Privacy
The United States vs. Malaysia
The Full Scenario:
(adapted from a story in the February 14, 1996 Washington Post)
In February 1996, a college student posted a public Internet message
accusing a local woman of mistreating her daughter and urged readers to call
the family. The student's message reported that the teenage girl was a
victim of abuse because for many years she was confined to home, except to
go to school or work, was forbidden to use the phone or have friends, and
was fed nothing but peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
The message was circulated to at least 11 Internet news groups devoted to
child welfare, psychology, radical left-wing politics and civil liberties.
Readers around the world who viewed the special-interest message were urged
to call the girl's mother "at home and tell her you are disgusted and you
demand that she stops." The family said the message generated a half-dozen
subsequent threatening phone calls to the girl's mother. The girl's father
described the family as sickened by the posting of the message and the
resulting phone calls: "We can't stop the calls," he said. "I can't stop
anything that goes over the Internet...it's like a virus. How do you stop
it?" The exposure exacerbated family tensions, the father said. "It could
break up our family," he said. "It could very well break up our family. It's
close."
The incident demonstrates how easy access to communication technology, in
the form of computers and modems, can outpace users' sense of
responsibility: "You're going to see tons and tons of cases just like this,"
said Dale Herbeck, an associate professor of communication at Boston
College. "In the old days...I had to have access to some kind of printing
press. Some newspaper or editor or correspondent would act as a gatekeeper.
Now, there's no editing function. It's maybe too spontaneous...You just sit
down and, Boom! It's kind of wild. You type it out and hit Control-Z and,
Boom! It's out. And all the traditional checks are gone."
The student made no effort to conceal his identity and was unrepentant: "You
should be able to write what you want on the Internet, whether it's true or
not." Although the student doesn't know the family or the girl, he felt
compelled to intervene after a third party alleged the daughter was being
mistreated. He denied that the information came from a confidential
counseling session (he attended the same public schools as the daughter),
"This came from [the girl], to friends of hers, to me. It came from nobody
else at that counseling session."
The Internet changes the rules for publishing: authors do not need much
money, any special means of distributing material, or anyone's approval to
share their thoughts with thousands of readers. Of course just as for
printed material, electronic messages can raise difficult legal and ethical
concerns. "If this guy were going around and posting it on lamp posts or in
all the 7-Elevens in town, what would one do about it?" said J.A.N. Lee,
Virginia Tech professor of Computer Science.
The student argued his message had caused the intended effect, that the
telephone calls prompted the mother to treat her daughter better. "It worked
very well. It worked very quickly...the only trouble is, it takes some time
to stop the phone calls." The student did send out follow-up messages asking
readers to stop calling the family; he also reported with evident pleasure
that the mother had experienced extreme stress as a result of the exposure.
He thanked the "Internet community" for responding.
Was the student's behavior ethically sound?
Scenario 6 - Spread The Word