This EPQ tried to explore the courses of modern-day issues as well as how they relate to computer science. I also tried to explore possible solutions to these issues. This EPQ was written in my last year of sixth-form school.

Abstract

This review will be about the possible ethics issues in the Computer Science field. Due to recent events in the news of government spying on citizens, banning encryptions, accusations of rigged elections and the rise of reliance on technology it seemed important to understand why this is happening and what we doing to keep people safe not just in terms of the official legislationg but also as citizens. It became apparent that the industry treats the effects on consumers as an afterthought to profit and control. Specialists responded that in many cases the industry is not externally regulated and it is in many people's and countries' best interests to turn a blind eye to the effects of the industry. This review will include research from newspapers, blogs and interviews with teachers, students, CEOs and people who work in the industry. It will primarily be focused on the dangers and harm the industry is causing to the world as well as why very little is happening to prevent this. This report does not contain any interviews or information directly from Big Tech (Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent and Xiaomi. These are the five largest information technology companies in America and China). This was due to not getting responses from any corporate emails and no responses from employees via Linked In.

Introduction

I went into this EPQ to find out if there is an issue with ethics when teaching and making productions for an online audience. As well as this, I wanted to narrow down what these issues are. Why these issues still exist and possible solutions. My hypothesis is that there are many ethical issues, and the courses of them are money and ignorance. I want to get the perspectives from people across all parts of the industry, so I planned to speak to students, teachers and people worldwide. I wanted to speak to students and teachers as they are the people who will be shaping the industry in the future. Speaking to people who are currently working in the industry will reveal the root causes of possible issues and review why the industry is not trying to fix these issues. As well as this, I wanted to use be using online articles and online communities to expand on what people have said. The world is heavily reliant on the internet and yet many people don’t understand how it works. Not understanding how something works generally leads to people not questioning companies' actions. When a local store replaces people with self-service machines, we can see the effect of people losing their jobs but when social media changes their algorithms or modifies a single line in a 400-page terms and conditions the end users will have no idea how that affects them. The end goal of this is to have a clear understanding of Who is responsible for issues facing the industry, Why we are allowing these issues to go on and finally why world governments are not creating legislation to protect the general public online.

Companies bottom line

In an interview with Claus Jensby Madsen is a Danish Trade School Computer Systems programming teacher with a master of science, bachelor’s degree and master’s degree of science specialising in coding theory and 32 years of coding experience. He describes how companies operate for profit: “Yes, I don’t think it necessarily is an issue specific to the IT industry, as I see it more as a weakness of capitalism. As well as gives an example of being environmentally friendly: “Companies are generally only environmentally friendly (or pretend to be environmentally friendly) if such an image is beneficial to the company’s goals.” Protecting people’s privacy or looking out for their mental health directly harms their bottom line.

When maximising profits is the only concern for a company.” A company’s main goal is profit and keeping the board happy. Companies do this in many ways one of these methods is a dark pattern. Madsen states “A dark pattern is designed to trick the user into doing something against their own interest. Examples of this are making it hard to distinguish advertisements on search results, hiding additional fees until the end of a purchase process, making it more cumbersome to reject cookies than accept them, etc.” therefore Social media companies use dark patterns to get people to agree to hand over more data. Instagram asks users if they want a more personalised or less personalised feed. This clever wording makes it unclear that you agree to more data being collected, which leads to it being more personalised. Google “Data Sandbox” product that allows them to collect data from any site that you visit on Chrome pop-up read “Got It” and “Settings”. Got it casual wording that makes it seem like people understand the new feature but do not agree to enable it. The way to opt out is to press settings, find the feature where the names have not been said, and disable it. Signal a source messaging app, brought ad spaces from Meta that reflect the kinda of information that’s sold when you agree to dark patterns

The data you agree to hand off includes political beliefs, predicted jobs, relationship type, predicted income, sexual orientation and your address. This is information most people wouldn’t feel comfortable telling people let alone know that it's being sold.

and won't endorse UK computer science degrees unless they include content on legal, social and ethical issues.”- Miranda Mowbray While this cannot change how a company is running it puts ethics and legality in the minds of new developers. As new developer work and get promoted they should hopefully bring the ethic into their company.

Ethics is taught across schools and universities. Developers know the effects of what they are doing but speaking about the effects of their work in many cases will stop them from getting promotions, lead to losing their jobs or struggling to get new jobs. Developers can be replaced and they are aware of this, In many cases, it makes more sense to turn a blind eye to ethics to protect yourself.

Conclusion

Overall it is clear that Computer Science has many ethical and legal issues for the goal of gaining more money or control without any concerns for how it affects the end users. Big Tech companies knowingly sell and promote applications that harm people's mental health and create addiction for profit. Governments want more control and data over their people either by passing laws that force companies to share users' messages, locations and profiles or by investing in AI systems to predict people's movements and in some cases automated weapons. In many cases, the people whose job it is to regulate laws have direct conflicts of interest. When companies are allowed to regulate themself and the oversite is allowed to directly invest in these companies it becomes harmful to both parties to enforce the rules.

Universally the people I interviewed agree more legislation is needed and that the legislation needs to be enforced fairly to all companies. At the moment large companies are allowed to operate in a grey area knowing that they will not be prosecuted for breaking the lawing. However small companies regularly have to close due to prosecution. There was also the Universal regard that new legislation is unlikely to ever be implemented effectively and instead, it is down the the consumers to make a difference by voting with their wallets. To stop funding the companies that harm them.

What’s Next

I think this EPQ is a clear example that the people in this industry believe there are issues. For further investigation, I would interview more management roles and people in big tech companies. To do this, I would like to have to turn up to the offices as I had not gotten any reply from emails however I did not have enough time for this. I would have also liked to have spoken to people who regulate the tech industry such as MPs and Regulatory boards such as the BCS.

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