PHIL 355E Reflective Writing Assignment
Over the course of this semester, I’ve had to engage with different topics, perspectives and positions. I’ve learned a lot from the material discussed in this class, but my three favorite were our units on Privacy, Whistleblowing, and Information warfare
To start, I’ve had some important takeaways from the unit on Privacy. In our case analysis on privacy, we had to answer the question “What would have been a more ethical way to implement Google Street View?” and we used an article by Siva Vaidhyanathan “The Googlization of Everything”. His article made it clear that Google could have done a much better job of respecting the privacy of others, with there being several examples where Google did not respect the privacy of others. For instance, it was mentioned that Google took images of someone’s house even though it sat far back from the road, which I saw as a very clear violation of someone’s personal privacy, and it just seemed very invasive. Also, Google failed to automatically blur things in street view that would trace back to people, such as faces or license plates. The reason this is so important is because cybercriminals can use sensitive information like faces or license plates to track people or even sell this sensitive information to other cybercriminals. The privacy case analysis helped me understand how easy it is to violate someone’s privacy, and the application I’ve been able to take away from this is to just be careful when taking pictures out in public, as you never know who’s going to see the pictures I take and what they’re going to do with them. I also try not to tag people on social media, because I feel like if a cybercriminal were to hack me on social media, I am just opening another door for them to go and hack one of my friends, if that makes sense.
Another unit I’ve had important takeaways from is our unit on whistleblowing. I had heard of whistleblowing before and understood to a degree what it was. The moral principle I’ve always stood by, and still do to an extent is “If you see something, say something”. This unit however allowed me to reconsider my traditional approach “If you see something say something”, and that whistleblowing isn’t always necessary. As discussed in my whistleblowing case analysis, Vanderekerckhove’s concept of “Rational Loyalty” suggests that an employee should exercise their right to whisleblow, but they should consider the circumstances and consequences before doing so. I kind of think of it now like Hammurabi’s code (eye for an eye); I understand now that you have to decide if whistleblowing is the correct action to take, or if whistleblowing is too extreme of an action for a situation. I now know when it’s right and when it’s wrong to whistleblow, and I can apply that later in life when I have an actual career.
Lastly, I was able to learn about and have some takeaways on information warfare, which was a topic I was not familiar with prior to being in this class. In our information warfare case analysis, we had to read an article particularly focusing on facebook’s involvement in the 2016 election. I understood that there was some controversy in the 2016 elections, specifically I knew of a rumor that russian hackers hijacked the election, but I wasn’t aware that facebook played a huge role in it too. It made me realize not only facebook, but big corporations play a huge part in our elections, which I hadn’t really thought much about before. I even did additional research on the role corporations play in American politics and now I think that corporations should stay far away from politics, and I think lobbying should be illegal. My takeaway from this unit is that I need to be careful online and think critically about the information I’m reading, and to only get information from trusted, non-biased sources.