There’s no doute that personal electronic devices have greatly changed our personal
privacy. I am not denying that those devises are useful as a research tools and communication,
but there are fundamental ethical issues concerning consent, privacy and confidentially which
needs to be addressed in the research community. For instance, privacy on social platforms is
tremendously challenging because these platforms are designed to share information with
organization and business companies, even though the user might not be aware of it.
Another aspect to consider is that Participants in those platforms are required to give
personal information, which if not protected can result in vulnerability and confidentiality
violation. Certainly, some users do not know how to protect their personal information on
websites and are endangered by online harassments. From my point of view, I do not believe that
those platforms that publish user-uploaded content meet the Tri-Council’s ethics guidelines,
simply because under Tri-Council ethical guidelines, “Privacy refers to an individual’s right to
be free from intrusion or interference by others” and “The ethical duty of confidentiality includes
obligations to protect information from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, modification, loss
or theft.” (privacy and confidentiality, chap 5). But the unethical use of those websites has had
resulted in individual breach of privacy and impact our well-being both physical and mental.
Certainly, those platforms are universal which means people of all ages, social classes and
cultures can use and reach out and share what they know or what they were thought about ethical
values. This can help the user of those platforms to appreciate new viewpoint’s and experiences.
Unfortunately, I think there should be little stricter ethical values guidelines to align with our
moral and legal standards, because undoubtfully it can help us to communicate without
destroying or violating other people’s dignity and rights.
Primarily I believe the main problem with user-upload websites is people oversharing thing
about their life. For example, most people tend to post detailed pictures or videos about their
everyday life, without the thought of any impact those post might have on them or others. What
we need to consider is that those posts shared online may contain more information than the
user is aware of, which may include dates, times, or location. Furthermore, another concern is
that those platforms offer us a little awareness on how to differentiate the authenticity and
validity of news or information. This can have a significant impact in our society because we
make important decisions based on information.
Finally, we know for a fact that those platforms made it easy to keep in touch with friends
and family. Moreover, I for myself would not upload any videos of myself, simply because I am
very private person and most important, I have very little time to create vides to upload. I believe
its unimportant to waste my time on waiting to see who liked or commented on my videos which
I think can lead us to have low self-esteem if got negative responses on the posts.