Saturday, January 25, 2014

Are adjunct professors the fast-food workers of the academic world?; Guardian, 1/24/14

James Hoff, Guardian; Are adjunct professors the fast-food workers of the academic world? :
"I am what's called an adjunct. I teach four courses per semester at two different colleges, and I am paid just $24,000 a year and receive no health or pension benefits. Recently, I was profiled in the New York Times as the face of adjunct exploitation, and though I was initially happy to share my story because I care about the issue, the profile has its limits. Rather than use my situation to explain the systemic problem of academic labor, the article personalized – even romanticized – my situation as little more than the deferred dream of a struggling PhD with a penchant for poetry.
But the adjunct problem is not about PhDs struggling to find jobs or people being forced to give up their dreams. The adjunct problem is about the continued exploitation of a large, growing and diverse group of highly educated and dedicated college teachers who have been asked to settle for less pay (sometimes as little as $21,000 a year for full-time work) because the institutions they work for have callously calculated that they can get away with it. The adjunct problem is institutional, not personal, and its affects reach deep into our culture and society.
Though there are tens of thousands of personal stories like mine of economic hardship and lives ruined or put on hold, it is not to these stories that we should turn when we consider the exploitation of adjuncts in academia, but to our universal sense of justice. For the continued exploitation of adjuncts is, to put it bluntly, nothing less than unjust. Here's why..."

Truth and Consequences for a War Photographer; New York Times, 1/24/14

James Estrin, New York Times; Truth and Consequences for a War Photographer:
"The ethical commandments on the digital manipulation of photographs in journalism are simple and direct: you do not add or subtract any element of an image in post processing. Ever. If a photo didn’t turn out exactly how you had imagined, there is no laptop digital do-over.
These standards are accepted by the major international wire services and most newspapers in the United States.
On Wednesday, The Associated Press announced that it had severed its relationship with Narciso Contreras, a Pulitzer prize-winning freelance photographer who has covered the Syrian war extensively. The cause was a single image in which the photographer digitally removed a video camera from a corner of the frame.
This type of ethical lapse happens with alarming frequency despite the clarity of the rules and the severe consequences that have befallen transgressors...
But unlike previous occurrences in which the violation was discovered by readers, bloggers or other photographers, this week’s case had a twist: Mr. Contreras — facing a moral dilemma and knowing the consequences — turned himself in...
By his reckoning, it would have been worse to have kept silent.
“What would happen if I said nothing to them — if the picture was ever moved more widely it could bring more serious consequences,” he said. “It would put in doubt the credibility of me who shot the picture and A.P. who was distributing the picture.”
“It has serious consequences — but it’s for me,” he said. “I broke up my working relationship with A.P., but I was able to bring to light a mistake that I did.”

A Code of Honor, Not a Referee, Keeps Curlers Honest; New York Times, 1/23/14

Mary Pilon, New York Times; A Code of Honor, Not a Referee, Keeps Curlers Honest:
"Curling is the rare Olympic sport that largely relies on self-policing. Historically seen as a gentleman’s game, curlers are expected to call attention to their own errors.
While some officials line curling arenas, they are chiefly relegated to timekeeping and measuring tasks around the button, or bull’s-eye, of the game’s court. Curlers at the amateur and elite levels are expected to admit their own infractions, be they swearing, touching a moving stone with their foot or broom slamming, a practice that is frowned upon."

Friday, January 24, 2014

Why Associated Press was right to sever ties with Narciso Contreras; Guardian, 1/23/14

Roger Tooth, Guardian; Why Associated Press was right to sever ties with Narciso Contreras:
"Except that the major wire agencies and their clients rely on their images being totally authentic; that's why news organisations like the Guardian spend many thousand of pounds each year on their contracts. In a news environment it's all about a chain of trust: from the photographers through to the agencies, newspapers and websites, and then to the readers. If that chain is broken, any picture could be suspect, and that can't be allowed to happen."

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Gay Marriages Confront Catholic School Rules; New York Times, 1/22/14

Michael Paulson, New York Times; Gay Marriages Confront Catholic School Rules:
"For Catholic school and church leaders across the country, the issue is clear. The Roman Catholic Church opposes same-sex marriage, and school officials, including Mr. Zmuda, generally sign contracts saying they will abide by church teachings so that their lives can be models for their students.
But for some young Catholics, the firings are mystifying, particularly given the new tone set by Pope Francis. At Eastside Catholic, some students have taken to crafting banners with the quotation “Who am I to judge?,” words uttered by the pope when asked about gay priests; others have been trying to reach the pope via Twitter, hoping he will somehow intercede.
“He made it safe for people to raise issues and questions that, in the past, they were shut down for,” said Nancy Walton-House, whose son attended Eastside. “There’s a lot of hope, and maybe some naïveté, about how fast things can happen.”
Eastside’s senior-class president, Bradley Strode, a 17-year-old wrestler and lacrosse player, is seeking a meeting with the archbishop of Seattle, arguing that even if the church’s doctrine does not change, its employment practices should."

Chinese Web Outage Blamed on Censorship Glitch; New York Times, 1/22/14

Amy Qin, New York Times; Chinese Web Outage Blamed on Censorship Glitch:
"Chinese authorities on Wednesday suggested that a major disruption of the Internet in China this week was the work of hackers. But others blamed the massive outage on a malfunction of the government’s own Great Firewall, the sprawling, hidden infrastructure used to restrict what ordinary Chinese can see online.
Millions of Internet users in China attempting to access a range of websites on Tuesday afternoon were rerouted to servers run by a small American firm dedicated to fighting web censorship. For more than an hour, Chinese users reported being unable to access websites ending in .com, .net, and .org, including the popular search engine Baidu and microblogging platform Sina Weibo. The problem is said to have affected as much as two-thirds of Internet traffic in China."

