Eye on Trends:
The Ethics Contagion: Multiple Issues and their Off-Spring

by: Tom Cooper, member PTC Advisory Council; Co-publisher, Media Ethics Magazine

When I first visited PTC in 1993, only a few Pacific telecommunication ethics issues were being showcased. That year, articles about privacy in Japan, cultural erosion in the Marshall Islands and Fiji, and health concerns about emissions from telecom facilities in the U.S. were published.

Fifteen years later, in “the age of Enron”, it is not surprising that many presentations, even our annual conference plenary sessions and keynote sessions, have increasingly mentioned…more and sometimes focused on ethics issues such as security, privacy, regulation, humanitarian efforts, and the digital divide.

Since each (new) application and technology – whether wireless, the internet, broadband, video streaming, submarine, satellite, and many more – have either ushered in new ethical issues or amplified previous ones, it is not surprising that such concerns have increased.

Some issues such as conflict of interest, fuzzy book-keeping, and fraud stem more from the business side of telecom and owe their popularity to the scandals at Enron, Worldcom, and other major companies. However, other issues such as censorship, indecency, freedom of expression, plagiarism, defamation, excessive violence, sensationalism, and deception -- have increased because telecom is now more content driven. Telecom distribution technologies cannot escape the ethical issues inherent within the entertainment, advertising, sports, and news programming they convey.

To magnify the complexity of these concerns, no two Pacific countries consider ethics in exactly the same way. Some cultures and countries honor individual ownership, privacy, and reputation more than others. Religious and politically conservative cultures do not find statements that are even slightly sacrilegious or defamatory toward national leaders as “free speech” rights as in more pluralistic societies.

Moreover, national governments and religions take different attitudes toward the environment. For some, submarine cables which might interfere with the ecosystem, fiber-optic production with its toxic by-products, and “retired” orbiting satellites which might fall back to earth or create a junk “parking lot” in space are environmental ethics concerns. For other countries these are non-issues and part of the necessary cost of progress.

Fortunately, ethical issues are not all hazardous concerns. ‘Green light’ ethics emphasize companies, countries and individuals who are using ethics to make a positive difference. For example, many companies have utilized and even donated telecom technology to assist with disaster forecasting and relief. Others seek to narrow the digital divide and other inequalities by providing educational tools and communication networks to developing regions. Such pro-social and humanitarian applications of telecommunication can create not only ‘green’ resources but also give people a ‘green light’ or an empowerment to their communities.

Although ‘red light’ ethics refers to more dangerous and anti-social ethical issues such as hacking, fraud, on-line pedophilia, stalking, viruses, and code-breaking, ‘red’ is not entirely negative since many ‘red’ companies, countries, and organizations are committed to both education about and reduction of such practices.

‘Yellow light’ ethics implies issues that we should be cautious to monitor and study more closely such as the use of watertight encryption technology. Controversy brews about such technology since critics feel airtight secrecy protection can help terrorists and other criminals. However, defenders maintain that our confidential corporate and individual information will be insecure without leak proof encryption.

Although these terms – ‘red’ (stop), ‘yellow’ (caution) and ‘green’ (go) -- come from common traffic signaling, Pacific societies also understand that each technology can be used in these three (socially helpful, detrimental, and untested or ambiguous) ways.

An important Canadian biochemist, Ross Hume Hall, pointed out that the food additives we often eat are unfortunately usually tested in isolation. In his laboratory, Hall discovered that when such additives (such as preservatives and artificial flavors) were combined, they produced unusual and sometimes toxic by-products. This “Ross Hume Hall Effect” now may be applied to the many technologies and cultures within the Pacific telecom world. A ringing cell phone may be harmless in a Canadian office. But, when it is brought into a mosque or temple by tourists, or when ringers become an attachment to computers used in silent monasteries, the combination of cultures or/and technologies creates new issues. The magnified list of combinations of technologies and countries (e.g. text messaging in New Zealand, satellite foot-printing in Chinese Taipei, multiple media almost everywhere), means that new culture and technology hybrid interaction creates novel ethical off-spring.

What does this mean for the future? Already the issues just around the corner are mushrooming. Internet addiction, anonymity, cell phone driving, frequency interception, children’s exposure to adult programming, hidden cameras, spam scams, security insecurities, monopoly, on-line gambling, human trafficking, piracy, source camouflage, truth in advertising, flaming, digital distortion, e(aves)-dropping, and many more issues are reported daily.

Is such a trend reason for despair? Not necessarily. People of integrity, vision, and humane sensibilities in each country and business counter-balance those who wish to take ethical shortcuts. Workshops, corporate codes, and classes in media ethics and telecom policy are on the rise. I for one am grateful that PTC events provide an ongoing education about both the practices – red, green, and yellow – and regulation of such practices in literally dozens of Pacific countries. With sufficient education, humane sensitivity, cooperation, and reciprocal understanding, we increase our momentum to exit ‘the age of Enron’ and enter an age of ethics.