1. The Web as an Ethical Space. Kieron O’Hara 02 December 2010

2. Applications of Ethics Different types of situation make different ethical demands –Warfare –Medicine As do different types of space –City –Private property –Wilderness These hold whether or not there are universal ethical principles 2

3. The Web is Such a Space My claim: the Web has specific properties –Sufficiently unusual –Sufficiently transformative –Sufficiently central to human life Hence it needs special ethical thought 3

4. What Do I Mean By … ? I do not mean: –Information and Communication Technology –Digital technology –The Internet I mean the Web: –Interlinked resources –URIs –HTTP –An application that uses the Internet Protocol 4

5. Why Special Treatment? I claim the Web has a series of ethically-relevant properties Some apply to other spaces Some apply to digital technology Some apply to the Internet The combination is specific to the Web If you’re not convinced, time to go home 5

6. Desiderata The Web needs to support trusting interaction BUT ALSO the Web’s ethic needs to be self-sustaining 6

7. 1. Scale The world’s most complex piece of technology 7

8. 2. Speed Millions of interactions can take place at the speed of light 8

9. 3. Liberal Underpinning Web engineering depends on decentralisation and free flow of information 9

10. 4. International Jurisdiction The Web is everywhere and nowhere 10

11. 5. Survival of the Web The Web may fragment if the engineering isn’t right 11

12. 6. Identity Comparatively narrow bandwidth for interaction 12

13. 7. Based on Copying Trivial to duplicate resources 13

14. 8. Heterogeneous Understanding Relatively few widespread norms 14

15. 9. Human/Artificial Different types of agent interact 15

16. 10. The Past Never Dies Our younger selves live alongside us 16

17. Hence, For Example Actions can affect very many people before the consequences can be assessed Can the Web protect itself as a liberal society can? How do we manage identity online ethically? How can I deal fairly with people if I don’t know their expectations? –If I don’t even know they are people? 17

18. What Kind of Ethics? The Web thrives on serendipity and innovation Operative ethical emotions are esteem, pride, contempt etc –Guilt, rewards, moral indignation seem out of place –An Aristotelian world –Web designers and content providers try to achieve excellence Wikipedia Hacking Startups without a business model PageRank –Hard to explain in terms of incentives or rules 18

19. Example: Trust The social dimension of Web-enabled intelligence –Extended cognition (Harry Halpin, Andy Clark) –e-Science When do users trust information or processes online? There are no effective rules –The rules in place are rarely followed (cf. Dhamjia) –Being trustworthy goes beyond obeying the rules 19

20. The Webby Virtues The Web is not a rule- governed space –Creative space –Telos of survival and growth –Resource providers aim at excellence with those parameters Virtue looks more appropriate to describe the ethics of the Web 20

21. Take Home Messages The properties of the Web mean that it sets distinct ethical problems Ethical excellence on the Web is better understood as virtue-based rather than rule-following Questions –What is the end of the Web? –How does that relate to human self-understanding? –What virtues should be expected from resource providers? 21

22. Disclaimer Texts, marks, logos, names, graphics, images, photographs, illustrations, artwork, audio clips, video clips, and software copyrighted by their respective owners are used on these slides for non-commercial, educational and personal purposes only. Use of any copyrighted material is not authorized without the written consent of the copyright holder. Every effort has been made to respect the copyrights of other parties. If you believe that your copyright has been misused, please direct your correspondence to: kmo@ecs.soton.ac.uk stating your position and I shall endeavour to correct any misuse as early as possible. 22