Yale Students Tangle With University Over Website; New York Times, 1/21/14

Ariel Kaminer, New York Times; Yale Students Tangle With University Over Website:
"The idea did not seem controversial at first: Peter Xu and Harry Yu, twin brothers who are seniors at Yale University, set out to build a better, more user-friendly version of the university’s online course catalog. But as Mark Zuckerberg found when he decided to build a better version of Harvard’s undergraduate student directory, these things can take on a life of their own.
Yale shut down the brothers’ website last week, helping to turn a local campus issue into something of a civil rights cause. Now, after a few days of controversy, a similar tool is up and running, and it appears to be Yale that has gotten a schooling...
Yale opted for more decisive action: It shut the site down.
To Mr. Xu and Mr. Yu, that seemed like a violation of free speech — a right held dear by both academics and Internet activists, many of whom rallied to the brothers’ cause as The Yale Daily News, The Washington Post and other news organizations reported on the shutdown.
Brad Rosen, a lecturer in Yale’s computer science department who teaches “Law, Technology and Culture,” said the debate got at a central tension of contemporary life. “Different stakeholders have different assumptions about how information is going to flow,” he said."

AP severs ties with Pulitzer-winning photographer for ethics breach; NBCNews.com, 1/22/14

NBCNews.com; AP severs ties with Pulitzer-winning photographer for ethics breach:
"The Associated Press has ended its relationship with a freelance photographer after he alerted editors that he manipulated a photograph taken for the wire service. The photographer, Narciso Contreras, digitally removed a camera from the corner of the image above, taken during his time in Syria in September 2013. The AP responded to the incident in a blog post:
“AP’s reputation is paramount and we react decisively and vigorously when it is tarnished by actions in violation of our ethics code,” said Vice President and Director of Photography Santiago Lyon."

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Crowded Out of Ivory Tower, Adjuncts See a Life Less Lofty; New York Times, 1/19/14

Rachel L. Swarns, New York Times; Crowded Out of Ivory Tower, Adjuncts See a Life Less Lofty:
"Mayor Bill de Blasio has turned the spotlight on the issue of income inequality in this city. We know about the struggles of low-wage workers without college degrees, the widening gap between rich and poor and the erosion of job security in corporate America. But seismic shifts have shaken the academy, too, creating a society of haves and have-nots, outsiders and insiders, among instructors...
From 1993 to 2011, the percentage of faculty members without tenure surged nationally from 57 percent to 70 percent, according to the American Association of University Professors, a research and advocacy group. Of those faculty members, a vast majority are adjunct professors like Mr. Hoff...
They are increasingly restive, prodding universities over late pay and classes that are canceled at the last minute. Adjuncts say they are typically excluded from university governance and decision-making regarding the classes that they teach. And there are smaller indignities that grate, like being denied keys to the supply cabinets or access to offices after hours. “They feel a lack of dignity, a lack of respect, a lack of visibility,” said Barbara Bowen, the president of the Professional Staff Congress at CUNY, who said her union would demand increased job security for adjuncts in coming contract negotiations."

Monday, January 20, 2014

The death of Dr V: ethics should matter more to journalists than storytelling; Guardian, 1/20/14

Bronwen Clune, Guardian; The death of Dr V: ethics should matter more to journalists than storytelling:
Hannan employed transparency in his detailed, first person writing style as a journalistic device employed to make him seem accountable. But here’s the thing: as journalism moves to a more commendable open format, transparency does not absolve responsibility. There needs to be some deeper thinking on what constitutes ethically responsible journalism in the age of transparency. We cannot hide behind it as a defence when our actions are wrong – they are wrong whether behind closed doors or out in the open. Hannan’s piece should never have been published; there was no obvious news interest outweighing Vanderbilt's right not to be outed.
There is no divinely-granted permission to journalists as an authority on what constitutes truth, or what is and is not news, and what should and should not be pursued (referred to as journalists' “priesthood syndrome”). Transparency doesn’t account for the fact that a journalist’s truth is not greater than that of their subjects. Part of a journalist’s role is to know that, and perhaps it’s time to add this to journalists’ code of ethics. As a side note, guidelines for transgender reporting would not go astray either.

Sunday, January 19, 2014

The Online Avengers; New York Times, 1/15/14

Emily Bazelon, New York Times; The Online Avengers:
None of the OpAntiBully members ever met in person, but they began spending hours working together online, using encrypted email accounts or chat rooms for anything they deemed sensitive. Katherine set up a Twitter account, @OpAntiBully, and encouraged young people who felt victimized to seek them out. OpAntiBully members posted links to resources for depressed teenagers and responded to pleas for help. Sometimes they would offer informal online counseling or send a flurry of encouraging messages to a desperate-sounding soul out in the ether. Other times they would take more aggressive measures, tracking down and exposing the identities of supposed wrongdoers who the group felt had not been brought to justice. Public shaming is a standard tool for this kind of activism, and it was part of OpAntiBully’s approach from the start — “it can be great fun to bully the bullies,” Ash says. This kind of outing, known as doxxing, involves scouring the Internet for personal data (or documents, the source of the word “doxx”) — like a person’s name, address, occupation, Twitter or Facebook profile — and then publicly linking that information to the perpetrator’s transgression. The process can be as simple as following a trail the target has left behind or it can involve tricking someone into revealing the password to a personal account or hacking into a website to obtain private information. The exposure, Ash says, is its own punishment. “People need to learn from their mistakes,” he said. “If it takes shocking or scaring them to do that, so be it. And sometimes we have apologies coming in, because people realize that what they’ve done is wrong.”

