ETHICAL ISSUES CONCERNING SOCIAL MEDIA

ETHICAL ISSUES CONCERNING SOCIAL MEDIA

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Don’t stifle social messaging!

That is the tall order to be observed as a protocol of human rights across the globe. The grave concern for shooting down messaging services, notably those provided by mobile phone—with its camera, video, messaging—that could serve as damning evidences against tyrannical or fascistic regimes.

Messaging services are now turning into effective investigative journalism tools. Such countries or regions within a country where backwardness, warlordism and tyranny prevail, now have the messaging services as ready tools for sharing information across the globe done by ordinary citizens or observers.

Below is an apt discussion about the subject matter.

[Philippines, 22 September 2011]

Source: http://www.scidev.net/en/new-technologies/editorials/social-media-don-t-shoot-the-messaging-service-1.html

Social media: Don't shoot the messaging service

David Dickson

19 August 2011

The recent riots in the United Kingdom have shown the dark side of social media. But we must avoid heavy restrictions on their use.

Earlier this month, officials at the Bay Area Rapid Transport (BART) system in San Francisco, United States, cut off access to mobile phones across its network in a bid to stop people gathering to protest again against the actions of the city's police force. In July, a protest about a fatal shooting by the police had escalated, which prompted officials to try and stamp out a repeat.

The move received criticism from an unusual source. Those who had been involved in demonstrations in Egypt's Tahrir Square this year pointed to uncomfortable parallels with attempts by the country's then president, Hosni Mubarak, to block media channels that enabled people to organise the protest.

There was an element of hypocrisy, they pointed out, in US authorities taking similar steps to those they had condemned in Egypt as stifling freedom of speech.

Similarly, there was a self-righteous reaction from China to the announcement that British prime minister, David Cameron, was considering giving the police powers to block access to social networks following the widespread use of social media during last week's riots in London and other cities in the United Kingdom.

The official Xinhua news agency reported that even the UK government had recognised "that a balance needs to be struck between freedom and the monitoring of social media tools".

Both situations illustrate how, in developed and developing countries alike, modern communications technology has the power to rapidly catalyse grassroots action in a way that can be seen as a threat to social order.

But governments must not blame, and therefore limit, the technology. Rather, an appropriate response lies in the more challenging task of promoting responsible use of the technology. While there is a risk it will be misused, communications technology must continue to be available for the free circulation of information and the expression of democratic rights.

Empowering citizens, fostering democracy

The power of social media to promote democracy, in particular, should not be underestimated. It can help give a collective voice to those at the bottom of the political pyramid, who are often — though not always — poor and marginalised.

The Egyptian authorities have experienced this at first hand. The events of Tahrir Square had their origin in a protest campaign that started on Facebook last year, and which spread rapidly through a young, technically literate, but politically disenchanted generation.

Similarly in China, government officials are increasingly outflanked by the technical ingenuity of citizens previously disenfranchised through a lack of information about state actions.

A recent example is the crash of a high-speed train at Wenzhou, on 22 July, in which 40 people died. Government efforts — largely successful — to suppress discussion of the crash in the press and on television were undermined by the speed with which information about it has circulated through popular micro-blogging services such as Sina Weibo, which now has 140 million users.

Certainly in Egypt, social media have had a profound and welcome effect on the nature of political action. New technology has brought to life US 'founding father' Thomas Jefferson's maxim: "Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government."

A double-edged sword

But there is a darker side too, as the United Kingdom riots have shown. The same 'crowd-sourcing' technology that can rapidly create an amusing mass dance event can equally easily be used for less acceptable, and even illegal, purposes.

Among the more chilling messages circulating on London streets were those giving details of which shops were going to be broken into and at what times, with an open invitation to participate in looting, or which sites were targeted for attack (such as buildings constructed for next year's Olympic Games).

There is also the risk of false information being circulated, deliberately or otherwise. Some of this may be harmless. But misleading information can have serious and damaging consequences, such as false rumours of a tsunami heading for Indonesia in March, which was linked with at least one fatal heart attack and numerous injuries in traffic accidents.

Instant, unrestricted access to information is therefore a mixed blessing. Like almost any new technology, social media can be used or misused. The political challenge is to design controls that discriminate effectively between the two.

Response must be balanced

There is no case for draconian action. Indeed, even controls that may appear relatively benign in one context can take on a broader significance when they are quoted as a precedent in another.

There is a danger, for example, that any attempt to limit the use of mobile phones in a relatively minor event (such as the BART protests in San Francisco), will be used by others to justify much more serious action. As one Egyptian blogger, Mostafa Hussein, has said, "it's a slippery slope."

