Tutorial Presentation Week 8

Gender and computer ethics by Alison Adams

A) Background
Computer ethics could benefit from feminine insights especially in the area of men and women’s online experience. EG Cyberstalking A report by US Attorney General Reno in 1999, states that cyberstalking is strongly gendered.
An explanation for this is women have traditionally had few rights to privacy and it is not always easy to see when their rights are violated. This leads to the reluctance of official bodies to see cyberstalking as a problem that affects women to the extent that they may need special measures to counteract it.

B) How can feminist theory be applied to computer ethics?
Three views
i)Possibility of countering the technological determinism inherent in views of computer ethics that see the trajectory of computer ethics as substantially different from other technologies and at the same time threatening and out of control.

ii) Continuing inequalities in power and how these are often “gendered” ie; experiences of men and women are often substantially different and are different in relation to their respective genders.

iii) An alternative, collective approach to the individualism of the traditional ethical theories encapsulated in computer ethics.

C) What it hopes to achieve?
Feminist ethics can offer help in exposing the power inequalities which exist, which traditional computer ethics renders invisible in its pursuit of mainstream ethical views and its lack of critique of professional roles and structures.

D) Cyberstalking
Cyberstalking has been coined to describe stalking behaviour perpetrated through some aspect of information and communications technology. It usually involves the use of the Internet.

Examples
Female Victims
EG i) Jayne Hitchcock
Author of children’s books. She contacted the Woodside Literary Agency and became a client. Realising she had been duped, she criticized the agency. Counterfeit messages of a sexually explicit nature were posted on the Internet with her contact details included. Eventually a friend of Hitchcock’s was able to gather enough evidence and prove it was Woodside’s work.
ii) Man from California
Got angry after getting spurned by a woman, assumed her identity and claimed sado-masochistic fantasies in her name. Resulted in men breaking into the victim’s home. Culprit got caught eventually.
iii) Stephanie Brail
Defended another woman who got verbally attacked by a number of men for her views on an alternate women’s publication. Drawn into a “flame war”. Became a victim of anonymous obscene postings with her personal details included.

Male Victim
i) Laurence Godfrey
A contributor to a newsgroup about the politics of Thailand. Anonymous postings containing “squalid obscene and defamatory” material were posted in his name. He sued internet service provider, Demon in the UK.

Effect of cyberstalking: Triggers real life stalking behaviour in others. ( Much like in Stephanie Brail’s case)

Conclusion: Despite the fact that both women and men can be victims of stalking and cyberstalking, the majority of reported cyberstalking cases involve women as victims and men as perpetrators. Validates the theory that cyberstalking is strongly gendered.

Solution: Three aspects protection should cover. The industry has to react to such issues fast. Self-protection, we need to protect ourselves and protection from the law.

F) Discussion
1) Experiences of men and women are often substantially different and are different in relation to their respective genders. True or false? Why or why not?
2) Online sexual harassment mirrors the levels of harassment women face in real life. What do you think?
3) Is privacy different for women and men? How can this difference be captured in legislation?