Koch brothers finally cave: Company gives in on employee Facebook posts; Salon.com, 1/16/14

Josh Eidelson, Salon.com; Koch brothers finally cave: Company gives in on employee Facebook posts:
A Koch-owned company will backtrack on restricting workers’ Facebook posts, under a settlement with the National Labor Relations Board. Under the December settlement, first reported by In These Times’ Mike Elk, Georgia Pacific – a paper company within Koch Industries – will post workplace notices announcing, “WE WILL repeal our Social Media Policy and WE WILL NOT issue policies that interfere with your right to share information relating to wages, hours and other terms and conditions of employment with others, including on social media sites.”...
Tweeting and “liking” aren’t the only outside-work activities that Georgia Pacific has been accused of trying to control. In 2012, Elk reported that Georgia Pacific required that employees get permission between joining nonprofit boards or running for office, and sent its employees a voter packet identifying favored candidates and warning that if the wrong people won, “then many of our more than 50,000 U.S. employees and contractors may suffer the consequences, including higher gasoline prices, runaway inflation, and other ills.”

Thursday, January 16, 2014

Ethics rules bar Wellesley firefighters from cruise; Boston Globe, 1/16/14

Jaclyn Reiss, Boston Globe; Ethics rules bar Wellesley firefighters from cruise: "The four Wellesley firefighters who received Caribbean cruise tickets from Ellen DeGeneres this week for a dramatic dog rescue had to decline the trip because state ethics law prohibits them from accepting gifts worth $50 or more. “It was a nice gesture on Ellen’s part, and the firefighters were surprised by that, but state statute is very clear, so we FedExed the vouchers back to the Ellen show,” said Wellesley Fire Chief Richard DeLorie. DeGeneres gave Wellesley Fire Captain Jim Dennehy, Lieutenant Paul Delaney, Dave Papazian, and Joan Cullinan the cruise tickets this week after she feted them on her show for rescuing a golden retriever named Crosby from an icy Charles River last month... DeGeneres also bestowed monogrammed bedazzled orange life vests to the firefighters, including a doggie vest for Crosby. DeLorie said the firefighters are allowed to keep the life vests, since they are considered a novelty item with no value other than sentimental... State law prohibits officials from accepting gifts worth $50 or more because of something they have done in their official job capacity, including payment of travel expenses, which the cruise would probably have fallen under. However, the department allowed the show to pay for their plane tickets to California for the show’s taping. DeLorie, who is the appointed authority to decide on such matters in his department, said he had to pore over disclosure forms from his firefighters before agreeing that accepting the flights was legal. He cited exemptions to the state ethics law, noting that it might be legal to accept a gift if it if a gift does not provide a conflict of interest and proves to advance public interest. “In this case, these guys were flying out Sunday and coming home right after the taping on Monday night,” DeLorie said. “That’s not a pleasure trip; that’s to promote a good public service story. and that met the test, in my opinion, that it was for more public than private benefit.”"

“Blackfish” Snubbed -- Outrage Ensues; The Dodo, 1/16/14

Melissa Cronin, The Dodo; “Blackfish” Snubbed -- Outrage Ensues: "Some of the most surprising snubs in the category in recent years have been “Gimme Shelter” (1970), Errol Morris’ “The Thin Blue Line” (1988), Moore’s “Roger & Me” (1989), Werner Herzog’s “Grizzly Man” (2005), “Last Train Home” (2010) and Herzog’s “Cave of Forgotten Dreams” (2010). As John Anderson writes at the New York Times, the panel of documentarians that votes on the category “tends to favor inspiring stories about struggle and triumph, not examinations of darker subjects with ambiguous conclusions.” The film, directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite, premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival last January, and was picked up by CNN for a wider release. The plot revolves around the 2010 death of trainer Dawn Brancheau, who was killed when an orca whale with a history of violence dragged her by her ponytail and she drowned. The issue of orcas in captivity is at the heart of the film -- a practice which it comes out as strongly against."

Cheating Accusations Among Officers Overseeing Nuclear Arms; New York Times, 1/15/14

Helene Cooper, New York Times; Cheating Accusations Among Officers Overseeing Nuclear Arms: "The Air Force said on Wednesday that 34 officers responsible for launching the nation’s nuclear missiles had been suspended, and their security clearances revoked, for cheating on monthly proficiency tests that assess their knowledge of how to operate the warheads. At a news conference, Deborah Lee James, the secretary of the Air Force, said the officers, at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana, either knew about or took part in texting answers to the routine monthly tests. Eleven Air Force officers — including two accused in the Malmstrom cheating scandal, as well as one other nuclear missile officer — have also been the focus of suspicion in an illegal drugs investigation, defense officials said. Although the Air Force has been plagued in recent years by scandals, the current revelations are particularly alarming because they involve America’s nuclear arsenal, where errors could be catastrophic."

Pointing a Finger on Facebook; New York Times, 1/15/14

Jacob Bernstein, New York Times; Pointing a Finger on Facebook: "Itay Hod has been a journalist for more than 15 years. He has reported on health issues for NY1, done segments for CBS News on gay rights, covered the Oscars for Logo, and written articles for The Daily Beast about lesbian pornographers and “American Idol” winners. But nothing he has done the past few years has garnered him as much attention as a post on his Facebook page this month, in which he suggested that an unnamed Republican congressman, whom he described as being hostile to gay rights, was himself gay."

Israel’s Efforts to Limit Use of Holocaust Terms Raise Free-Speech Questions; New York Times, 1/15/14

Judi Rudoren, New York Times; Israel’s Efforts to Limit Use of Holocaust Terms Raise Free-Speech Questions: "Israel is on the brink of banning the N-word. N as in Nazi, that is. Parliament gave preliminary approval on Wednesday to a bill that would make it a crime to call someone a Nazi — or any other slur associated with the Third Reich — or to use Holocaust-related symbols in a noneducational way. The penalty would be a fine of as much as $29,000 and up to six months in jail... But critics, including some with deep connections to the Holocaust, say the proposed law is a dangerous infringement on free speech and an overreach impossible to enforce."

