Ethics Technique - Ethical Dilemma - Information and Communication Technology - Assessment Answer

Ethics Technique Assignment

Assignment Task

Introduction

Ethics is a concept that distinguishes right from the wrong. This is why ethics acts as a guideline to perform things in a right manner. It is important for every individual, business organisation and even professional to perform their tasks in an ethical manner. The aim of this report is to focus on a recent unethical situation in information and communication technology. The report will take a recent ethical dilemma from media and then analyse it using Doing Ethics Technique. Along with that a number of other concepts and principles of ethics will also be used. The ethical dilemma that is gaining much popularity in media recently is regarding WikiLeaks. As a matter of fact this ethical dilemma is said to be legal but it is unethical.

The ethical dilemma in Information and communication Technology (all the facts, stakeholders, non-ethical issues , ethical issues are listed here)

The ethical dilemma revolves around two famous personalities Donald Trump (Republican Presidential Nominee USA) and Hillary Clinton (Democratic Presidential Nominee USA). The matter started when Donald Trump released a statement against Hillary Clinton. In his statement Trump in a news conference that “Russia! If you are listening I hope you will be able to find 30,000 missing emails.” This statement referred to Hillary Clinton and her personal emails (Zorn, 2016). This implies that in his statement Trump has openly requested Russia to spy on Clinton. This is regarded as unethical because Clinton is very prominent citizen of USA and spying on her personal email is not correct. The unethical wishes of Trump are that he wished to use those leaked personal conversation to win US elections.

As per the ethical theories, principles and practices this issue is totally unacceptable and the behaviour shown by Trump to win elections is unethical. The analysis of this issue using egoism and power dynamics concepts suggest that Donald Trump is using his power and position to damage the image of another individual. This is because of the notion of power. As a matter of fact the statement given by Donald Trump was unethical but people supported him because of his influence over people. This is the notion of power when people support unethical behaviour of an individual who has power (Tracy et al., 2012). In this manner the statement given by Trump has caused much harm to the image of Hillary Clinton. The statement has two parts and this was the first part in which he urged for unethical behaviour.

The second part of Donald Trump’s statement is something that has huge impact over entire community rather than just an effect on Hillary Clinton. The second part deals with unethical issues with information technology. If cyber sleuths foreign or domestic will somehow get a hold of Clinton’s deleted emails and they upload it then people might be reading them. These emails may contain any type of conversation and this going public is unethical. No any individual has the right to read private emails of any one. It shall be noted that this is legal in America but the point here is that it is unethical. The information and communication law allows such email to go public but this is not an ethical manner of doing politics. The hackers get access to someone’s account unethically and this why hackers can also be termed as criminals. The pry data file that they hack is similar to stolen goods. The descriptive approach of ethics suggests that no one has right to pry into someone’s personal life and their personal conversations (American Counselling Association, 2012).

This incident suggests that if email of Hillary Clinton gets leaked the people might enjoy reading them but Hillary Clinton will be ashamed of it. The Utilitarian approach suggests that any act that hurts the sentiments of any individual may become unethical (Ross, 2016). It is natural that any individual whose personal data will be available to public will not feel good. This is not the only incident that happened in past few years but as many as millions of emails have been leaked so far leaving many individuals embarrassed. In a recent event WikiLeaks has published over 22,000 emails from the servers of Democratic National Committee. This act deteriorated the image of the party as well. The ethical principle suggests that every individual has the right to protect his public image and privacy (Corey,Corey & Callahan, 2011). Unfortunately in USA law and ethics have some contradictions and this incident is an example of that. Arguments based of literature.

Application of Doing Ethics Technique (DET) answer all the DET questions, options that seek to resolve and best option and why

This incident is to be analysed using Doing Ethics Technique (DET). The ethical issue is related to WikiLeaks and it is damaging the public image and dignity of Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump has given a statement that caused this harm and gave rise to unethical situation. To pacify his self-interest Donald Trump has urged Russia to leak the emails of Hillary Clinton and with this Donald Trump wishes to win Elections. This way the leaked emails will help Trump. But the question here is that such practice shall not be termed as legal like it is legal in US. This is true that an individual can express his/her views but presenting them in such a manner is unethical. The options that can be used in this situation is to punish Donald Trump for his acts, making stricter cyber laws and punishing hackers. The only best option here is to make laws stricter so that no one will dare to do this in future.

Conclusion

In this manner the ethical dilemma presented here suggest that certain ethical dilemma occur because of loopholes in legal system. This is why making legal system stringer will help in preventing such acts in future. This will also help people to protect their dignity and save their personal lives.