CSC 322.01, Class 21: Professional ethics, continued

Overview

• Preliminaries
  • Notes and news
  • Upcoming work
  • Extra credit
  • Questions
• Another case! Basic analysis.
• Responses from different perspectives.
• The underlying case.

Preliminaries

News / Etc.

• Mentor sessions will be Tue 8-9 and Thu 7-9.
  • We will reassess after break.
• Monday is 50 min of presentations and 60 min of work time.
• Discussion question w/o Sam
  • Would you prefer to do the last ethics session on Wednesday rather than Friday and consider Friday an optional class?
  • Decision: Monday is presentations and ethics. Wednesday and Friday are work days.

Upcoming work

• Even more readings on professional ethics due Sunday at 9:00 pm.
• Reports Today at 5:00 p.m.
• Demos next Monday.
• Paper: Write your own case study, based on a real case.

Good things to do (Academic/Artistic)

• CS Extra on Monday! 4:15 In Science 1023. For in that room at 4:00.
• CS Table on Tuesday!

Good things to do (Peer)

Good things to do (Misc)

• Play on campus.
• High school is doing Little Mermaid.

Friday PSA

• Take care of yourselves.
• Remember that it’s daylight savings time.
• Consent is necessary. Don’t damage someone else.

Questions

Another case

• Read the case
• Answer questions
  • Part A #1-#4
  • Part B #5
• Ask questions

Who are the actors? (These are the people mentioned directly in the case.)

• Our company (regional ISP)
• White supremacist organization
• Content provider
• You/your team

Who are the stakeholders? (Some actors plus others affected by whatever decision you make.)

• Oppressed people
• White supremacists
• Our other clients / content providers
• Politicians and others of that ilk
• General public
• Shareholders

What are the actions/choices that are available to you?

• Nothing. Leave things as status quo.
  • Silently
  • Publicly, with news releases
• Pressure the content provider to remove the WS content / cancel their contract with the WS group
• Call together a discussion with all the stakeholders and all the media.
• Block access to the contrent provider
  • Silently
  • Publicly, with news releases
• Filter traffic based on content

What additional details would you like?

• Does the content provider have other ISP options?
  • What effect does this have on your decision? (It depends a bit on your philosophical/ethical framework.)
• Are there other content providers available?
• What is the legal precedent?
• What are our Terms of Service.
• Do we expect retaliation? If so, what kinds?

What aspects of the ACM code of ethics seem most relevant?

• 1.2 “Avoid Harm” (Push further than: “Don’t build technology that causes harm.” to “If you find that people use the technology you built causes harm …”)
  • Direct quote: “When harm is an intentional part of the system, those responsible are obligated to ensure that the harm is ethically justified and to minimize unintended harm.”
• 1.4 “Take action not to discriminate”.
  • What does it mean when our users discriminate?
  • Can we discriminate against our users when they discriminate?
• 3.1 Ensure that the public good is the central concern during all professional computing work.
  • One form of public good: Freedom from violence.
  • Another form of public good: Freedom of expression.