The Questionable Ethics of Teaching My Son to Love Pro Football; Atlantic, 1/16/14

Peter Beinart, Atlantic; The Questionable Ethics of Teaching My Son to Love Pro Football: "In their book American Grace, Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell note that American Christians didn’t suddenly jettison their anti-Semitism after the Nazis gave Jew-hatred a bad name. But they grew more ashamed of it, and thus didn’t transmit it to their kids. I suspect something similar has happened in recent years when it comes to smoking cigarettes, littering brazenly, and denigrating gay people. These behaviors have declined somewhat among older Americans, but the bigger shift has come via generational replacement, because even people who still act in these ways raised children who do not. I’m not claiming that watching football is as bad as all those other activities. But it’s bad enough, especially when you remember that the people you’re watching brutalize themselves didn’t randomly choose to do so. They were steered toward the NFL by a society that offers poor black men few other, less violent, ways to attain wealth."

Blind student sues Miami University over alleged discrimination; WCPO.com, 1/13/14

Maxim Alter, WCPO.com; Blind student sues Miami University over alleged discrimination: "A blind student is suing Miami University over claims the school discriminated against her because of her disability. Aleeha Dudley, who is pursuing a degree in zoology, alleges Miami University deliberately failed to make “necessary modifications” so she could complete her coursework... According to the suit, the university failed to provide textbooks and course materials in accessible formats, including Braille... But former Miami student Heather Komnenovich said that cannot be the case. Komnenovich, a 2005 graduate, said she also struggles with multiple disabilities and believes the faculty at Miami "bent over backwards" to help her succeed. "(The director of the Office of Disability Resources) has done everything in his power to help me out so I didn't flunk my studies, and I had some issues," Komnenovich said. "He went out on a limb so I could graduate. I know he would make sure Aleeha was getting the same treatment.""

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Test Scandal in Atlanta Brings More Guilty Pleas; New York Times, 1/6/14

Kim Severson and Alan Blinder, New York Times; Test Scandal in Atlanta Brings More Guilty Pleas: "Dr. Hall, who for more than a decade had been celebrated as an erudite, data-driven superintendent of a once-failing urban school district that became a model of improvement, was at the center of the inquiry from the start. The report implicated at least 44 schools and 178 teachers and principals, and said cheating may have been going on for years. It was so pervasive that some administrators even held what investigators said were “erasing parties” to fix the tests. More than 80 of the educators confessed and many resigned. The investigation found that Dr. Hall and her administration “emphasized test results and public praise to the exclusion of integrity and ethics.” The result, it said, was a culture of fear, intimidation and retaliation that led to a conspiracy of silence."

Saturday, January 4, 2014

Listen to Pandora, and It Listens Back; New York Times, 1/4/14

Natasha Singer, New York Times; Listen to Pandora, and It Listens Back: "People’s music, movie or book choices may reveal much more than commercial likes and dislikes. Certain product or cultural preferences can give glimpses into consumers’ political beliefs, religious faith, sexual orientation or other intimate issues. That means many organizations now are not merely collecting details about where we go and what we buy, but are also making inferences about who we are. “I would guess, looking at music choices, you could probably predict with high accuracy a person’s worldview,” says Vitaly Shmatikov, an associate professor of computer science at the University of Texas at Austin, where he studies computer security and privacy. “You might be able to predict people’s stance on issues like gun control or the environment because there are bands and music tracks that do express strong positions.”... In its privacy policy, Pandora describes the types of information it collects about users and the purposes — music personalization and ad customization — for which the information may be employed. Although users may elect to pay $36 annually to opt out of receiving ads, advertising on the free service accounts for the bulk of Pandora’s revenue. Out of $427.1 million in revenue in the 2013 fiscal year, advertising generated $375.2 million. Pandora’s inferences about individuals become more discerning as time goes on. How we think about the ethics and accuracy of algorithms is another matter. “I’m optimistic that the benefits to society will outweigh the risks,” Professor Shmatikov says. “But our attitudes will have to evolve to understand that now everybody knows more about who we are.”"

Can Data Be Evil?; New York Times, 1/3/14

Chuck Klosterman, The Ethicist, New York Times; Can Data Be Evil? : [Question] "Some knowledge about hypothermia comes from brutal Nazi medical experiments conducted on prisoners of war. Considering the data came from the destruction of others’ lives, are there ethical issues when modern-day scientists use it? Could it be considered a form of collaboration with the Nazis? Or does the origin of the data matter if the data is useful? Declaring the data off-limits could lead to preventable deaths, while using the data seems coldheartedly clinical. ISAAC MAYER, SAN DIEGO"

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

A’s for Athletes, but Charges of Fraud at North Carolina; New York Times, 12/31/13

Sarah Lyall, New York Times; A’s for Athletes, but Charges of Fraud at North Carolina: "In the summer of 2011, 19 undergraduates at the University of North Carolina signed up for a lecture course called AFAM 280: Blacks in North Carolina. The professor was Julius Nyang’oro, an internationally respected scholar and longtime chairman of the African and Afro-American studies department. It is doubtful the students learned much about blacks, North Carolina or anything else, though they received grades for papers they supposedly turned in and Mr. Nyang’oro, the instructor, was paid $12,000. University and law-enforcement officials say AFAM 280 never met. One of dozens of courses in the department that officials say were taught incompletely or not at all, AFAM 280 is the focus of a criminal indictment against Mr. Nyang’oro that was issued last month. Eighteen of the 19 students enrolled in the class were members of the North Carolina football team (the other was a former member), reportedly steered there by academic advisers who saw their roles as helping athletes maintain high enough grades to remain eligible to play. Handed up by an Orange County, N.C., grand jury, the indictment charged Nyang’oro with “unlawfully, willfully and feloniously” accepting payment “with the intent to cheat and defraud” the university in connection with the AFAM course — a virtually unheard-of legal accusation against a professor. The indictment, critics say, covers just a small piece of one of the biggest cases of academic fraud in North Carolina history. That it has taken place at Chapel Hill, known for its rigorous academic standards as well as an athletic program revered across the country, has only made it more shocking."

