Introduction
1.
Human Rights and Responsibility
2.
Ethical Issues of
Information Production
3.
Ethical Issues
of Information Collection and Classification
4.
Ethical Issues of Information
Dissemination
5.
Prospects
Discussion
Introduction
The
following ideas are inspired by the research of our colleague and ICIE-Member
Thomas J. Froehlich:
Survey and Analysis of the Major Ethical and Legal Issues Facing Library
and Information Services. IFLA Publication 78, München 1997, a
survey prepared under contract no. 401.723.4 for the General Information
Programme (PGI) of UNESCO.
1.
Human Rights and Responsibility
A
basis for ethical thinking on the responsibility of information specialists
are the following articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
(UDHR):
-
Respect for the dignity of human beings (Art. 1)
-
Confidentiality (Art. 1, 2, 3, 6)
-
Equality of opportunity (Art. 2, 7)
-
Privacy (Art. 3, 12)
-
Right to freedom of opinion and expression (Art. 19)
-
Right to participate in the cultural life of the community (Art. 27)
-
Right to the protection of the moral and material interests concerning
any scientific, literary or artistic production (Art. 27)
Information
specialists have a moral responsibility with regard to the users at a micro
(individuals), meso (institutions) and macro (society) level.
2.
Ethical Issues of Information Production
The
question concerning the protection of the intellectual property is one
of the most important and difficult ethical, moral and legal ones in the
field of information production.
Different
traditions with regard to technologies and products have lead to different
protection laws in different regions of the world:
-
The European tradition emphasizes the moral rights of the authors (droit
d'auteur). These are related to the person
of the author and concern the integrity and authorship of her/his work
as well as her/his reputation.
-
The Anglo-American tradition emphasizes the property or economic rights
(copyright).
These rights can be transferred. According to this tradition "original
works of authorship in any tangible means of expression" (17 U.S.C. sect.
102(a)) should be protected.
-
The Asian tradition(s) consider copying as a matter of emulation of the
master.
Conflicts
arise when national and international laws and moral traditions protect
different aspects of various media.
Ways
of harmonization:
-
The Berne
Convention (1886, revisions) Protects:
books, sculptures, architecture... Duration of a copyright: the life of
the author plus 50 years. It makes a difference between economic and moral
rights: In case I grant economic grants to another person this does not
include moral rights. The USA joined the convention in 1989.
-
Universal Copyright Convention (1952) (UCC). The protection is national
and concerns the rights of reproduction. Duration of protection: the life
of the author plus 25 years.
Both
treaties are administrated by the World Intellectual
Property Organization (WIPO).
-
Copyrights directives from national and multinational parliaments (such
as the EU).
Challenges:
Digitalizing
makes copying and re-making (re-modelling) easier. Internationalization
through the Internet changes the dimension and prospective of national
legislation and control.
This
new situation gives rise to questions such as: Should information always
be regarded as a property? Should the notion of knowledge
sharing become predominant with regard to
the notion of ownership? How can the public access to electronic information
be guaranteed?
3.
Ethical Issues of Information Collection and Classification
Ethical
questions concerning collection and classification of information are related
to censorship and control. The answers to these questions vary historically
according to the interests of political, economic, religious and military
power using and abusing of censorship and control. Cultural and moral traditions
play also an important role concerning for instance what is considered
as offensive.
We
draw a distinction between censorship and selection:
-
Censorship means
the active exclusion of information based on religious, political, moral
or other grounds.
-
Selection concerns
the activity of choosing information according to the objectives of an
institution.
Selection
procedures may be biased with regard to certain groups of subject matters.
This leads to a loss of ethical balance.
The
main ethical question in this field may be formulated as follows:
Are there limits to intellectual freedom?
The
will to exclude bad information is itself an ethical paradox as
far as any exclusion, limiting intellectual freedom, should be avoided.
There
is a tendency in liberal societies to less control. But this leads to ethical
as well as moral and legal conflicts. Codes of Ethics as well as official
international statements and agreements may help against arbitrary censorship
and selection pressures.
Classification
systems, thesauri, search engines and the like are not neutral.
This non-neutrality concerns not just the
fact that they are necessarily biased but that specific unethical prejudices
are not recognized as such. Problems of this kind arise in the Internet
because of the massive amount of information and different kinds of search
methods and search engines.
4.
Ethical Aspects of Information Dissemination
Ethical
questions concerning information dissemination are related to problems
of public access and reference/brokerage services. The question of access
can be studied as an individual as well as a societal issue.
Individuals
are interested in a free and equal access
to information. At the same time it must be acknowledged that information
is product of work and has an economic value that should be protected.
The question is then what information for whom should be free. The
problem of user education is also connected to this question.
The
question of access as a societal issue concerns the problem of creating
equal opportunities of access for nations or groups of nations avoiding
the gap between the information rich and the information poor (societies).
