Download Professional Ethics Freedom Of Expression Assign #2 Name: Walaa

Professional Ethics
Freedom Of Expression
Assign #2
Name: Walaa Alyousef - 201101049
1.
Briefly discuss the boundary between expressing an opinion and defamation.
Answer:
Defamation is the statement that a person makes regarding an individual, organization,
product, or business that may give any of those mentioned a negative image, or cause
harm. So basically the person is making a false claim, and implying that it’s factual,
which will cause harm to the reputation of what he’s accusing and leading to lowering
its reputation in the estimation of society. Now the difference between expressing your
opinion and defamation is that in order for the statement to be said defamatory, it has to
be proven right or wrong, but if the alleged defamation was only an expression of
opinion, it’s not considered to be so, because opinions are not provable.
2.
Discuss methods other than filtering to prevent employees from inappropriate use of the
Internet at work and whether the approach taken by a large company would be as
successful at a small company.
Answer:
It’s knowingly that nowadays all companies provide personal computers for all of its
employees. And as much as studies have shown that it’s actually beneficial when
employees use the Internet for personal stuff as it helps with coming up with ideas and
such, it has also been a threat. One of the things that any company or a firm must have,
to ensure that employees are using Internet to a work related things rather than instant
messaging or sending personal emails, is an Acceptable Use Policy. AUP is a set of rules
that strict the way a network or a website can be used. In addition, which is highly
important, is something called endpoint security. It includes everything needed, and
large computing organizations demand comprehensive endpoint security systems. Yet,
you can bring someone specialized to check on things on a regular basis. If not, a cloudbased service like Symantec.cloud is a great choice. It gives you the flexibility to set and
monitor compliance with AUP. There’s also another method, which protects and helps
in improving productivity, and that is Kernel. It calculates employee work and tracks the
level of productivity, and therefore, the company will know if its employees are wasting
time on work or misusing the Internet. Of course, larger companies may need a strong
endpoint security system. The cloud-base services are more for smaller companies, as
they’re inexpensive and easy to get. Point is, the larger the firm, the stronger the
methods they’re using should be.
3.
Explain the main disadvantages of allowing employees at a given organization to create
their own personal blogs to reach out to partners, customers, and other employees, and to
improve their corporate image.
Answer:
Although corporate blogging has many advantages, it also has disadvantages. Many of those
are that it may lead to revealing secret information because of the level of openness. And also
people may be talking out of the topic and they might misuse the blogs and cause unwanted
publicity due to negative writing about the company. There’s the risk of violating federal
security disclosure laws. More else, instead of enhancing the organization’s reputation, blogs
are quite time-consuming, and as a result, damage is done because they’re not updated. On the
other hand, since anyone can go and write on the Internet, the credibility of blogs is being
questioned more and more. And finally, because of the easy publicity of blogs, a statementeven a wrong one- will be exposed to the public forever, and that may lead to bad
consequences.
4.
What important freedom of expression issues relate to the use of information technology?
Answer:
Since companies must ensure that its information is protected, there has to be a privacy policy
that needs to be followed. Also, employees’ emails must be monitored regularly to detect any
hateful or defamatory material. Another issue that is important is to limit employees’ access to
certain websites by using filtering, and especially pornography websites. And therefore,
companies also have to forbid the viewing and sending of pornography by establishing an IT
usage policy.
5.
What is the benefit of an Anonymous Remailer?
Answer:
Anonymous remailer is beneficial if for instance you want to express your opinion about a
matter but you live in a society that is intolerant of your religious or political views. It is also
good if you do not want your corporate email address to be spammed or flamed. And last, the
great benefit an anonymous remailer gives is security as the author cannot be known or
identified.