Monday, December 30, 2013

An Ethics for the Future of Genetic Testing; Atlantic, 12/30/13

Sara Hendren, Atlantic; An Ethics for the Future of Genetic Testing: "The available prenatal testing technologies for expectant parents are constantly changing in dramatic and subtle ways, and 2013 saw its share of those changes. These tests are tricky territory, especially when it comes to genetic screening. What can these technologies reliably offer to those anxiously hoping for news of a healthy, “normal” fetus? 23andMe caused an uproar this year when it patented a “designer baby” platform, even while it disavowed any intention to develop it. It’s still just an idea—by a company whose services have temporarily been suspended by the FDA—but it sparked plenty of bioethical hand-wringing about the lurking dystopian future it threatens... Bioethical debates have accompanied this technology, too: If genetic information is available at such an early point in a pregnancy, prospective parents can more privately choose to selectively abort a fetus based on genetic traits alone."

Sunday, December 29, 2013

Whose Responsibility Is It Anyway? A New Approach to Fighting Cyberbullying; HuffingtonPost.com, 12/23/13

Joanna Finkelstein, HuffingtonPost.com; Whose Responsibility Is It Anyway? A New Approach to Fighting Cyberbullying: "A 2011 study by researchers at Ohio University, University of North Carolina, and University of Pennsylvania found that people are less likely to help someone if there is someone else present and if they strongly fear embarrassment... Anti-cyberbullying campaigns should focus more on the bystanders. They should emphasize that no one should encourage or support the bully and that it is each individual's responsibility to intervene when she/he witnesses cyberbullying. Helping a victim should be seen as something positive and empowering, not embarrassing. Further, it should be portrayed as what should be done and what is done. Once one person helps a victim, the false consensus is destroyed and others are much more likely to also help the victim. Observers could calmly confront the bully, support the victim, or use an anonymous resource to report the bullying. These are simple and effective steps that are likely to spread and become even more powerful. Even if the current campaigns are preventing some bullying, they are not eliminating it. In order to end bullying, the observers need to play a more prominent role. The current bystanders can become active fighters in stopping and preventing future cyberbullying."

Ethics Panel Hands Down Holiday Gift Rules — In Rhyme; NPR, 12/9/13

Peter Overby, NPR; Ethics Panel Hands Down Holiday Gift Rules — In Rhyme: "Time was when business-suited Santas would spend December roaming the corridors of Congress, bestowing all sorts of goodies upon their elected friends, prospective friends and staffers: baskets of food, bottles of booze, even high-priced tickets to sports events. That last item is the kind of thing that sent uber-lobbyist Jack Abramoff to prison. It also brought the House of Representatives a new set of ethics rules — stern and often complex limits on accepting gifts. And so every December, the House Ethics Committee sends out its "," an ethics memo known in Capitol Hill parlance as a pink sheet."

The Price Is Wrong And You Know It: Do You Buy That Ticket?; NPR, 12/27/13

Mark Memmott, NPR; The Price Is Wrong And You Know It: Do You Buy That Ticket? : ""Delta To Honor Extremely Cheap Mistake Fares." The news, says the Associated Press, is that: "From about 10 a.m. to noon ET [Thursday], certain Delta fares on the airline's own website and other airfare booking sites were showing up incorrectly, offering some savvy bargain hunters incredible deals. A roundtrip flight between Cincinnati and Minneapolis for February was being sold for just $25.05 and a roundtrip between Cincinnati and Salt Lake City for $48.41. The correct price for both of those fares is more than $400." It isn't known just how many folks snapped up the bargains, but Delta says it will honor the fares. As we said, this kind of snafu isn't that unusual. So we want to focus on one particular aspect of the story that doesn't seem to get mentioned much: Why would it be all right, ethically, to purchase tickets at prices that were so obviously wrong? Is it just because "you" weren't to blame and no human being was involved at the other end?"

Is the Internet a Mob Without Consequence?; New York Times, 12/24/13

Nick Bilton, New York Times; Is the Internet a Mob Without Consequence? : "Ms. Sacco was tried and judged guilty in a public square of millions and soon attacked in a way that seemed worse than her original statement. Within hours, people threatened to rape, shoot, kill and torture her. The mob found her Facebook and Instagram accounts and began threatening the same perils on photos she had posted of friends and family. Not satisfied, people began threatening her family directly. The incident was a trending topic on Twitter and a huge forum thread on Reddit. This all happened while Ms. Sacco was on a 12-hour flight without Wi-Fi to Africa. When she landed, it was game over. She deleted her entire social footprint online, including her Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, and was fired from her job, effective 12 hours earlier. “This default to hate, this automatic mockery and derision, needs to be viewed with the same hatred as Sacco’s tweet,” wrote Tauriq Moosa, a tutor in ethics, bioethics and critical thinking at the University of Cape Town, South Africa."

Academics Who Defend Wall St. Reap Reward; New York Times, 12/27/13

David Kocieniewski, New York Times; Academics Who Defend Wall St. Reap Reward: "What Mr. Pirrong has routinely left out of most of his public pronouncements in favor of speculation is that he has reaped financial benefits from speculators and some of the largest players in the commodities business, The New York Times has found. While his university’s financial ties to speculators have been the subject of scrutiny by the news media and others, it was not until last month, after repeated requests by The Times under the Freedom of Information Act, that the University of Houston, a public institution, insisted that Mr. Pirrong submit disclosure forms that shed some light on those financial ties... Mr. Pirrong’s research was cited extensively by the plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed by Wall Street interests in 2011 that for two years has blocked the limits on speculation that had been approved by Congress as part of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. During that same time period, Mr. Pirrong has worked as a paid research consultant for one of the lead plaintiffs in the case, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, according to his disclosure form... On his blog, Mr. Pirrong has dismissed suggestions that his work for a school that trains future oil industry executives creates a conflict of interest. “Uhm, no, dipstick,” he wrote in 2011, replying to a reader who had questioned his objectivity. “I call ’em like I see ’em.”... When asked about Mr. Pirrong’s disclosure, Richard Bonnin, a university spokesman said only that all employees were given annual training on the school’s policy, which requires researchers to report paid outside consultant work. Professors as Pitchmen Concerns about academic conflicts of interest have become a major issue among business professors and economists since the financial crisis. In 2010, the documentary “Inside Job” blasted a handful of prominent academic economists who did not reveal Wall Street’s financial backing of studies which, in some cases, extolled the virtues of financially unsound assets. Two years later, the American Economic Association adopted tougher disclosure rules."

