Stephen Lilley

Revealing the commercialized and compliant Facebook user

Purpose – Facebook users are both producers and consumers (i.e. “prosumers”), in the sense that they produce the disclosures that allow for Facebooks business success and they consume services. The purpose of this paper is to examine how best to characterize the commercialized and compliant members. The authors question the Facebook assertion that members knowingly and willingly approve of personal and commercial transparency and argue, instead, that complicity is engineered.Design/methodology/approach – A survey of Facebook users was conducted between December 2010 and April 2011 at one private and four public universities. Respondents were questioned about: the level of their consumer activity on Facebook; their knowledge of Facebook advertiser data sharing practices and their attitude toward such; their use of sharing restrictions and the groups targeted; and their assessment of transparency benefits versus reputation and consumer risks.Findings – No evidence was found to support the Facebook account ...

Ethical implications of internet monitoring: A comparative study

Organizations have become increasingly concerned about employee use of the Internet for personal reasons while at work. Monitoring Internet usage has become more and more prevalent in the workplace. While there may be legitimate business functions such as employee performance appraisal that are served by monitoring, poorly designed and communicated monitoring practices can have negative effects on employee morale and may be considered an invasion of privacy. Universities are another venue where Internet monitoring occurs. This paper explores whether there was a significant difference in attitude towards Internet usage and monitoring at the university as compared to the workplace. It is the result of a comparative study.

Will “Smarter” Marketing End Social Discrimination? A Critical Review

Purpose – There are two claims made by the web marketing/advertising industry. By collecting, managing, and mining data, companies serve consumers best interests, and by adopting sophisticated analytics, web marketers avoid discriminations that disserve individuals. Although the paper shares an interest in ending social discrimination, the paper is more circumspect about pronounced individualism and technological fixes. Despite its appeal, or perhaps because of it, the paper should not accept the claim at face value. The paper argues that social discrimination may not disappear under smarter marketing; more overt forms may wane only to be replaced by more subtle forms. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – The paper compares the two most important techniques of “smarter” marketing – predictive analytics and Facebooks social graph – with current discriminatory practices of weblining and e-scoring. While noting advances against overt discrimination, the paper describes how ...

Reading the Tea Leaves: Did Citigroup Risk their Reputation during 2004-2005?

In this paper, we challenge the conventional wisdom that high-quality news reports of questionable corporate business practices will stimulate various marketplace negative responses, which in turn, will pressure management to undertake actions designed to protect the organizations reputation. Analysis is confined to a relatively brief period of bad news relating to Citigroup, Inc. We conclude that while none of the expected negative marketplace responses are evident in widely available news sources, the CEO did exhibit significant concern and instituted a targeted reputation risk management program. In the absence of a concerned CEO, analysts should not, we suggest, expect a management team to respond with reputation-enhancing corrective action solely as a reaction to negative publicity regarding questionable business practices.

Rhetoric of Risk

Some individuals can’t bear the thought of a transhuman future. They can’t see a place for themselves among the transcended and transformed. Nor can they see transhumanity supporting their beliefs and values. They feel an anticipatory anomie—an expectation of being displaced from a changing culture and society. The possibility of physical harm, the type of risk that comes quickest to mind, is not a primary consideration. In other words, absent personal risk they still would oppose transhumanity. Others can’t bear the thought of a future without transhumanity. Their hope for self-transformation is kept alive by this prospect. It would be better if risks were low, but they would accept elevated risks in light of expected rich returns.

Transformation of Body and Mind

Similar to exploring an old city I like to wander down the side streets of the transhumanity debate to read about fascinating areas of research and development such as artificial intelligence and artificial life . However, it’s best not to get sidetracked. It helps to keep in mind that the debate is driven by basic concerns as much as it is by the science and technology. In particular, I am reminded of this by the personal revelations by authors. One scholar wonders whether he would remain consistent with his opposition to genetic engineering if his grandchild’s life was in the balance. Another author relates his grief over the death of his parents. Others describe a chronic illness that they or loved ones must suffer and endure. These testimonials serve to remind me that the transhumanity debate is centered on the problem of human mortality.

Introduction to the Transhumanity Debate

In 2006 the Edge Foundation invited over one hundred distinguished scholars to respond to this prompt suggested by Steven Pinker: “The history of science is replete with discoveries that were considered socially, morally, or emotionally dangerous in their time; the Copernican and Darwinian revolutions are the most obvious. What is your dangerous idea?” (Edge 2006) The responses at www.edge.org are fascinating but let us consider for the moment that there are dangerous ideas and expand the set to include any ideas, not just from science, that break out and threaten established ways of thought and social norms.

Transcend or Transgress

Certain passages from C. Wright Mills’ The Sociological Imagination [(1959) 1969] inspire me today as they did when I happened upon my first sociology course many years ago. In the first chapter, The Promise, Mills identifies three sets of questions posed by the classic social theorists such as Karl Marx and Max Weber.

Bringing oversight review in line with online research

The purpose of an oversight structure or institution is to protect human subjects from research that would pose unacceptable dangers or deny human rights. Review boards provide an independent assessment of research proposals. This additional level of scrutiny is meant to provide an additional level of protection for human subjects. However, oversight of human subject research, as currently carried out in the bureaucratic, rule‐based, clinically‐biased American system, is too cumbersome with regard to online research. In addition, it is not conducive to the training of ethical Internet researchers. Internet research differs from traditional human subject research in many ways, and the oversight rules governing traditional research do not easily relate to the complexities of conducting research online. Online researchers do not oppose the foundational principles of non‐maleficence (avoiding harm) and autonomy, nor do they reject the ideals of informed consent and confidentiality, nevertheless, they face pra...