Journalists in particular have reason to be concerned. As the Wenzhou accident has shown, social media channels can provide a wealth of sources for investigative reporting through the breadth and speed of their reach.

And it is precisely at times when social tensions are high that accurate and timely reporting is most needed. Anything that impedes this should be opposed.

The correct response to the misuse of social media is not to restrict its application, but to ensure that its use remains within accepted legal boundaries, and that breaking these rules has an appropriate penalty.

Hasty overreaction, in particular where it seeks to target the technology rather than the way it is used, will only be counter-productive by generating a powerful backlash of distrust in authorities. And as China has learned, it is also likely to fail.

David Dickson
Editor, SciDev.Net

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SCIENCE JOURNALISTS PRESS FREEDOM

SCIENCE JOURNALISTS PRESS FREEDOM

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Assessing the link between science and journalism is an emerging concern across the globe. There may be rampant incidences of journalists being denied access to scientists, incidences that feed into the fertile mindsets of conspiracy theorists.

Let us take the case of astronomers in the USA for instance. Astronomers have stumbled upon the fact that all the planets of our solar system are undergoing radical changes in their polar regions, a fact that tend to undercut the ecofascist contention that climate change is solely localized to Earth. Accordingly, astronomers in the know are being exterminated in America, a silent decimation aimed to keep the information classified.

Ecofascist circles are being primed to replace old-fogey communism as an ideological weapon of the global oligarchy to heap up anti-human hysteria. That is, blame humanity for the ecological woes of Earth, thus rationalizing the mad agenda to depopulate Earth down to a manageable level of 2 Billion by 2050.

Below is a report on the state of science-journalism link.

[Philippines, 18 July 2011]

Source: http://www.scidev.net/en/editorials/press-freedom-the-next-challenge-for-science-journalists-1.html

Press freedom: the next challenge for science journalists

David Dickson

8 July 2011

Government attempts to control science communication clash with public demands for accountability, and journalists must resist this trend.

Until recently, distrust has been the biggest obstacle preventing scientists interacting with journalists in the developing world. Scientists have feared — often with justification — that they will be misquoted and their work misrepresented by journalists who do not understand the technical details.

This has resulted in a frequent reluctance even to grant interviews. "Go away and read my paper" has too often been scientists' response to journalists seeking information about their work.

Fortunately, this is now changing. Scientists are becoming more willing to come out of their ivory towers. In Malaysia, for example, researchers are encouraged to be more open about their research and its implications as part of their funding contract.

Journalists, in turn, are becoming more professional in their approach, supported by initiatives such as the SjCOOP training programme of the World Federation of Science Journalists.

But the old barriers to communication are being replaced by a new one: efforts by governments and institutions to control the content of the communication process. This was one of the key messages of the highly successful World Conference of Science Journalists held in Doha, Qatar, last week.

As journalists increase their skills in seeking out 'the news behind the news', governments and research institutions are responding by placing obstacles in the way of reporters who, correctly, see their role as more than reproducing press releases or official statements.

The challenge ahead for science journalists is to contest this trend, which conflicts directly with public demands for transparency and accountability — demands fuelled by the growing popularity of social media.

Access denied

Transparency and accountability in the way that scientific knowledge is generated, used and distributed is essential at a time when tackling so many of the world’s problems, from climate change to food security, requires decisions made on robust evidence.

Science journalists have a key role in ensuring that this happens. They can also help remove obstacles that prevent the transparent use of scientific information, for example by highlighting occasions when their access to information has been blocked, or by pushing for legislation that makes transparency a requirement for public funding.

Sadly, participants in last week's meeting heard of several instances in which journalists were denied access to scientists in the course of their work.

Richard Stone, for example, the Asia news editor of the journal Science, told delegates how local government officials in the Chinese province of Yunnan barred him from speaking to researchers studying an unexplained disease — known as Yunnan Unknown Cause Sudden Death — even though he had been granted permission by the national government in Beijing.

There were more stories from journalists working in other countries. In Egypt, journalists have been told not to make direct contact with scientists despite having a proven track record of accurate reporting.

The problem is not restricted to developing countries. Several science journalists reported difficulties in getting technical information from the Japanese government about the damage to the nuclear plant at Fukushima after the tsunami hit the country’s northeast coast.

And in Canada, new rules have been introduced restricting the access of journalists to government scientists. Journalist Margaret Munro said that climate change scientists can no longer speak freely to the media, and gave examples of cases where journalists had their interviews recorded by press officers, after obtaining their consent.

