The document discusses several key topics related to digital ethics including definitions of digital ethics and general ethics. It outlines some common theories of ethics like utilitarianism and deontology. It also discusses hard vs soft ethics and provides examples of cyber ethical lapses. Additionally, it examines ethical issues around information collection, production, access and dissemination. Finally, it proposes some solutions to digital ethics issues like increasing awareness of data management and responsible innovation.

1. Digital
Ethics
Image Source: Network World“Tweet others the way you want to be tweeted’’
LHOU ELBOURKHISSI

2. Outline
• Introduction
• Definition of Digital Ethics
• Definition of Ethics
• Theories of Ethics
• Digital Ethics Definition
• Information Ethics
• Hard Ethics and Soft Ethics
• Examples of Cyber Ethical Lapses
• Ethical Issues of Information Collection and Classifications
• Ethical Issues with Information Production
• Ethical aspects of InformationAccess and Dissemination
• The Relationship between Digital Ethics, DigitalGovernance and Digital Regulation
• Digital Ethics and Privacy
• Artificial Intelligence and Digital Ethics
• Solutions to Common Digital Ethics Issues
• Conclusion
• Appendix 1 – References 12/31/2019 2

3. Introduction
12/31/2019 3

4. Definition of Digital Ethics
12/31/2019 4

5. Definition of Ethics
• Ethics comes from the Greek word ethikos which in its root form (ethos) means
character or custom. For the Greeks it referred to the appropriate or customary
way to behave in society.
• Ethics is a system of moral principles that affect how people make decisions and
lead their lives.
• Ethics is concerned with what is good for individuals, and society and is also
described as moral philosophy.
• Morality comes from the Latin word Moralis and is concerned with which
actions are right and which are wrong, rather than the character of the person.
Today the two terms are often used interchangeably.
12/31/2019 5

6. Theories of Ethics/ Ethical theories
• Utilitarianism
• Egoism
• Deontological theory
12/31/2019 6

7. Utilitarianism
• What makes something good or bad, right or wrong, is that it
produces the greatest amount of pleasure (or lack of pain) for the
greatest number of people.
• Basic Principle:
• Greatest Happiness Principle: Maximizing positive outcomes for the
largest number of people, negative outcomes for lowest number of
people.
• One should chose the action which will lead to the greatest happiness
(i.e. pleasure, lack of pain) overall.
J. Bentham
(1748-1843)
J. S. Mill
(1808-73)
12/31/2019 7

8. Egoism
• What makes something good or bad, right or wrong, is that it satisfies
one’s desires, or meets one’s needs.
• Basic Principle:
• Self-interest of a person doing, considering, or affected by the action.
• One should chose the action which most realizes or conduces to
one’s own self-interest
• According to ethical egoism, however, we have no duties to others; in
fact, each person ought to pursue his or her own selfish interests
exclusively.
12/31/2019 8
Ayn Rand Adam Smith

9. Deontology (Duty-Based)
• The founding father of the Deontological theory is Immanuel Kant.
• An action is right if and only if (iff) it is in accordance with a moral rule or principle.
• A moral agent must act to uphold the moral principles related to an action or
actively-considered inaction.
• Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804) articulated his model of deontological ethics with the
idea of the Categorical Imperative.
• “Act in such a way that, if you had your way, the principle guiding your actions would
become a universally binding law that everyone must act in accordance with (in
relation to you), applying to everyone, everywhere, and always, without exception”
(2000, p. 49).
12/31/2019 9

10. Definition of Digital Ethics
• Ethics is concerned with what is good for individuals, and society and is also
described as moral philosophy.
• Digital ethics refers to the study of the implication of technology on the social,
political, and moral space of society. Digital ethics deals with how we conduct
ourselves when we use digital media. It is a subfield of applied ethics and
computer science. It regards access to and use of digital technology as a
fundamental human right in the global information society. In a hyperconnected
era, digital technology poses new challenges to standard moral problems.
12/31/2019 10

11. Information Ethics
• A descriptive theory explores the power structures influencing informational attitud
traditions in different cultures and epochs.
• The development of moral values in the formation field,
• The creation of new power structures in the information field,
• Information myths,
• Hidden contradictions and internationalities in information theories and practices.
• The development of ethical conflicts in the information field.
12/31/2019 11

