Ethical aspects of computer mediated communication

Yve Dougall, National Policy & Research Analyst of ACS, will talk on "The ethical aspects of computer mediated communication" at the Australian Computer Society in Canberra, 7 September 2010.

The ethical aspects of computer mediated communication

Exploring the interplay between deception and identity on: social networking sites (SNS); text (SMS) and email.

The ability to control what information one reveals about oneself over the Internet and to control that can access this information, only becomes an ethical issue when there is a causal concern for Internet privacy. Internet users may achieve an adequate level of privacy through controlled disclosure of both personal and factual information about themselves. The technological configuration underlying the Internet has a considerable bearing on its ethical aspects. The Internet blurs the boundaries between self and game, self and role, self and simulation, self and communication. Participants are whatever they can pretend to be. They enjoy the artificial social construct on social networking sites or the manipulated façade of virtual worlds, without questioning where it comes from, who created it, or for what purpose. The popular culture that appropriates everything and turns it into a simulation and a story line becomes the model for the self, society and reality. Life becomes a symbolic arena for the acting out of manufactured identity selves that is then communicated in a contained and controlled storyline through selected ‘friends’.

The goal of this presentation is to inform and dispel myths with academic factual research on how prevalent online identity deception actually is and to examine the effects of and the conditions that give rise to it.

Biography: Yve Dougall

Yve Dougall is the National Policy & Research Analyst of ACS, based in Canberra. Prior to joining ACS nearly two years ago, she was working with the Office of Transport Security, heading the Aviation Security Technologies Team.

She initially studied Engineering back in the early eighties and was the first female civil engineer to be awarded a cadetship by then Telecom Australia. After working in Building Design Standards, for four years - she shifted gears and decided to embark on journalism. She was based with Reuters in Hong Kong as a war & foreign correspondent, returning to Australia in the late eighties to work for SBS.

A return to fulltime study followed with a major in Philosophy, where upon graduating she moved to Canberra with her husband in 1994.

She has held diverse Government contracts over the years specializing in addressing ICT Business Cases within the Federal Sector, her areas of expertise are in change management, project management, policy to program service delivery and stakeholder engagement. Other contracts have included Minter Ellison and Engineers Australia.

She is currently undertaking postgraduate research in ethics and information technology at the Centre of Applied Philosophy and Applied Ethics at ANU. ...