Unethical human activity is primarily responsible for a lack of privacy and safety on the internet.

Unethical human activity is primarily responsible for a lack of privacy and safety on the internet. This is seen in a negative matter particularly because of the lowest responsibility in privacy and safety on the internet. Being an ethical person on the internet means respecting the rights of others and being an honest human being. Unfortunately, there are lots of unethical practices on the internet which degrade and exploit personal and fake information about people which can ruin personal and professional relationships and opportunities. The internet is seen as quite a scary and dangerous place so privacy and safety play an important role on the internet as they are one of the biggest key factors for having online accounts and the use of the internet. Another big key factor the internet desperately needs is respect and ethics. Having these important factors on the internet would greatly make a better change but as of right now there is no good.

Privacy on the internet is a great way of protecting yourself from certain information you do not want others to know about, things like your passwords and your credit card details. Also things such as having public or private accounts to online social media so you know who is following you and if you allow that. But, due to the lack of ethics within the internet, there are many times where things such as invasion of privacy could potentially happen. Unethical human activity is primarily responsible for a lack of privacy on the internet. Hackers are able to hack into your private accounts and information and have the ability to take away your information and make your private information public. Doing this could have a very large effect on personal and professional life as information you did not want your family or your boss knowing about could potentially ruin relationships and careers. That is why when you are creating an account they often make you have capital and lower case letters and numbers in your passwords to try and stop hackers from getting your information.      

(IEEE, 2021)                                                       When you have too much of your life public you are really targeted to the use of fraud. Fraudsters are able to take your photos and other bits of information and use them to create fake accounts pretending to be you. They are able to make up rumours to your friends and family which can potentially destroy relationships and advertise products and inappropriate things such as pornography. This could be seen by your workplace and your boss might decide that you are not the right person for your job. This is called identity theft. Some workplaces and employers tend to monitor the internet usage at the workplace to protect information that is private to the business (Ethical Issues & Employer Monitoring Internet Usage, Paragraph 2, 2020). An additional thing businesses tend to do is before hiring the person is to go onto social media and find what they’re like in the real world. If they could see they are irresponsible and or have a bad history they will not be hired. Another example is if an influencer post gets hacked and their accounts are taken over and post inappropriate issues people will believe that it is them and ruin their career. If an influencer posts pictures of where they are at the time they are there this could be dangerous for them. This brings safety in as the next argument. Unethical human activity is primarily responsible for a lack of privacy on the internet.

Just like the use of privacy, there are many reasons why safety is being treated as an unethical human activity with the use of the internet. Safety on the internet is a very important tool with the use of the internet. Internet safety and cyber safety (Ethical Issues & Employer Monitoring Internet Usage, Paragraph 1, 2020) try to keep you safe while on the internet. Having these recourses will hopefully be able to give the user an idea of the risks on the internet. Making yourself aware of the risks and knowing how to protect yourself from scams. 

                                                       

(Cliqz, 2020)                                                    

Scammers are people pretending to be your bank or other services you use trying to steal money and take private information to put onto the internet. They pretend that you have either won something or something is wrong with your account and they need your details for it. Once they have your details, your information and money get stolen. To detect scammers, you should always check to see if their email and phone number is correct. If it does not match the actual company and has a different email address or phone number it is not them. Another reason why the internet lacks safety is cyberbullying. Cyberbullying can happen anywhere on the internet to anyone, if they know each other or if they are just complete strangers. This brings cyber bullying into the third argument. Unethical human activity is primarily responsible for a lack of safety on the internet.

Unethical human activity is primarily responsible for a lack of respect and ethics on the internet. On the internet, at times there is no respect for one another. Children, teenagers and adults all play a role in cyberbullying in today’s century. Cyberbullying comes in many forms, from saying something negative on someone’s posts to making up fake news about someone and the worst thing, telling someone to end their life. This is completely wrong and terrible behaviour someone could do to another person. Cyberbullying has become extremely common in today’s society, using the internet to manipulate and destroy a person self-esteem while remaining either anonymous or hiding behind a computer or phone screen.  