Saturday, December 28, 2013

Can you be too ethical?; Guardian, 12/27/13

Andrew Brown, Guardian; Can you be too ethical? : "The essence of virtue, then, is moderation, or perhaps just proportion. Framing it this way avoids the obvious retort – so often heard in discussion of ethics here – that you can have far too much moderation because you can't have too much justice. And neither, properly speaking, can we ever be too ethical. We're lucky if we can just be ethical enough."

"Duck Dynasty" Pits Free Speech Against Shifting Cultural Taboos; Reason.com, 12/26/13

Cathy Young, Reason.com; "Duck Dynasty" Pits Free Speech Against Shifting Cultural Taboos: "There are at least two lessons to be learned from the “Duck Dynasty” debacle, in which reality TV star Phil Robertson got indefinitely suspended from the A&E hit show after making anti-gay remarks in a GQ magazine interview. One: on freedom of speech, hypocrisy and double standards are rampant across the political spectrum (the title of 1992 book by the great civil libertarian Nat Hentoff, “Free Speech for Me But Not for Thee,” remains ever-relevant). Two: while some speech will always be regarded as beyond the pale in even the freest society, the rapid shifting of those boundaries is sure to generate intense cultural anxiety and conflict."

Monday, December 23, 2013

When ‘60 Minutes’ Checks Its Journalistic Skepticism at the Door; New York Times, 12/22/13

David Carr, New York Times; When ‘60 Minutes’ Checks Its Journalistic Skepticism at the Door: "Coming as it does on the heels of the now-discredited Benghazi report — in which “60 Minutes” said it was fooled by an eyewitness who was apparently nothing of the kind — the N.S.A. segment raises the question of whether the program has not just temporarily lost its mojo, but its skepticism as well. It didn’t help that the day after the piece aired, a federal judge ruled that the agency’s program of collecting phone records was most likely unconstitutional... Let’s stipulate that “60 Minutes” has been and continues to be a journalistic treasure, which just this year has done hard-hitting pieces on the damaging practices of credit report agencies, the high rate of suicide among returning veterans, and how tainted pain medication that caused fungal meningitis killed dozens and sickened hundreds... Historically, the news that “60 Minutes” was in the lobby or on the phone has struck fear in the hearts of both the stalwart and the venal. The show made its targets quake and audiences thrill as it did the hard, often amazing work of creating consequence and accountability. But in the last few months, there have been significant lapses into credulousness, when reporters have been more “gee whiz” than “what gives?” The news that “60 Minutes” is calling could be viewed as less ominous and more of an opportunity. More than once this year, the show has traded skepticism for access."

China To Media: Don't Report 'Wrong Points Of View'; Reuters via Huffington Post, 12/23/13

Reuters via Huffington Post; China To Media: Don't Report 'Wrong Points Of View' : "...[S]ince Xi Jinping became party chief and then national president, he has overseen a media crackdown to bring newspapers in particular back in line. Under new guidelines to enforce "core socialist values", the media must "steadfastly uphold the correct guidance of public opinion". "Strengthen the management of the media, do not provide channels for the propagation of the wrong points of view," read the guidelines, which were published by the official Xinhua news agency... Xi has also taken a tough line on internet censorship, and the new guidelines implied that would continue."

You Can’t Save Them All; New York Times, 12/22/13

Chris Suellentrop, New York Times; You Can’t Save Them All: "You don’t play video games, but you’re curious about them. How should you get started? That’s a question that Steve Gaynor, the writer and director of the independent game Gone Home, has taken to asking guests on his podcast (Tone Control: Conversations with Video Game Developers): What would they recommend to someone who is entirely new to the medium? It’s an interesting and difficult query that highlights how forbidding many games can be to inexperienced players... The Walking Dead game, however, is excellent even if it’s not challenging. It’s particularly good as an example of how to give a player interpretive freedom without undermining the integrity of the story or the characters — or relying on black-and-white “moral choices.” The right, or best, course of action in The Walking Dead is rarely clear."

Leave These Southwest Ruins Alone; New York Times, 12/22/13

David Roberts, New York Times; Leave These Southwest Ruins Alone: "By now, all that saves the still-pristine sites such as the one on the Navajo reservation is their obscurity and the difficulty of getting to them. With my fellow aficionados of the canyon country, I adhere to a rigid ethic: When you visit the ruins and rock art, disturb nothing, and if you write about them, be deliberately vague about where they are... The most ominous new trend is the proliferation of websites giving the GPS coordinates of those prehistoric ruins and rock art panels. Armed with those numbers, the most casual curiosity seeker need not even read a map: One can simply home in on the place with device in hand. And it is those folks, I believe, like the climber on Flickr with the self-portrait of his illegal climb into the forbidden ruin, who are most likely to take home potsherds or arrowheads as souvenirs, or to damage the stone-and-adobe rooms as they clamber through them. Can anything be done to reverse this trend?... Educating the public may be the only hope."

