Does the Anonymity of the Internet Allow People to be Meaner?

Network ethics is a subject with the study object and scope of network ethics, that is, the subject about network ethics. Network morality explores the relationship between people and the network, and the relationship between people in a network society (virtual society). In the network society, network morality mainly relies on the general concepts of good and evil and the individual's inner beliefs as the standard of behavior. Determining its connotation and extension is related to the future and development of this discipline. The objects and scope discussed in this discipline involve virtual society and virtual people living in it. Virtual society refers to a kind of social phenomenon peculiar to modern information society, that is, a virtual space formed by a computer network based on Imernel. But this space exists in modern society. It not only provides people with information resources, greatly reduces the physical space between people, but also has a huge impact on traditional culture and traditional morals. All the moral phenomena and conflicts that occur in this virtual space belong to the scope of network ethics research. ^[1]

Cyberethics

Right!

Network ethics is a subject with the study object and scope of network ethics, that is, the subject about network ethics. Network morality explores the relationship between people and the network, and the relationship between people in a network society (virtual society). In the network society, network morality mainly relies on the general concepts of good and evil and the individual's inner beliefs as the standard of behavior. Determining its connotation and extension is related to the future and development of this discipline. The objects and scope discussed in this discipline involve virtual society and virtual people living in it. Virtual society refers to a kind of social phenomenon peculiar to modern information society, that is, a virtual space formed by a computer network based on Imernel. But this space exists in modern society. It not only provides people with information resources, greatly reduces the physical space between people, but also has a huge impact on traditional culture and traditional morals. All the moral phenomena and conflicts that occur in this virtual space belong to the scope of network ethics research. ^[1]

(I) Basic Categories of Network Ethics

Good and evil

In network ethics, the concept of good and evil conforms to the general characteristics of traditional ethics. The problem of good and evil is the central problem of ethics research, it is the core of ethics category, and it is also the most important category that network ethics should study. However, in network ethics, the problem of good and evil has its own unique features. For example, the criteria for judging good and evil are more ambiguous. According to Spinoza, the so-called good means "everything happy, and everything that can increase happiness, especially anything that can satisfy the desire," and evil, "all pain, especially all Anything that hinders desire ". This definition is very ambiguous. In the online society, acts of infringement, piracy, and hacking have undoubtedly brought great joy and practical benefits to the perpetrators, but their actions have brought material and spiritual harm to people's lives, and obviously cannot be considered good Column. According to Lenin, "'goodness' is understood as human practice = requirements (1) and external reality (2)". That is to say, those behaviors used to maintain network security, maintain network specifications, and provide network services are good. Conversely, the use of the convenience of the Internet is harmful to the network society and the real society.

However, after all, cyber behavior is a new social phenomenon. How to define the nature of cyber behavior and determine whether it is "moral" or "legal"; which is "immoral" or "illegal" Yes, they all need a standard. However, it is not very appropriate to deal with these behaviors with existing norms in the real society, which requires the formulation of new network specifications to define network behaviors. However, there is no doubt that before the formation of new norms, it is undoubtedly a useful attempt by modern people to fill this non-standard vacuum by means of legal and moral education.

should

That is to regulate the content of network behavior, and determine "should" and "should not". The category of "should" belongs to the content of traditional ethics, but still has new value in network ethics. Rather, "should" be more controversial here, so that people have to define the scope of "should" by formulating "should". For example, the "Ten Commandments" prescribed by the American Computer Ethics Institute for computer ethics can be regarded as a typical specification that attempts to define the "should" range of network ethics: (1) you should not use computers to harm others; (2) you should not interfere with others' computers Work; (3) you should not spy on other people's files; (4) you should not use computers for theft; (5) you should not use computers for perjury; (6) you should not use or copy software that you have not paid for; 7) You should not use other people's computer resources without permission; (8) You should not misappropriate the intellectual achievements of others; (9) You should consider the social consequences of the programs you have written; (10) You should consider carefully and Use your computer in a discreet way.

value

This is perhaps the most controversial category in cyberethics. Whether a person's online behavior is valuable and appropriate, in other words, whether or not to make an ethical judgment on such behavior is hardly conclusive. But this behavior was completely in the evaluation of others from the beginning. Although "the most important use of the value category is praise", the value of "misleading reputation" to describe network behavior is not excessive at all. However, after all, network behavior is unique, that is, it follows a certain value standard: it is agreed by everyone, at least by most people. Such behavior is of value on the Internet. Obviously, the consent of the majority and the correctness of the matter are two different things, but at least it shows that the value followed by network ethics has its particularity in this respect.