12. Hard Ethics vs Soft Ethics
• What we usually have in mind when discussing values, rights, duties
and responsibilities or more broadly, what is morally right or wrong,
and what ought or ought not to be done.
• Soft ethics cover the same normative grounds as hard ethics, but it
does so by considering what ought and ought not be done over and
above the existing regulation, not against it, despite its scope, or to
change it, or to by-pass it.
12/31/2019 12

13. Examples of cyber ethical lapses
• Inappropriate/ hostile communication.
• Accessing inappropriate or illegal materials.
• Social and media lapses.
• Cyberbullying, cyber harassment, and cyberstalking
• Identity theft/ catfishing.
• Solicitation, sexting, sextortion and sexual assault.
12/31/2019 13

14. Ethical issues of information Collection and classifications
• Censorship means the active exclusion of information based
on religious, political, moral or other grounds.
• Selection concerns the activity of choosing information
according to the objectives of, for instance, an institution.
• The will to exclude bad information is itself an ethical paradox
as far as any exclusion, limiting intellectual freedom, should
be avoided.
• Classification systems, thesauri, search engines and the like
are not neutral.
12/31/2019 14

15. Ethical issues with information production
• Different traditions with regard to technologies and products
have lead to different protection laws in different regions of the
world.
• Digitalizing makes copying and re-making (re-modelling ) easier.
• Internationalization through the internet changes the dimension
and prospective of national legislation and control.
• This new situation gives rise to questions such as: should the
notion of knowledge sharing become predominant with regard to
the notion of ownership.
12/31/2019 15

16. Ethical aspects of information access and dissemination
• Individuals and groups are interested in a free and equal access to
information as well as to free communication.
• The question of access as a societal issue concerns the problem of
creating equal opportunities of access for nations or groups of nations
avoiding the gap between the information rich and the information
poor.
• Ethical conflicts may arise regarding for instance the right to
confidentiality and the one to protect life.
12/31/2019 16

17. Digital Governance
• Digital governance is the practice of establishing and implementing
policies, procedures, and standards for the proper development, use
and management of the infosphere.
• It is also a matter of convention and good coordination, sometimes
neither moral nor immoral, neither legal nor illegal.
• Eg.:Through digital governance, a government agency or a company
may (a) determine and control processes and methods used by data
stewards and data custodians in order to improve the data quality,
reliability, access, security and availability of its services and (b)
devise effective procedures for decision-making and for the
identification of accountabilities with respect to data-related
processes.
12/31/2019 17

18. Digital Regulation
• Not every aspect of digital regulation is a matter of digital governance and
not every aspect of digital governance is a matter of digital regulation. In
this case, a good example is provided by the General Data Protection
Regulation (GDPR).
• Compliance is the crucial relation through which digital regulation shapes
digital governance.
12/31/2019 18

19. The relationship between digital ethics, digital regulation and digital governance
12/31/2019 19

20. Digital Ethics and The Issue of Privacy
• Collection of data without the informed consent of the owners, and the irresponsibility
of various IT companies, has significantly jeopardized security and proper practice in
the fast-growing industry.
• InformationTechnology development has played a significant role in the collection and
analysis of big data for better conclusions, but there is a significant concern in regards
to privacy as an ethical concern.
• The inference created by mass data gathering through online interactions is a
significant privacy violation, especially because most of the information owners are not
aware of such activities.
12/31/2019 20

21. • What is more worrying is that there is no clear ethical framework on digital technologies,
which makes it difficult to deal with privacy and security concerns.
• The aggregation data technologies are crucial in the collection of personal data, and there
is a significant question of whether such activities by businesses are acceptable ethically,
because the data is used to make decisions on marketing and production.
• For instance, being associated with a group can result in negative labeling, e.g., belonging
to a group that is known to use drugs or engage in violent activities, which can result in
detrimental profiling of individuals as being dangerous based on the grouping.
Digital Ethics and The Issue of Privacy
12/31/2019 21

