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Inglese_Snowden

The document discusses various social and ethical issues arising from the rapid evolution of technology and the Internet, including the digital divide, changes in interpersonal relations, information overload, censorship, surveillance, unemployment, and the erosion of cultural industries. It highlights concerns about privacy, addiction to the Internet, and the rise of online crime. Additionally, it addresses the influence of major tech companies and government surveillance on society and individual freedoms.

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Luca Pigna
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11 views4 pages

Inglese_Snowden

The document discusses various social and ethical issues arising from the rapid evolution of technology and the Internet, including the digital divide, changes in interpersonal relations, information overload, censorship, surveillance, unemployment, and the erosion of cultural industries. It highlights concerns about privacy, addiction to the Internet, and the rise of online crime. Additionally, it addresses the influence of major tech companies and government surveillance on society and individual freedoms.

Uploaded by

Luca Pigna
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Social and ethical problems of IT

The rapid evolution of technology, together with the expansion of the Internet, is having a
big impact on the way we live and has raised many questions about how our world is
changing.

The digital divide


There is a split in society between those people who are technology-literate and those who
aren’t. This is partly an economic division, because technology can be expensive, but it is
also affected by other factors such as age and level of education. Older, poorer, less
educated people feel left behind.

Interpersonal relations
New methods of communication have changed how people relate to one another. Social
media networks have become an essential method of keeping in touch for millions of
people. However, despite this expansion of communication, there are fears that we are
losing more direct human contact with others and becoming more isolated. The
impersonality and anonymity of online communications can also lead to a loss of empathy
with other people and an increase in phenomenons like cyber-bullying and trolling.

Information overload
The ease with which data can be published online means that there is a big mass of
information now available on the Internet. This is difficult to deal with, even with the help of
superefficient search engines. We can’t know what information is reliable and what is
misleading or false. In workplaces the effort of trying to keep ourselves constantly updated,
and responding to the never-ending flow of e-mail, can cause stress and obstruct productive
work. While mobile technology may sometimes be convenient, allowing us to do things at
home or even on holiday, workers can find themselves in a position where they are on call
24 hours a day.

Censorship
Some people want to keep the Internet as a place where everyone is free to publish
anything. Others fear that allowing open access to controversial, subversive or immoral
opinions or materials may have a damaging effect on society, and especially on more
vulnerable people such as children. So, things like racist, violent or pornographic materials
shouldn’t be freely available and website should be controlled in some way.

Surveillance
Devices leave digital records behind them of when, how and where they are used. The
smartphone we carry around is the most sophisticated tracking device ever invented.
Governments, companies and even criminal organizations now have potential access to big
quantities of information about every one of us.
Companies can build up detailed profiles of people for commercial purposes.
Unemployment
The evolution of technology is leading to the disappearance of many jobs. Robots and
automation have eroded manual production work in factories and a similar process is
happening in service industries too with, for example, shop assistants and bank clerks being
replaced by automated systems.
New technology has always led to new professions taking over from obsolete ones but there
is a widespread sense that the current elimination of work goes much farther than ever
before. What jobs will there be for young people in the future when self-improving self-
generating robots can do everything?

Erosion of cultural industries


Digital technology can make perfect copies and then distribute them, in infinite numbers,
over the Internet at almost no cost.
The music and film industries suffered first with steep declines in sales of CDs and DVDs.
Newspaper, magazine and book publishers are also being undermined by the easy
availability of free material online.
People have grown used to obtaining all sorts of material from the Internet without paying
and so downloading pirated copies of songs or films does not really feel like stealing.