Press freedom

Restrictions imposed for credible reasons of national security are clearly appropriate. The same is true when commercial confidentiality is at stake.

But attempting to gag scientists who may be critical of government policy or report findings that may prove embarrassing to government officials is a different issue.

Some speakers at the Doha meeting, including Stone, suggested that journalists counter these restrictions by avoiding official channels of communication, such as press officers, and contact scientists directly. This is now easier than ever before, with email and mobile telephones.

This is, however, an extreme solution. It may provide the information that a journalist is seeking, but it puts scientists at risk, particularly when they are being officially discouraged from talking to the media. And it can only exacerbate tensions between research institutions, government agencies and the science journalists who cover their activities.

A long-term solution requires governments to accept that transparency in all their affairs — including the work of their scientists — is essential for the effective functioning of a modern democracy. The press must also accept that it has a responsibility to use this transparency wisely.

And scientists can add their weight to journalists seeking the lifting of excessive restrictions, both within their institutions and at a political level.

Last week’s meeting was moved from Cairo to Doha because of continuing uncertainties over the recent unrest in Egypt. And delegates were constantly reminded that what united the protesters in Tahrir Square was a common commitment to greater accountability by the Egyptian government.

There were also reminders that developed and developing countries alike have had to fight, over many centuries, for the prized commitment to the freedom of the press that helps to make this greater accountability possible.

The next conference, to take place in Helsinki, Finland, in two years’ time, will, in the words of its organisers, include an exploration of the work of science journalists around the world "in the light of the Enlightenment-period notions of critical questioning and the public sphere".

This will be an excellent opportunity to explore in greater detail how vital it is for science journalism that governments respect the free flow of scientific information. It will also be an opportunity to take stock of the pressures that prevent this from happening, and the steps that are needed to resist them.

David Dickson

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US WATCH: TRANSPORT U.S. BACK TO PROSPERITY

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago

The final feature of the US ‘real economy’ worth featuring is transportation & communications. This is among the most productive sectors that produce real wealth, contrasted to the ‘casino economy’ of predatory finance that produces wealth from out of wealth itself, producing really nothing worth our value. Broad as it is, let me focus on the transport sector.

Time was when the railway industry took off, inducing growth as soon as the railways hit the West. The continental divide among the US states was bridged quickly, intra-trade exponentially increased. Soon enough, foreign trade also increased in leaps and bounds as maritime shipping grew and matured quickly, making US articles of trade be exported to all corners of the planet.

Trains, ships, airplanes, automotives, trucks, heavy equipment, tractors, and other state-of-the art prototypes came out of America’s workshops to propel growth not only in the US but in other countries as well. “Made in the USA” products became household words everywhere, including my Wild Wild West province of Cagayan in Northern Philippines, precisely due to the miracle of the transport sector that was broadly a facet of the ‘real economy’ of America. I was a child in the 1960s and early 70s when the “Made in the USA” was chic and almost a cult-level cliché.

That era now is now consigned to the dustbins of a remote past. Sure, America still produces state-of-the art transport prototypes. But look, railways have stagnated (is there a mag-lev there now?), automotives are shrinking by the day (laying off and displacing thousands of top quality industrial technicians), while the cutting edge technology for almost all prototypes, save for military transport, have already been surpassed by Asia.

McCain and Obama should better do their homework and understand the catastrophic future that awaits America if the transport sector remains neglected and ceaselessly ravaged inch-by-inch by the infernal fires of predatory finance. The policy makers there better salve the ailing sector quickly, and get back those laid-off topnotch industrial technicians to work before they lose every iota of motivation to even get involved in the sector they grew up with but which rejected them (how traumatic!).

If there’s any sector to begin with, it’s railways. Better renovate the railways, and establish maglevs in all the major continental routes of the US. And quickly take the initiative to establish cross-border maglevs with Canada and Mexico. Later, establish maglevs connecting Alaska with Russia via Siberia, thus connecting US to the Asian land mass.

Sorry for sounding ‘interventionist’, fellows in America. We Asians are as concerned with your economy as you are, and we would want your economic leadership to again rise to the fore. If America does that, other nations will then move on, propelled by growth in the ‘real economy’ because America is doing so. Failing to do that, the economic baton will transfer to Asia, and it will crash our hearts to see our fellow Earthans of America sinking in esteem by the day, because of their collapsing prosperity.

We are all siblings on Earth, this is certain, that’s why we share words of wisdom about your economic conditions. May you finally have a reform-oriented President comes this coming electoral contest.

[Writ 07 June 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]