The
question of reference/brokerage services can be studied with regard to
institutionalized services as well as a question concerning the end users.
Ethical conflicts may arise regarding for instance the right to confidentiality
and the one to protect life. Organizations may ask information professionals
to break confidentiality.
Information
professionals are supposed to inform their users about the limits of their
sources and methods.
Finally
there is the question of misinformation (or information malpractice)
that can cause great (economic) damages to the users.
5.
Prospects
All
these questions become more critical as a result of the globalization of
information in the Internet. Questions arise such as: Who shuld control
the information coming from another country and/or another culture? How
can national laws, being geographically limited, meet the challenges
of cyberspace?
Solutions
to these questions may be found at different levels:
-
Self-control:
this is the ethical solution propagated by the Internet community particularly
through the use of filtering software. Its basic and most primitive form
is the netiquette. Other
kinds of self-controll are for instance operated within newsgroups through
moderators. Sanctions, beginning with flaming, through spam,
may reach the level of a mail bomb. Finally there are the cyber
angels who take care of (free) decency self-control in the net.
-
Campaings:
such as the Blue Ribbon Campaing against different kinds of discrimination
and censorship.
-
Codes of Ethics:
of different institutions and societies
-
Legal regulations:
at national, multinational and international level
-
Technical regulations:
such as filtering software and rating procedures.
The
Internet brings a change in the global conception of the freedom of information.
The basic solutions seem to be on ethical self-regulation, on the one hand,
as well as on agreements at multinational and international level, on the
other. One of the basic issues of a future world information order concerns
the problem of the gap between the information poor and the information
rich.
DISCUSSION
Cyber-Geography
Research
The
analysis of the networked society is basic for ethical reflection,
for instance on the question of distribution and access to information
and knowledge. The Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College
London (an initiative by Martin Dodge)
has explored the geographies of the Internet, the Web and other emerging
Cyberspaces.
ICC
99
The
following excerpts from the announcement of the ICC 99 Conference provide
hints on the ongoing international discussion about the ethical (cultural,
economic, political...) challanges of the knowledge society:
ICC
99 (International Institute of Communications, London) 30th ICC
Annual Conference: The Emerging Knowledge Society. The Implications for
Commerce, Culture & Communities. 07.-09. September 1999, Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia.
"Sessions:
1.
A global and regional perspective.
Setting
the Scene on the Knowledge Society: The session will explore the implications
of the key elements in the development of the energing knowledge society.
Over what timescale will these changes come about and would they provide
a short-cut to development enabling emerging economies to leap frog established
processes? Will all activity be computer based and though technologically
feasible what economic or cultural considerations could act as a barriert
to progress? The Opening Plenary will put in context the differences and
similarities in approach that can be seen with reference to objectives
and methods of achieving the Knowledge Society from Western and Asian perspectives.
2.
Commerce.
What
are the implications for commerce of the knowledge society and what will
be the response of the private sector? Will there be new and alternative
delivery paths to the home, business and rural communities? Will the take
off of electronic commerce be the result of technology push or will be
content driven by the consumer? How do we foresee the new services such
as the internet, e-commerce and digital broadcasting developing as complementary
or competitive alternatives? Will market forces play a dominant role or
will there be failure (perfect market or a perfect nightmare)? Will advanced
corporations become dependent on a digital nerve system?
3.
Culture.
Can
technology be culturally neutral? Do governments have a responsibility
and a role in assisting in preserving cultures or can they remain aloof
leaving everything to the market place? How can a sustainable knowledge
society be ensured? Will the creation of networked communities bring about
the global village and give rise to new forms of communities and expression?
What is the role of public service broadcasting in fostering the culture
of societies, globally?
4.
Communities.
Is
an electronically informed electorate with its numerous cyber communities
prepared to build a new partnership between government business and civil
society where collaboration will take precedence over advocacy or confrontation?
What are the educational and traning constraints to the growth of a knowledge
society and is on-line interactive distance learning adequate and effective?
Should public policy guidelines be developed for promoting information
technology?
5.
Convergence.
There
are challenges that have to be faced by governments and society in
formulating a convergence policy. How can a knowledge society be created
with universal access and stakeholder inclusion? What will be the emerging
knowledge media and who will be the new consumers? What will be the nature
of the economy post convergence and will this result in new business models?
What about market structures and delivery systems? Will there be a co-operative
advantage for some nations or even within nations resulting in the polarisation
of the information rich and the information poor?
6.
Governance.
Who
will be responsible for governance in cyberspace? Can the internet be governed
and who should govern it or should it continue its growth and development
free from interference from vested interests? Is regulation of the internet
necessary or should responsibility and self regulation form the cornerstone
of its expansion? Who will be the guarantors of truth, reason and objectivity
in an uncontrolled cyberworld?"