DOMANDE VIDEO Are big tech companies trying to control our lives?
1. How are Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple defined at the beginning of Foer’s
interview?
At the beginning of the interview these companies are called tech giants, some people are
worried about their continuous growth and even define them as monopolies.
2. What is their tremendous ability?
The ability of these tech giants is to shape our thinking, our vision of the the world and the
way in which we absorb culture
3. How does Foer call these companies in his book?
Foer calls them gatekeepers -> the first, second, third, fourth and fifth most valuable
companies on the US stock market.
4. Adding together Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft, what can we
obtain?
Adding them together, we can make up 10% of the S&P share price
5. What is their ambition?
Their ambition is the total control of the human race, they try to be with us from when we
wake up in the morning until we go to bed in the night.
PANDER -> tell us what we want to hear
6. What’s the crucial difference between the media companies and other traditional
corporations such as J.D.Rockfeller?
The difference is that J.D. Rockefeller never tried to control or shape the way you think
7. Foer compares the food industries of the past to the present media companies. How
are they similar to him?
Both of them want to create an addiction in the customer.
8. What’s the difference between PBS and media companies?
The first one, PBS, wants to give a global vision of the world, it has its own values, so its
readers have their own thoughts about what they say. The mass media dissect information
into fragments which they then pass on to people.
9. What is Cecil the lion an example of?
It is an example of how something relatively mundane can go viral, and it shows how we
have a certain amount of conformism in our culture as well.
10. According to Foer this all began with hippies. How are hippy culture and the internet
connected?
According to Foer, hippie culture and internet are connected from the sense of community:
the Internet would become like a community, where we would all be networked and we
would all be able to reach a state of global knowledge.

DOMANDE VIDEO - HOW THE GOVERNMENTS TRACKS YOU


1. What did the world become aware of in June 2013
The US government was secretly violating our privacy
2. What does the network of monitoring programs consist in?
Tracking the emails, text message, location, purchases and phone calls of people
3. When did this program come to light?
When Edward Snowden, former NSA contractor, leaked documents detailing the extensive
data collection
4. What did the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution establish?
The fourth amendment stipulated that: the right of the people to be secure in their persons,
houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be
violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or
affirmation, and particularity describing the place to be searched, and the person or things
to be seized
5. Why did the Patriot Act passed in 2001 by the U.S. Congress mark a worsening?
Because gave secret FISA courts more authority to grant surveillance request on a large
scale instead of getting a warant for an individual person suspected of crime
6. How can U.S. government agents illegally track internet users?
NSA is collecting information on you based on what you read, or the website you go to
7. Why is mass spying unconstitutional?
Almost any email you send might get your account monitored this type of traking can
misunderstand what you say
8. What do experts on surveillance, privacy and intelligence agree on?
The NSA, president Bush and Obama and their secret courts are interpreting multiple laws in
a way that most americans would find shocking
THE DANGER OF THE INTERNET
1. ADDICTION
Many people are spending too much time on the Internet but admit they can’t stop. They
check the Internet the first thing in the morning, and the last thing at night and put this
habit ahead of interpersonal communication. Many people would rather be surfing the web
rather than reading a book. Internet pornography has proved compelling: 60% of US adult
males admit to using it at least once a month. 9% of males classify themselves as spending
between 10 and 20 hours a week on porn.
2. WE KNOW TOO MUCH BUT UNDERSTAND TOO LITTLE
Between the dawn of civilization and 2003, 5 exabyte of data was created. That much
information is now created every 2 days. There is so much data that we keep having to
come up with new words to describe it.
The latest term is the yottabyte. This much data is overwhelming. Google makes 2,5 billions
searches per day.
These search engines constantly direct our attention to their products. Because the internet
is often a source of reliable information, we exaggerate its accuracy, its importance and its
wisdom.
3. PRIVACY IS UNDER THREAT
Thousands of cookies track wherever we go. Our mobile phones log data about our
movements every five seconds, even when they are ostensibly off. According to the head of
the French police force it’s now almost impossible to commit a murder and remain
undetected.
We leave a lot of data online which is sold to marketing companies and collected, filtered
and cross-referenced to provide detailed insight into our lives. 70% of us admit to fearing
how much we have already shared. One in seven teenagers in the US has sent a
compromising image over the internet and had a sexual chat with a real-life stranger. A
majority of European internet users are under the impression that a security service has
snooped into their conversations and activities.
4. ONLINE CRIME IS OUT OF CONTROL
Over the last twenty years, crime has abated in many countries, but internet crime is
exploding.
In 2014, American law enforcement found 42 millions images of child pornography on just
one server. The UK government estimates 50,000 people in the UK are actively involved in
downloading and sharing images of child abuse. Online abuse and hate speech are endemic:
on Twitter, 10,000 uses of racist terms occur a day and 2000 Tweets are sent containing the
word “rape”. 69% of young people in the UK have experiences in cyber-bullying. The police
are overwhelmed. The Head of the UK’s National Crime Agency recently said they would
only ever be able to focus on less than 1% of child porn users.

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