Sunday, December 22, 2013

After Beijing And Marrakesh, WIPO Copyright Committee Feels The Pressure; Intellectual Property Watch, 12/17/13

Catherine Saez, Intellectual Property Watch; After Beijing And Marrakesh, WIPO Copyright Committee Feels The Pressure: "Expectations are high this week on the outcome of discussions of the World Intellectual Property Organization committee on copyright. On the agenda is a potential new treaty protecting broadcasting organisations, and limitations and exceptions to copyright for libraries, archives, and education. In the mix is a new proposal by Japan to include computer networks in protected broadcasts. After two consecutive successes in Beijing in 2012, with the Beijing Treaty on Audiovisual Performances, and in Marrakesh in 2013, with the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired, or Otherwise Print Disabled, the committee is expected to continue work on a treaty that would protect broadcasting organisations and has been under discussion for the last 15 years... For developing countries, the issue of limitations and exceptions to copyright for libraries and archives, educational, teaching and research institutions, and persons with other disabilities, is of central importance, according to several opening statements, such as the Group of Latin American and Caribbean countries (GRULAC), the Asia and Pacific Group, and the African Group. Algeria, on behalf of the African Group, said the international copyright system should respond to both private and public interests and should help the universal propagation of knowledge. The Marrakesh treaty, the delegate said, paved the way towards this goal. No delegations “can dispute the need for developing countries to have greater access to knowledge,” she said."

Government Requests to Remove Online Material Increase at Google; New York Times, 12/19/13

Claire Cain Miller, New York Times; Government Requests to Remove Online Material Increase at Google: "Governments, led by the United States, are increasingly demanding that Google remove information from the Web... Often, the requests come from judges, police officers and politicians trying to hide information that is critical of them. The most common request cites defamation, often of officials... Government requests to remove information increased most significantly in Turkey and Russia because of online censorship laws, according to Google... Google also said officials were resorting to new legal methods to demand that Google remove content, such as citing copyright law to take down transcripts of political speeches or government news releases."

Saturday, December 21, 2013

Roboticist Illah Nourbakhsh explores the dark side of our "robot futures"; Pittsburgh City Paper, 12/18/13

Bill O'Driscoll, Pittsburgh City Paper; Roboticist Illah Nourbakhsh explores the dark side of our "robot futures" : "Illah Nourbakhsh studies and designs robots for a living. But if you expect his new book, Robot Futures, to depict a care-free Tomorrowland of electronic butlers and automated fun, look elsewhere. The lively and accessible Robot Futures ($24.95, MIT Press) warns of a society warped by our relationships with a new "species" that knows more about us than we know about it ... and whose representatives are often owned by someone profiting at our expense. The problem, says Nourbakhsh, is that we're racing into our Robot Future without considering the social, moral and legal implications."

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Should a Student Conceal Her Lesbian Identity in College Application Essays?; New York Times, 12/3/13

Steven Petrow, New York Times; Should a Student Conceal Her Lesbian Identity in College Application Essays? : "Q. Dear Civil Behavior: Our daughter is a senior in high school and quite comfortable with her lesbian identity. We support her 100 percent, but we know the world is not always so tolerant. As she’s writing her college application essays this fall, she’s “coming out” in them — and we think that’s a bad idea. You just never know who’s reading these essays, so why risk revealing your orientation to someone who might be biased against you? We’ve strongly suggested she think over the ramifications of what she’s doing, but she doesn’t seem to have any doubt about it. Deadlines are approaching and we are at an impasse. How can we persuade her to keep some things private if they might hurt her chances of admission?” — Anonymous... A...The Common App invites applicants to share “a background or story that is so central to their identity that they believe their application would be incomplete without it.” I can think of several such topics that may feel core to a high school senior. If your daughter had been adopted, had had a life-altering accident, or were biracial, would you discourage her from writing about it? I doubt it. As one gay student told me, “My parents did something similar and it gave me a sense of shame, that there was something wrong with me that needed to be hidden.” In the end, the strategic question probably can’t be definitely answered — nor may it be the best one to ask. In 20 years will she remember what her essay was about? I doubt it. As one mother wrote me, “In the end it actually matters very little what she decides to write in her application, but it matters a lot if she starts to think that her parents want her to hide who she is from the world.” Clearly you’ve given your daughter a strong sense of self and the confidence to be who she is, even if the world is not as tolerant as we’d all hope. Sure, one of a parent’s jobs is to worry, but after 17 or so years you can’t be there for every important decision in life. So, please reconsider what message you are sending to her when you ask her to conceal her identity."

Rights Group Is Seeking Status of ‘Legal Person’ for Captive Chimpanzee; New York Times, 12/2/13

James Gorman, New York Times; Rights Group Is Seeking Status of ‘Legal Person’ for Captive Chimpanzee: "The Nonhuman Rights Project has been working on this legal strategy for years, sifting through decisions in all 50 states to find one that is strong on what is called common law, and one that recognizes animals as legal persons for the purpose of being the beneficiary of a trust. The leader of the project, Steven M. Wise, who has written about the history of habeas corpus writs in the fight against human slavery and who views the crusade for animal rights as a lifelong project, said New York fit the bill... Laurence H. Tribe, a professor at Harvard Law School, said in an email that in seeking rights for nonhuman animals, “The classic writ of habeas corpus is as good a place to begin as any.”... Chimps were granted certain legal rights by the Spanish Parliament in 2008, and sporadic efforts in other countries, like India, have had some successes."

Monday, November 25, 2013

Already Anticipating ‘Terminator’ Ethics; New York Times, 11/24/13

John Markoff, New York Times; Already Anticipating ‘Terminator’ Ethics: "What could possibly go wrong? That was a question that some of the world’s leading roboticists faced at a technical meeting in October, when they were asked to consider what the science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov anticipated a half-century ago: the need to design ethical behavior into robots... All of which make questions about robots and ethics more than hypothetical for roboticists and policy makers alike. The discussion about robots and ethics came during this year’s Humanoids technical conference. At the conference, which focused on the design and application of robots that appear humanlike, Ronald C. Arkin delivered a talk on “How to NOT Build a Terminator,” picking up where Asimov left off with his fourth law of robotics — “A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.” While he did an effective job posing the ethical dilemmas, he did not offer a simple solution. His intent was to persuade the researchers to confront the implications of their work."