Of course, the value of network behavior is determined to guide it. Although it is possible to proactively prevent network violations through the formulation of regulations, the real purpose of people should be to guide a new type of moral inclination to determine valuable ideas and ideals, which is a moral destination that cannot be avoided in any society. Modern Internet ethics is no exception. For example, the Computer Society of the United States states in its general code of ethics and professional conduct that its members should support: (1) contributing to society and humanity; (2) avoiding harm to others; (3) being honest and reliable; (4) ) Be fair and not discriminatory; (5) respect property rights including copyright and patents; (6) respect intellectual property rights; (7) respect the privacy of others; (8) keep secrets. That is, the value of network behavior is distinguished in the name of norms, so as to guide people to correctly treat their actions on the network, and try to avoid behaviors that are worthless or even damage the value of others.

equality

It means free access to resources and services, which is a universal rule of the network society. As long as a person has registered an ID (ie, identification, identity) and has his own password, he can access anonymously on the Internet, make friends, chat, make comments, obtain information, and so on. This makes it easier for people to interact with each other as equals, and makes interactions more free and easy. This has formed an egalitarianism to the greatest extent. Free information resources also have such characteristics regardless of ethnic, racial, and cultural constraints (of course, there are certain restrictions, such as languages, mainly English, which makes the Internet mainly exist in the educated group). Furthermore, the interpersonal relationship in the network society is simply human-computer communication. In the face of the cold screen, one can completely let go of all taboos and participate in discussions on an equal basis, forming the reality of a network free zone. In other words, the Internet gives people who enter the network society a moral right.

The "equal right" endowed by the Internet also contains another meaning that is not easily noticed, that is, it helps to promote the discussion and process of direct participatory democracy. After all, the Internet is a force that is independent of traditional media, which has alleviated the public's right to know to some extent. The principle of resource sharing objectively helps to promote fairness in real society, such as the promotion of e-government. This is perhaps the most profound influence of cyber society on cyber ethics.

credit

The application of this category is concentrated in e-commerce, which means that personal credit is gradually increasing. In real society, the realization of credit is guaranteed by laws and other social norms. In the network society, applicable laws and regulations have not been established, and personal credit becomes the only guarantee for online consumption. Although the network service provider requires the serviced party to provide the basic identification number, address, telephone and other realistic basis, and even a credit account, this does not indicate the fragility of personal credit in the network. On the contrary, the network is gradually training personal credit. In fact, entering online consumption has established credit.

Another application of the credit category is manifested in online games. In some game settings, players can obtain higher score rewards by increasing personal credits, thus gaining an advantage in the game competition and even winning. This is the contribution of online games to the establishment of personal credit in the online age.

service

This is a typical characteristic of the network society after the consumer society. One of the meanings is that in the network society, consumption is composed of one-to-one form, as in the real society, that is, there are service providers and consumers. Here, services are traditional, mechanical, and the Internet is just a medium. The second meaning is: web-service, that is, network services, mainly refers to the intelligent services provided by the future network. For example, if a person types the sentence "I want to travel to Tibet" on the Internet, the network will provide a series of information, such as the best season to Tibet, climate conditions, the best travel route, etc., for questioners For reference. In order to realize the intelligence and interactivity of human-computer interaction, this is the real meaning of network services.

criticism

There is indeed much controversy regarding critique as the basic category of network ethics. However, the criticism here has been alienated into criticism, and generalized into moral judgments. It always asks: "Is this viewpoint good?" "Should I (should) do this?" The reason for this problem The reason is that the network is a special space, the virtual environment produces a unique network language, and the anonymity allows the truth to merge into endless arguments. In addition, the network does not have a strong restraint mechanism. Without managers and authority, the network has become a "free" space. As a result, everyone on the network is the leader and evaluator of his own behavior. You can use your own judgment to determine the value of the discussion. As a result of critical abuse and atrophy of real language, deep-seated cultural thinking has been dismembered and replaced by superficial, endless quarrels. BBS is a typical example of such critical abuse. There are no rules, no standards, criticism is always self-centered, and negation is everything.

It is of great significance to explore the social, cultural and political issues caused by network behavior in the study of network ethics.

