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Social media and the availability and completeness of the information provided through search engines recently created many dilemmas and caused lively discussions from an ethical point of view. Digital communication involves the use of online tools to connect with other people or specific audiences to exchange messages. Digital communication is also the communication of journalists and the media with readers through social networks, information, and news resources. Since in the modern world, this is one of the key sources of information for most people, the ethical component, including the completeness of the presentation, accessibility, and truthfulness, including precision in the word truth, should be the foundation of all communications.
Summary of The Issue
The relevant case in this issue is Google in China: When Dont Be Evil Met the Great Firewall. This case reveals the complex and ongoing situation surrounding Googles activities in China. The Chinese government censors and forces the hiding or removal of posts, articles, and other communications pertaining to themes they consider forbidden: free speech, sex, political opponents, some news, and academic research. It forbids, for example, webpages concerning the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, as well as references to anti-communism and dissenters, as well as references to novels that depict authoritarian governments poorly, such as George Orwells 1984 and Animal Farm (Bergen, 2018). Following a public uproar, the founders determined that removing contentious links from search results, as ordered by the Beijing government, was unethical and violated the companys code of ethics, and they formally departed China.
The project has lately resumed, resulting in a genuine schism among coworkers and unprecedented tensions. Google CEO Sundar Pichai insists that the company should succumb to Chinas government and operate on their terms, even if its seemingly unethical (Bergen, 2018). In this way, the company has a chance to gain influence and try to change the situation. Jack Poulson, a senior researcher at Google, has left and stated that he could not work for a corporation that does not specify its ethical limits internally or publicly (Bergen, 2018). A wave of resignations has begun among employees whose personal and professional ethical views hold this to be unacceptable. When information about this began to leak, management denied it. But at one meeting, someone in the audience began relaying Brin and Pichais comments to New York Times reporter Kate Conger, who tweeted them verbatim. This case was chosen because providing people by journalists with true, complete, and reliable information in accordance with the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) and the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) moral standards is key to the development of society and freedom, but equally important is the provision of access to it.
Legal and Ethical Issues in Case
The legal issue, in this case, is that the meetings are for company employees and may be confidential. Thus, the publication of statements may be a violation of the law. From an ethical point of view, this employees decision can be justified since management denied the resumption of the program and sought to mislead the public and those employees who opposed forced censorship. During Googles initial foray into China, it was reported that companies were required to monitor their users and hand over user data to security agencies upon request, and Chinas web censorship is becoming less transparent, with fewer user notifications when messages are censored or removed across all platforms. Such regulations may be illegal and infringe on the rights of people of other nations with a presence in China, raising legal concerns.
A Justification of the Importance of the Topic
It is unacceptable for powerful corporations and governments to work together to deny individuals their fundamental and inalienable right to information. This judgment has far-reaching implications not only for China, but for everyone, in terms of information freedom, Internet freedom, communication, and digital ethics. If Google does this, it will create a significant precedent for many other firms who are still seeking to conduct business in China while avoiding Chinese restrictions. The creation of the worlds largest censored search engine in China is a success for the Chinese government and conveys a message that resisting and fighting for rights is futile. Awareness of these pressing issues and the importance of the companys decision to deny reopening led to an ethically controversial move by an employee who began relaying information to a journalist about what was happening at the meeting.
Potential Sources
Fuchs (2021) in the article describes the concepts and aspects of justice and injustice in general and considers communications, media, and digital justice. This source considers digital communication as one of the tools to achieve social justice. It will help to explore how digital communication in the case under consideration led to the achievement of justice (suspension of the project), although it required ambiguous ethical decisions from the employee. Nuseir & Ghandour (2019) examine the impact of digital communication on various ethical issues in businesses, including legal liability, security, bribery, cybercrime, privacy threats, and social media disclosure. This source will help to explore the ethical issues in Googles management decisions, provide an in-depth understanding of the ethical issues associated with the case and help identify mitigation options. Burr et al. (2020) in their work, they investigate digital well-being, specifically the influence of digital communication on what it means to live a life that benefits a person in an information society. This source will help to further assess the risks and threats that society may face if companies and countries restrict this communication or affect its transparency and ethics.
References
Bergen, M. (2018). Google in China: When dont be evil met the great firewall.Bloomberg. Web.
Burr, C., Taddeo, M., & Floridi, L. (2020). The ethics of digital well-being: A thematic review. Science and engineering ethics, 26(4), 2313-2343.
Fuchs, C. (2021). Foundations of Communication/Media/Digital (In) justice. Journal of Media Ethics, 36(4), 186-201.
Nuseir, M. T., & Ghandour, A. (2019). Ethical issues in modern business management. International Journal of Procurement Management, 12(5), 592-605.
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