Ethical Issues Raised by Freedom of Expression on the Internet 1

Ethical Issues Raised by Freedom of Expression on the Internet

A.O. Aliyu and Adedayo Stephen

Energy Commission of Nigeria, Abuja. Nigeria

Abstract

Freedom of expression is what every American is entitle to; it is our right to speak freely

without censorship, speak the mind, whenever, however and to whoever (Stephen, 2009). Users

on the web can be restricted on what they say, post and publish even though there is freedom of

speech in the country. Since the Constitutional protection does not cover the internet, there is

therefore no law that prevents protection from arbitrary censorship (Haq, 2009). Hence there is

no freedom of speech on the internet. According to Ballinger (2006), “Freedom of expression

online is a right, not a privilege - but it's a right that needs defending". The ethical issues of

Second Life in relation to the effects of spoofing, harassment, identity theft and copyright

infringement on the residents are evaluated.

Keywords: ethical, issues, freedom, expression, internet

Ethical Issues Raised by Freedom of Expression on the Internet 2

Ethical Issues Raised by Freedom of Expression on the Internet

Freedom of speech on the Internet

The internet is experiencing a rapid growth due to interlinking networks of various

countries around the world. The U.S Government has various laws prohibiting web sites from

circulating unethical contents like child pornography and violent content. Other laws are

copyright law and intellectual laws but these laws cannot be imposed on other counties of the

world. Since the internet is for the whole world, and not for the U.S alone, the Constitution

protections and limitations cannot be apply to every website. The law only applies to the

websites hosted in the U.S like yahoo, Google and so forth, and the website can censor the

content of their site (Haq, 2009).

Online Privacy Policy, Terms and Conditions

There are terms and conditions or privacy policy for each websites, which are agreements

between the user and the owner of a website. The result of agreeing with the terms and

conditions for a website, implies, that the user gives away his or her right to protest or dispute

about content censor or limiting. All website reserves the right to control postings by users

because of the click of the button “I accept to the terms and conditions” (Haq, 2009). It is

necessary for users to be familiar with the technology involved in the website territory, proper

understanding of the terms and conditions before consenting (Moringiello & Fleming, 2008, p.

9).

We have right to privacy yet; we receive unsolicited, offensive and harassing emails,

threats, defamation and uncalled messages that may be very irritating (Stephen, 2009). Another

ethical issues that affects the internet, e-commerce, and many information technology IT services

is authentication. That is, how to determine the identity of other end user on the internet when

Ethical Issues Raised by Freedom of Expression on the Internet 3

using social interacting network like Facebook, Second Life and soon on. According to

Moringiello and Fleming (2008) “The problems of identity and authentication arise from how

online-only interactions do not have the traditional indicia of identity or easy access to the

documents we might use in a face-to-face transaction”.

Introduction to Second Life (SL)

There are many unethical issues at Second Life nowadays, Second life is a virtual world

started by Philip Rosedale and incorporated by Linden lab (Ballinger, 2006). The users are

called Resident, interacting through avatar and client software called Viewer. Residents can

walk around, meet other residents, mingle, partake in various activities, and produce and trade in

virtual properties and services. There are two grid in Second Life, grid for adult and grid for the

teen. Second Life is a three-dimensional graphic virtual world with over 88,200 users per day in

2009 (The second life economy- first quarter 2009 in detail, 2009) and over 20 million registered

users.

Generation Virtual is growing very fast, file-sharing, multi-user virtual environments and

multitasking is common daily life. According to the Gartner analysts;

Generation V is the recognition that general behavior, attitudes and interests start to blend

together in an online environment. The idea of Generation X (and later Generation Y)

was conceived as a way to understand new generations that appeared not to have

connections to the culture icons of the baby boomers. Marketers use the categories of

baby boomers, Generation X and Generation Y to segment the population for targeting

products and services with a focus on age (Alexander, 2007).

There are religious meetings, social functions, conferences, research, projects, career exploration,

practical, and educational meetings being conducted online.

Ethical Issues Raised by Freedom of Expression on the Internet 4

Ethical Issues in Second Life

There are several disturbing issues at SL these include; illegal file-sharing, spamming,

false identity, multiply identity and illicit materials. Other issues stated in (Schroeder, 2007) and

(Shutkin, 2004) are as “privacy, monitoring and eavesdropping, exploitation, professional ethics,

confidentiality and proprietary information, to crimes, such as harassment, vandalism and

unauthorized use of computer information, such as passwords, and intellectual property and

trademark infringements” (Moringiello & Fleming, 2008, p. 9).

Exploitation of individuals

There are no charges for creating SL account and Avatar can be in form of human,

animal, mineral or combination of all, while communication is via local chat, global instant

messaging. The currency in SL is Linden dollar and the exchange rate is between $263-$270

Linden Dollar to one U.S dollar (Moringiello & Fleming, 2008, p. 10). It is use to buy, sell, rent

or trade land or goods and pay for services. Virtual goods available are buildings, vehicles,

devices of all kinds, animations, clothing, skin, hair, jewellery, flora and fauna, and works of art.

