would likely prove an insurmountable task. “In
the last six months we have seen our internal, spam-
fighting tools play an increasingly valuable role in
helping us get terrorist content off of Twitter,” a Twitter
spokesperson told TechCrunch. “Our anti-spam tools
are getting faster, more efficient, and smarter in how
we take down accounts that violate our T.O.S.”

13.  Social media are changing the speed of how the public learns about
terrorist attacks, and the way they react. The first information to the
public about incidents is now likely to come through social media
channels such as Twitter rather than through traditional news outlets.
 Research shows that social media are changing the way we relate to
terror – both the attacks themselves and their aftermath. Attacks are
having more widespread and longer-lasting impacts. There has been an
unprecedented expression of solidarity and sorrow over Twitter,
Facebook and other platforms.

14.  The impacts of a cyber-attack are pretty much the same as
any other terror attack on an organization.
 For this reason, we should think about prevention strategies
and what can do now and we should not wait until we are
attacked so that we can do something because it will be too
late and damage will have already occurred.

15.  Justice is all about Equality and Equity

16.  Treating Everyone equally
 Everyone should be able to use Twitter
 People shouldn't violate Twitter's Policy
 Different from equality
 Some people in particular
should not use twitter.

17.  Facebook owner says any profile, page, or group
related to a terrorist organization is shut down and
any content celebrating terrorism is removed.
 British PM wants extremists content to be deleted
earlier

18.  Yes Twitter should equally allow people to use their
social media because it is fair to do so.
 But No Twitter shouldn’t let People like terrorists to
use twitter to promote Terrorism or bad behavior.

19.  With all of these ethical theories, we believe
that twitter is right to ban these accounts.

20.  We can match the tenets (principles) with the
ethical theories :
Good Faith is broken by people that promote
terrorism

21.  Cybercrime & Cyberterrorism: Inducing anxiety & fear on individuals
in Cyberpsychology @ February 23, 2011 Retrieved from
http://iconof.com/blog/cybercrime-cyberterrorism-inducing-anxiety-fear-
on-individuals/
 Cyber Crime: Its Impact on Government, Society and the Prosecutor
Retrieved from http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/Pnada641.pdf
 Terrorism and Political Violence, 26:246–256, 2014 Copyright # Taylor
& Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 0954-6553 print=1556-1836 online DOI:
10.1080/09546553.2014.849948
 Terror and the impact of social media Retrieved from
http://www.esrc.ac.uk/news-events-and-publications/news/news-
items/terror-and-the-impact-of-social-media/
 Advanced new software is helping take down 70 extremist accounts
an hour. Is it enough to save a struggling company?
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/09/is-twitter-winning-its-war-
on-terrorism

22.  Combatting Terrorism in a Digital Age: First Amendment Implications. (2016,
November 16). Retrieved October 23, 2017, from
http://www.newseuminstitute.org/first-amendment-center/topics/freedom-of-
speech-2/internet-first-amendment/combatting-terrorism-in-a-digital-age-first-
amendment-implications/
 Nathanson, S. (n.d.). Act and Rule Utilitarianism. Retrieved October 23, 2017,
from http://www.iep.utm.edu/util-a-r/
 Satariano, A. (2017, September 19). Twitter Suspends 300,000 Accounts Tied to
Terrorism in 2017. Retrieved October 23, 2017, from
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-19/twitter-suspends-300-
000-accounts-in-2017-for-terrorism-content
 Sharon Coen, Senior Lecturer in Media Psychology , University of Salford, Aleksej
Heinze Senior Lecturer and Co-Director of the Centre for Digital Business,
University of Salford, Deborah Chambers Professor of Media and Cultural Studies,
Newcastle University, Kirsty Fairclough Senior Lecturer in Media and
Performance, University of Salford, Philip James Senior lecturer in geographic
information systems, Newcastle University, & Richard Jones Lecturer, Journalism
and Media, University of Huddersfield. (2017, October 23). Six ways Twitter has
changed the world. Retrieved October 23, 2017, from
http://theconversation.com/six-ways-twitter-has-changed-the-world-56234

23.  (2017, September 20). Twitter suspends 300,000 accounts tied to terrorism in
2017. Retrieved from
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=1192
4205
 Manuel Velasquez, Claire Andre, Thomas Shanks, S.J., and Michael J. Meyer
(2014, August 1). Justice and Fairness. Retrieved from
https://www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-resources/ethical-decision-making/justice-
and-fairness/
 Greenberg, J. (2015, November 21). Why Facebook and Twitter Can’t Just Wipe
Out ISIS Online. Retrieved from https://www.wired.com/2015/11/facebook-and-
twitter-face-tough-choices-as-isis-exploits-social-media/
 Stewart, H. (2017, September 19). May calls on internet firms to remove
extremist content within two hours. Retrieved from
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/sep/19/theresa-may-will-tell-
internet-firms-to-tackle-extremist-content