Weighing Free Speech in Refusal to Photograph Lesbian Couple’s Ceremony; New York Times, 11/18/13

Adam Liptak, New York Times; Weighing Free Speech in Refusal to Photograph Lesbian Couple’s Ceremony: "A New Mexico law forbids businesses open to the public to discriminate against gay people. Elaine Huguenin, a photographer, says she has no problem with that — so long as it does not force her to say something she does not believe. In asking the Supreme Court to hear her challenge to the law, Ms. Huguenin said that she would “gladly serve gays and lesbians — by, for example, providing them with portrait photography,” but that she did not want to tell the stories of same-sex weddings. To make her celebrate something her religion tells her is wrong, she said, would hijack her right to free speech."

Monday, November 18, 2013

Activists say they have found way round Chinese internet censorship; Guardian, 11/18/13

Jonathan Kaiman, Guardian; Activists say they have found way round Chinese internet censorship: "Cyber-activists have retaliated against Chinese authorities' censorship of foreign media websites by exposing an apparent weakness in the country's vast internet control apparatus. China blocked the Wall Street Journal and Reuters Chinese-language websites on Friday after a New York Times exposé revealed business ties between JP Morgan and the daughter of the former premier Wen Jiabao. Both websites appear to still be blocked on Monday. The New York Times's English and Chinese-language websites have been blocked in China since 2012. Charlie Smith, the co-founder of GreatFire.org, a website which monitors internet censorship in China, says he has helped discover a strategy to make these sites available in mainland China without the aid of firewall-circumventing software."

Trending: The ethics of live-tweeting a break-up; BBC News, 11/18/13

BBC News; Trending: The ethics of live-tweeting a break-up: "The apparent break-up of a young couple in New York has been documented by their neighbour - a comedian - who live-tweeted the whole episode. His tweets have been widely shared. But is it OK to live-tweet something you just happen to overhear? Eavesdroppers who turn to Twitter have made waves several times in the past, for example the tweeting of off-the-record briefings by a former National Security Agency (NSA) chief... City University journalism professor Roy Greenslade says social media has magnified the issues faced by traditional newspapers in the past. Some journalists might violate people's privacy to focus only on public interest issues, but others do it to uncover salacious human interest stories."

Pa. student newspaper editors ban ‘Redskins’ nickname _ and get sent to principal’s office; Associated Press via Washington Post, 11/16/13

Associated Press via Washington Post; Pa. student newspaper editors ban ‘Redskins’ nickname _ and get sent to principal’s office: "The Playwickian editors started getting heat from school officials after an Oct. 27 editorial that barred the use of the word “Redskins” — the nickname of the teams at Neshaminy, a school named for the creek where the Lenape Indians once lived... Nonetheless, Principal Robert McGee ordered the editors to put the “Redskins” ban on hold, and summoned them to a meeting after school Tuesday, according to junior Gillian McGoldrick, the editor-in-chief... I don’t think that’s been decided at the national level, whether that word is or is not (offensive). It’s our school mascot,” said McGee, who said he’s consulted with the school solicitor and others. “I see it as a First Amendment issue running into another First Amendment issue... Both the student law center and the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania believe school districts are on shaky ground if they try to compel students to use a given word, especially one the students deem offensive.”

Friday, November 15, 2013

Facebook Amends Privacy Policies; New York Times, 11/15/13

Vindu Goel, New York Times; Facebook Amends Privacy Policies: "Facebook pressed ahead on Friday with changes to its privacy policies, first proposed in August, that make it clear that users’ postings on the service and other personal data can be used in advertising on the site. But the company deleted controversial language that had declared that any teenager using the service was presumed to have gotten parental permission for their data to be used in advertising. The company says it already has that permission from other terms of use... Facebook’s use of teenagers’ information in ads is particularly sensitive for privacy advocates, who say that children are especially vulnerable to marketing messages and are more likely to respond to endorsements from friends."

Thursday, November 7, 2013

IFLA Signs on to Major International Document regarding Human Rights and Surveillance; IFLA, 10/30/13

IFLA; IFLA Signs on to Major International Document regarding Human Rights and Surveillance: "IFLA has become a signatory to the International Principles on the Application of Human Rights to Communications Surveillance. The Principles document is the product of a year-long negotiation process between Privacy International, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Access, Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders, and the Association for Progressive Communications. The document spells out how existing human rights law applies to modern digital surveillance and gives civil society groups, industry, lawmakers and observers a benchmark for measuring states' surveillance practices against long-established human rights standards. It contains 13 principles which have now been endorsed by over 260 organizations from 77 countries, from Somalia to Sweden."

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

In Bullying Case, Questions on N.F.L. Culture; New York Times, 11/4/13

John Branch and Ken Belson, New York Times; In Bullying Case, Questions on N.F.L. Culture: "Their unfolding saga is forcing the National Football League to uncomfortably turn its gaze toward locker room culture and start defining the gray areas between good-natured pranks and hurtful bullying."

Medical Ethics Have Been Violated at Detention Sites, a New Report Says; New York Times, 11/4/13

Denise Grady and Benedict Carey, New York Times; Medical Ethics Have Been Violated at Detention Sites, a New Report Says: "A group of experts in medicine, law and ethics has issued a blistering report that accuses the United States government of directing doctors, nurses and psychologists, among others, to ignore their professional codes of ethics and participate in the abuse of detainees in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The report was published Monday by the Institute on Medicine as a Profession, an ethics group based at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, and the Open Society Foundations, a pro-democracy network founded by the billionaire George Soros. The authors were part of a 19-member task force that based its findings on a two-year review of public information. The sources included documents released by the government, news reports, and books and articles from professional journals."

Rand Paul’s plagiarism allegations, and why they matter; Washington Post, 11/4/13

Aaron Blake, Washington Post; Rand Paul’s plagiarism allegations, and why they matter: "Over the last week, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has been accused of multiple counts of plagiarism — both in speeches he gave and in a book he wrote. So what has happened, and what does it mean going forward? Here’s what you need to know."