The Internet: Few Rules and No Ethics Essay -- The Wild Wild West, 201

Laws regulate what we do in our everyday life. These rules, however can not keep up with technology. Laws existing to regulate the internet are few and difficult to enforce. A crackdown on internet misuse has begun with the creation of filtering software and the prosecutions of internet offenders. Issues such as child pornography and seducing children over the internet, the downloading and manipulation of copyrighted files and images, and the sharing or accessing of people’s private and personal information are just some of the ethical challenges we face in cyberspace. According to Maxwell Taylor and Ethel Quayle in â€Å"Child Pornography: An Internet Crime†, individuals who are involved in the world of internet child pornography are escaping from their real world lives. The two authors interviewed 13 different convicted offenders in order to understand what happens in this fantasy world and why so many are being lured in (victims, as well as offenders). Through their many conversations they discovered that there is a kind of community created over the internet. One where adult males (and a few adult females) collect and trade pictures of kids and teenagers (of all ages, sometimes including babies) who are posing nude or even involved in any sexual act with an adult. Most of these images are used for personal sexual gratification. There are some who use them like money to get more of these kinds of images, and like money in the physical world, the more you have the higher you are in status. The internet makes their interest readily available, giving them access to this kind of information in massive amounts and in seconds. This underground world becomes an addiction, and often leads to interaction w... ...ng doing, that there is harm being caused, and that they are responsible for their actions is, in my opinion, the first step that needs to be taken to solve this ethical dilemma. Works Cited Taylor, Maxwell and Ethel Quayle. Child Pornography: An Internet Crime. New York: Brunner & Routledge, 2003. Williamson, Larry and Eric Pierson. The Rhetoric of Hate on the Internet: HatePorn’s Challenge to Modern Media Ethics. Journal of Mass Media Ethics. Volume 18, pp.256-267. Tompkins, Paula S. Truth, Trust, and Telepresence. Journal of Mass Media Ethics. Volume 18, pp.194-212. Kitross, Michael John and A. David Gordon. The Academy and Cyberspace Ethics. Journal of Mass Media Ethics. Volume 18, pp. 286-307. Nissenbaum, Helen. Hackers and the Contested Ontology of Cyberspace. New Media and Society. April 2004 volume 16, pp. 195-217.