(Kidshelpline, 2021)                                      Expressing racism, sexism, hate and violence (Esafety, Paragraph 1) on the internet and in person is in any shape or form not OK. On the internet, there desperately needs to be respect, a saying that goes ‘treat others the way you would like to be treated’ is exactly what people should be doing but are not. You should be respectful of people, listen to what they say and respect their choices even if you do not agree with them. You can still share different opinions without being aggressive but being respectful. Being honest while being respectful of other peoples opinions on the internet is being ethical but today, 1 in every 5 young Australians are victims of cyberbullying (Esafety, Cyberbullying issues, Paragraph 4). Unethical human activity is primarily responsible for a lack of respect and ethics on the internet.

Unethical human activity is primarily responsible for a lack of privacy and safety on the internet. As seen, the internet is not a safe environment, from being a target to fraud, being scammed or being cyberbullied. These acts are extremely responsible for how the internet is and because of them make the internet an unethical human activity. To make the internet a safe and secure place for everyone to use, these effective measures should take place and everyone that uses the internet. Having a secure password with different letters and numbers and characteristics can prevent hackers from hacking and taking your data and your account. Monitoring what goes public when you make posts to social media and perhaps turning your public accounts private. There is always going to be scammers out on the internet sadly, but ways you can prevent yourself from being a victim of it is to always double-check their emails as passwords, and keeping personal information to yourself. Talking to people on the internet, you should always be respectful of others while being honest. Keeping safe on the internet and not talking to strangers and telling them personal things is another thing you should do to keep safe as you do not know them. These three arguments, privacy, safety and respect should be being used in a positive matter but sadly are not.  

Reference list

Small Business – Chron.com. 2020. Ethical Issues & Employer Monitoring Internet Usage. [online] Available at: https://smallbusiness.chron.com/ethical-issues-employer-monitoring-internet-usage-12617.html.

[Esafety From the Government]: https://www.esafety.gov.au/educators/classroom-resources/young-and-esafe/respect.  

En.wikipedia.org. 2019. Internet safety – Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_safety . 

Peer-reviewed article: Cyber Bullying, A modern form of bullying: https://ijponline.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13052-018-0446-4

Kids Helpline. 2021. Experiencing cyberbullying?: https://kidshelpline.com.au/teens/issues/cyberbullying.

IEEE Innovation at Work. 2021. As Hackers Get Smarter, Cyber Security Experts Turn to New Ideas – IEEE Innovation at Work. https://innovationatwork.ieee.org/as-hackers-get-smarter-cyber-security-experts-turn-to-new-ideas/

Cliqz. 2021. 10 Tips for Better Internet Safety.: https://cliqz.com/en/magazine/10-tips-better-internet-safety.

Reflection:

For this assignment, I created a podcast talking about my potential future profession as a Landcare Officer and how Digital Literacy affects its workplace. Creating this podcast was not very daunting to me as last year for my year 12 Agriculture class I had to create a 10-minute video with myself talking over it. I chose to do a podcast for this assignment as I had never just created a podcast it always had a video attached to it, so it was something different. However, for that video we created, we used a different platform to the one used for this assignment. Spreaker was slightly difficult to navigate around but after getting the hang of it, it got pretty easy and was able to finish my task. I was a little shaky talking and didn’t realise I can pause and start again so I said it all at once. On the other hand, I also found it slightly difficult to talk about Digital Literacy as I had already started to forget what it meant. I think this assignment gave me a reminder to go back and study through notes so I have a better memory. On top of that, I was also still unsure if I would like to be a Landcare Officer or something else but for now, it sounds quite interesting but my ideas could also still change. This assignment has made myself question more about Digital Literacy and how it impacts workplaces.

 

References:

• Lord, B., 2021. [online] Interact2.csu.edu.au. Available at: <https://interact2.csu.edu.au/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_55714_1&content_id=_4210192_1&mode=reset> [Accessed 4 April 2021].