The first is social issues. Too much attention to the Internet has led to moral relativism and moral apathy in the real world. The former refers to the virtual nature and unconstrained nature of the network, so that people can refuse to take responsibility for everything in the network. The latter refers to people becoming more and more dependent on the network, alienating them into network people, and shifting their focus to the virtual society. Communication, thereby weakening their communication behavior in real society. As the sum of human social relations, sociality is its fundamental attribute. However, the reduction of direct communication activities caused by the network society that uses computers as the medium of communication will inevitably lead to the indifference of group consciousness and the indifference of interpersonal relationships. In addition, it has also caused moral anomalies, such as using the Internet to commit crimes, misappropriating other people's accounts, and attacking other people's networks and computers to cause actual losses, all of which are factors that cause real social instability.

The second is cultural issues. There are two levels of meaning here: surface problems are manifested in network languages. The Internet has its own language. For example, the language format used by e-mail, communication network protocols, long-distance transmission protocols, and so on. These agreements can be said to be very specific and precise, and even have detailed regulations on the case of letters, length of information, subject matter, electronic signatures and other details. In violation of these regulations, no information can be obtained and published. At the same time, these regulations have a tendency to be digitized and symbolized. Its application conflicts with the language used in the real world, and the result is the elimination of modern languages. The underlying problem is manifested in cultural aggression. The phenomenon of cultural colonialism. Because the main language used by modern Internet is English, this is conducive to the contemporary Western culture to force their political culture and values to the world through the advanced media such as the Internet, making people who are exposed to the Internet vulnerable to the implicit erosion of modern colonialism. The direct consequence of the erosion is the conflict between culture and religion, which has caused a series of deep social problems. Of course, this cultural conflict also promotes the exchange and integration of civilizations. Objectively speaking, this is of positive significance.

Not only that, the Internet can also cause hidden political issues. It will change the existing social stratification to a certain extent. That is, the future society will be divided into groups that know and control information (knows) and groups that do not own information (knows-nots); this will inevitably cause a new confrontation. This may be the problem that modern politics or sociology should pay attention to.

In China, the in-depth study of network ethics has raised new issues for the construction of socialist spiritual civilization. How to strengthen network moral construction and make it a part of socialist spiritual civilization is a brand new field. The author believes that the research from the following three aspects is of great significance to correctly regulate network morals and strengthen the construction of socialist spiritual civilization.

First, we must correctly treat the reality of the expansion of cultural positions. The Internet is known as the "Fourth Media", and it has a brand new method of communication that traditional media does not have, and it is unmatched. How to occupy this emerging propaganda position and make full use of its rapid and large-scale transmission of information is crucial to our current efforts to strengthen the basic ethics of citizens, and it is also an issue that must be studied in the current propaganda work.

It is gratifying to note that in 2001, China published the "Outline of the Implementation of Citizen Moral Construction", which outlines a new period of citizen moral construction that is "patriotic and law-abiding, honesty and integrity, solidarity and friendliness, diligence and self-reliance, and dedication. This guide provided clear ideas for building a socialist spiritual civilization in the network. So it has important guiding significance.

Second, we need to improve traditional propaganda methods. The network is different from traditional media, and its biggest feature is independence. This feature ensures that the network spreads information fairly. There are huge resources in the network, but the network information is mixed and incomplete. The traditional publicity methods and means must be improved in order to meet the characteristics of network communication, and then to screen and optimize information to achieve the purpose of moral education.

On this issue, we must adhere to the principle of "administering the network by virtue" and "administering the network by law", so as to "hold both hands and be firm with both hands." Strengthen the legislation on the Internet and use the legal means to supervise and guide the network. At the same time, strengthen positive publicity and education so that the majority of netizens can dialectically recognize and use this new tool; start the network civilization project and treat the network culture as a Research on system engineering, support various types of academic discussions, and strive to establish a more objective network ethics norm.

Finally, the role of the Internet in promoting socialist democracy and the legal system must be studied. Adhering to the principle of "advancing with the times" and correctly guiding the development direction of the network are necessary steps to standardize network ethics, ensure the orderly development of this emerging social phenomenon, and serve the construction of socialist spiritual civilization. Only in this way can we use it to further improve and develop our country's socialist legal system and promote our country's socialist democracy and legal construction.

The ultimate purpose of studying the ethical issues in network culture is to serve socialism and the construction of socialist spiritual civilization. Today, the Internet has become a new and important position for ideological and political work. Only by focusing on ideology and rigorous, serious, fair, and objective in research can we correctly grasp this emerging communication tool and guide its healthy development.