Topics In IT Ethics - Doing Ethics Technique - Assessment Answer

Topics In IT Ethics Assignment

Assignment Task

You are now required to use knowledge learned from MGT306 to analyse this real world case in accordance with following instructions:

1 . Identify a recent (within the last six (6) months)ethical dilemma or ethically questionable situation relating to Information and Communication Technology that you are familiar with. This situation can be either in the media (for example one you have sourced from a newspaper, or online through social media) or through your workplace.

If using a workplace example, to maintain confidentiality, do not use real names.

b. If you use a media article you must includethe link to the media article in thereferences listof your assignment.

2 . Undertake further research about your chosencase to assist you in analysing and discussing it in your essay.

3. You are required to analysethe ethical dilemma you have identified above using the Doing Ethics Technique (DET). Note: Headings, citations, references and any appendices do not count towards your word limit, but quotations do. At the start of the assignment indicates in brackets the word count of your assignment excluding those items mentioned above.

4 . Include a Reference list at the end of your work, in the correct APA referencing style, corresponding to in-text citations. You must include at least TWO (2) quality academic references from different sources. Please note that thesereferences are in addition to those provided to you through this subject (for example, you still must reference, the DET,Tavani, etc BUT these references cannot be used as one of your two quality academic references from different sources). Only include references that have been cited in the body of your assignment and ones that support what you have presented in your assignment.

Ethics is a term that is used to denote the difference between right and wrong. Every business organisation, profession or even individuals are required to follow ethics in their day-to-day practices. The present report also focuses on discussing an ethical situation in Information technology. The aim of this report is to take an Information technology dilemma and then analyse it. The analysis will be done on the basis of various ethical theories, approaches and principles. The piece of new that has hit media recently deals with media publishing WikiLeaks documents. The issue that is going to be elaborated in later parts of the report is an issue that is legal but unethical. There are various instances when an issue can be legal but at the same time may not be ethical. Hence this is one of those ethical issues.

It all started when Donald Trump (Republican Presidential nominee) said in a news conference that “If you are listening Russia, I hope you will find 30,000 missing emails.” (Zorn, 2016). He was referring to the electronic correspondence that has been regarded as personal by Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. In this statement Donald Trump has been openly requesting a foreign spy on American citizen who is indeed very prominent. Not only is this but he wishes that the results of this spying can be used by him to win US elections. This is the point where ethical questions and consideration starts. There are various ethical principles, practices and theories that can be related to this ethical issue. The most significant ones in this context are descriptive approach, utilitarianism, egoism, notion of power and power dynamics. These issues are actually related to this ethical issue in information technology in this news. Here, in this ethical issue Donald Trump is a very influential and powerful individual and he has misused his position to damage the image of Hillary Clinton. Here the notion of power works. The statement of Trump was incorrect and unethical and even after that people supported Trump for this statement. Here the role of Power Dynamics also comes into limelight. Notion of power suggests that an individual who has an ability to influence people and events can do unethical acts and also enable people or followers to do unethical acts. Power dynamics is related to notion of power and it affects the ethical practices to a very great extent. It also suggests that the individuals who have more power are likely to violate ethical practices more easily (Tracy et al., 2012). This is something that Donald Trump did in this matter. The statement of Trump can be very well divided into two parts. The first part deals with the aspect in which he has used his power and urged for some unethical acts.

Now, the second statements are more hilarious that not only affects Hillary Clinton but also affects other people and their privacy. This is the part that is more connected with the information technology and is unethical. If cyber sleuths domestic or foreign were somehow get a hold of Hillary Clinton’s deleted emails and if they upload today then people may be reading them tomorrow. No matter what issues she has discussed over those emails all of them will go public. It may include email exchanging government- related correspondence. Now this is something that is unethical. No one has the right to read your private emails and show them to the world. This may be legal in some countries or from some perspectives but this is indeed not an ethical task. The hackers are considered as criminals. The data file that they pry is nothing more than a stolen good. Here the descriptive approach to the ethics will be suitable. This approach suggests that no one can pry loose the files related to personal information of an individual (American Counselling Association, 2012). Here one more approach that is utilitarianism applies (Ross, 2016). This approach to ethics suggests that with every act, every individual shall be happy. But with this act Hillary Clinton and many other people may not be happy. This is due to the fact that their personal data will be available to the public. There are many activities like this happened in the past and the most recent one is WikiLeaks publishing over 22,000 emails from the servers off Democratic National Committee. This had a very serious consequence on the image of the party and it also affected the views of the public. This is an unethical task to do something that affects the image of a person or a group. For general people these kinds of emails are undoubtedly very interesting and sometimes relevant. But ultimately the person or group whose information gets leaked will have to suffer. As per the law in United States this is legal for news organisations to publish such kind of excerpts. But this is unethical in a way that it gives rise to crime in future. It gives rise to hacking and it interrupts in someone else’s privacy. The ethical principles suggest that every individual ahs right to maintain their privacy and at the same time no one has the right to violate their privacy for their selfish motives (Corey,Corey & Callahan, 2011).

Doing Ethics Technique (DET) suggest that ethical issue is related to WikiLeaks and damaging the dignity of Hillary Clinton by Donald Trump. The issue is that in the present report Donald Trump has urged Russia for Clinton’s emails because he wants to pacify his self-interest. If these emails will be leaked no one will be benefitted except for Donald Trump. This might help him in winning the election. But the serious question here is that like United State’s laws such practice shall not be legal. Such practices shall be taken as events of crime and people indulging into it shall get punished for their acts. Every individual and group has right to present their views but presenting them in such an unethical way is not justified. Thus there are options here that are punishing Donald Trump, making stricter laws about leaks, punishing hackers. The best option is to make stricter laws because this practice is legal and this is why it may persist in future.