22. 12/31/2019 22
Digital Ethics and Artificial Intelligence

23. Artificial Intelligence is the
development of computer systems
able to perform tasks that would
usually require human intelligence,
such as visual perception, speech
recognition, decision-making, and
translation between languages.
12/31/2019 23

24. Digital Ethics and Artificial Intelligence
• There is now a debate on the possible ethical implications and issues
raised by existing and future advanced digital technologies such as
blockchain, biometrics, the Internet ofThings (IoT) and quantum
computing.
• While these technologies are still nascent and developing, as is AI, they
have the potential to bring long-term economic benefits to the whole
world and be a power for social good.
• However, the use of these technologies in these and other scenarios
could raise social and ethical questions around fairness, influence and
accountability which go beyond issues of data protection and privacy.
12/31/2019 24

25. Solutions to digital ethics issues
12/31/2019 25

26. Awareness of Data Management
• It is clear that consumer behavior regarding privacy laws and consent, has
been ignored due to a lack of awareness, and clear regulations to guide the
public into making decisions on the requirements to share information.
• There is a need for more awareness campaigns on the consequences and
remedies for potential risks posed by new InformationTechnology practices,
to protect privacy and improve data management practices
12/31/2019 26

27. Digital Technology Consumer Education
• To develop ethical literacy campaigns that can change the existing situation on data
privacy, by increasing Information education campaigns can be initiated for the public
on information data handling procedures, which will equip the public with data safety
knowledge to help minimize potential data loss.
• A well-executed education campaign can help awareness on the right of the
information owner to give consent before their information can be used.
• Therefore, creating a sustainable education approach is necessary to sustain data
security in society, amidst the growing use of digital information systems.
12/31/2019 27

28. Educational goals
• To be able to recognize and articulate ethical conflicts in the
information field,
• To activate the sense of responsibility with regard to the
consequences of individual and collective interactions in the
information field.
• To improve the qualification for intercultural dialogue on the basis of
the recognition of different kinds of information cultures and values,
• To provide basic knowledge about ethical theories and concepts
and about their relevance in everyday information work.
12/31/2019 28

29. Responsible Innovation
• Responsible Innovation is a transparent, interactive process
through which the societal actors and innovators become
mutually responsive to each other, with a view to the acceptability,
sustainability, and societal desirability of the innovation process
and its marketable products, to allow a proper embedding of
scientific and technological advances in our society
• Responsible Innovation brings into account the accumulation of
relevant knowledge on the options and outcomes, and their
evaluation in terms of moral values, such as safety, security, and
privacy, as critical requirements for the development of a new
form of technology.
12/31/2019 29

30. Mature Information Society
• Information societies are maturing all over the world. More
will appear in the future.
• In terms of expectations, similarities therefore will increase.
To paraphraseTolstoy, all mature information societies are
alike in terms of people’s expectations; each immature
society is immature in its own way.
• Because once people start taking for granted new
technologies or smart artificial agencies, for example, it
does not really matter how much these technologies
change, maturity has been reached, in terms of more of the
same.
12/31/2019 30

31. Conclusion
Image source: Innovative-teachers-professional-identity-17-638
12/31/2019 31

32. References
• Dombrowski, P. (2000). Ethics inTechnical Communication. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and
Bacon.
• Floridi, L., &Taddeo, M. (2016).What is data ethics? Oxford Internet Institute, University of
Oxford, 1 St Giles, Oxford OX1 3JS, UK.Available from https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2016.0360.
• Floridi, L. (2016). Mature information societies—a matter of expectations. Philosophy &
Technology, 29(1), 1–4.
• Floridi, L. (2018). Soft Ethics and the Governance of the Digital. “Philosophy &Technology 31,
no. 1 (2018): 1-8.
• Yasser, A& Adel, M. (2019). Digital Ethics and Privacy: A study about digital ethics issues,
implications, and how to solve them. IJCSITR, DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.23675.16169 .
• Capurro, R. (2018). Why Information Ethics? 1. International Journal of Applied Research on
InformationTechnology and Computing, 9(1), 50-52.
12/31/2019 32

33. LHOU ELBOURKHISSI
Digital
Ethics
Image Source: Network World“Tweet others the way you want to be tweeted’’