Читать книгу Digital Media Ethics - Charles Ess - Страница 17

A second characteristic of digital media is that digital information is “greased.” That is, as James Moor (1997) has observed, “When information is computerized, it is greased to slide easily and quickly to many ports of call” (27). As anyone who has hit the “post” button on a status update too quickly knows all too well, information in digital form can spread more or less instantaneously and globally, whether we always want it to or not.

As the example of uploading embarrassing photos or videos from a smartphone suggests, the near-instantaneous and potentially global distribution of digital information raises especially serious ethical issues surrounding privacy. Where it was once comparatively difficult to capture and then transmit information about a person that she or he might consider private, digital media, beginning with computer databases that store and make easily accessible a vast range of information about people, have resulted in an extensive spectrum of new threats to personal and private information. Moreover, digital information as “greased” likewise makes it easy to copy and distribute, say, one’s favorite songs, movies, or texts. To be sure, it has always been possible to copy and distribute copies of a given text, song, or film. But the ease of doing so with digital media is a primary factor in the central problems of copying, copyright, and so on.