Most of these items and money are stolen from innocent SL victims (Moringiello & Fleming,

2008, p. 10)

Ethics, Values and Practices in SL

GoodPlay project was the product of research on the ethics, values and practices in virtual social

groups. The project was a comprehensive research work by Carrie James, Howard Gardner and others

from the Harvard Graduate School. During the project various interviews were conducted between

people from the age of 15 to 25 years, to determine and understand the ethical implications of virtual

activities as it’s relate to a community (James et al., 2008). In conclusion, “The project outlined the

promises and perils of virtual identity play that factors in a players real-life experiences with ethical

behaviors and beliefs” (James et al., 2008).

Ethical Issues Raised by Freedom of Expression on the Internet 5

Identity Issues in Second Life Most unethical act complains are as a result of content creator problems, Lieweiyn (2010) stated

as follow;

Avatar names, so far, have been unique, and that meant for the content creators (remember, live

music and performing weddings are content too!) that one’s reputation is closely tied to a name

that is unique. Remove that uniqueness, and all of the sudden the avatar name loses value

(Lieweiyn, 2010, p. 1).

The investigation on identity issues in virtual environments conducted by Dr. Alex Gordon, the study

reviles that about 80% of female avatars are in fact men and 75% of male avatars are truly women. Based

on these facts, there is a serious identity problem in virtual environments especially SL. Also stated in

(Botterbusch & Talab, 2008), “that 43% of the sample group stated they were in virtual worlds to help

learn more about their true self”.

Vandalism and Harassment

Ethical issues concerning vandalism and harassment in SL is all about the so called griefers. Nino

(2006) define them as

A griefer, is generally accepted as a person who derives enjoyment from being obstructive,

diminishing the enjoyment of others, preventing the enjoyment of others, wasting your time, and

so forth. Depending on the environment, there may be a wide variety of specific behaviours (kill-

stealing, blocking, training, player-killing, team-killing etc).

They do not seem to enjoy things as other do in SL, but they enjoy making other avatar sad, or unhappy,

or frustrated (Nino, 2006). These are set of criminals and murderers moving round the SL creating

massive discomfort and annoyance.

Increasing Crime Rate

Activities in Second Life are in chaos over a software program that replicas items.

Copybot are used to steal digital coded goods. “But the havoc sewn by Copybot promises to

transform the virtual word into a bold experiment in protecting creative work without the blunt

Ethical Issues Raised by Freedom of Expression on the Internet 6

instrument of copyright law” (Botterbusch & Talab, 2008). According to (Lieweiyn, 2010), the

combination of CopyBot and homograph spoofing can easily destroy someone’s reputation

within seconds and also

Making a fake account to tarnish a merchant’s reputation, or copy their content but

appear to be legitimate when selling it, is a serious problem that requires addressing.

Linden Lab made it quite clear that they will not pro-actively prevent things from happen,

just deal with abuse reports (Lieweiyn, 2010, p.2).

If indiscriminate duplication of items using Copybot is not stopped then, no one will pay the

creator for their items. This will result in Second Life merchants closing their shop until the

problem is resolved.

The story of the “virtual murder of a digital persona in a computer game landed a

Japanese woman in a very real jail.” (Siemaszko, 2008). According to the report the 43-year-old

piano teacher claimed she was so infuriated when her virtual husband unexpectedly deserted her.

She killed his avatar, a digital image of the husband through hacking to his website. Also a case

of SL bank robberies netting millions as a result of using copies of the same software to manage

their deposits was reported by (Reuters, 2007). Other cases reported by avatar Barton

Giovinazzo one of at least five virtual banks robbed by robbers is ; “From what I gather from my

scripter it was ATM coding that didn’t check for money in people’s accounts before allowing the

withdraw,” (Reuters, 2007).

Conclusion

As of today, large amount of copyright infringement cases are on the Internet due to the lack

standard international copyright law. Just one illegal publishing of copyrighted material can cause

copyright violation by several online users globally (Frohlich, 2009). As stated above, there is no

constitution that protects internet user from arbitrary censorship. It is therefore difficult to say that

Ethical Issues Raised by Freedom of Expression on the Internet 7

there is freedom of expression on the Internet. The Second Life management does not think that

the effects of spoofing, harassment, identity theft and copyright infringement is of significant

danger to the resident population. It is demanding for the ethical situation of SL to improve, data and

job security be guaranteed.

Ethical Issues Raised by Freedom of Expression on the Internet 8

References

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Ballinger, S. (2006). Free speech online 'under threat'. Retrieved from

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Ethical Issues Raised by Freedom of Expression on the Internet 9

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