Category: Media / Sociology

Ethical fault lines

Teaching About the Web Includes Troublesome Parts – NYTimes.com.

Here’s an interesting article about a curriculum to help teachers educate kids about how to act online. While the professor who created the program refers to these as “ethical” fault lines, it is surprising how many are also legal fault lines. Perhaps by framing them as ethical, he is embracing the fact that none of these issues are entirely clear (or bright line) from a legal standpoint.

Common Sense’s classes, based on research by Howard Gardner, a Harvard psychology and education professor, are grouped into topics he calls “ethical fault lines”: identity (how do you present yourself online?); privacy (the world can see everything you write); ownership (plagiarism, reproducing creative work); credibility (legitimate sources of information); and community (interacting with others).

Shift from print

Internet overtakes print in news consumption among Americans.

Between this report and the Post Office’s request to cut home delivery, it would seem as though we are in the midst of a huge shift away from print. I wouldn’t say that it is going away, but this begins to highlight the importance of a number of issues in information freedom (neutrality and access to name two). The architecture of physical information has certain values we may want to ensure are carried into the digital world. If those in power were able to control what appeared on the page at the touch of a button, imagine how different the world might look.

Time to re-read Code and donate to the EFF 🙂