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Ethics Inf Technol (2010) 12:187–193

DOI 10.1007/s10676-010-9219-5

ORIGINAL PAPER

PAPA knows best: Principles for the ethical sharing


of information on social networking sites
James L. Parrish Jr.

Published online: 13 February 2010


Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010

Abstract The advent of social networking sites has ethical issues concerning the information on which the
changed the face of the information society Mason wrote of intellectual capital is built. In particular, Mason would have
23 years ago necessitating a reevaluation of the social us focus on the ethical issues concerning the privacy,
contracts designed to protect the members of the society. accuracy, property, and accessibility of information (com-
Despite the technological and societal changes that have monly referred to by the acronym PAPA). Focusing on
happened over the years, the information society is still these issues can help those living in the information society
based on the exchange of information. This paper examines construct the social contract by which to deal with the
various historical events involving social networking sites threats to their intellectual capital (Mason 1986).
through the lens of the PAPA framework (Mason 1986) to In the 23 years since Mason penned this ethical frame-
highlight select ethical issues regarding the sharing of work, one must stop to wonder if he could foresee just how
information in the social-networking age. Four preliminary ‘social’ the social contract would become. Today, social
principles are developed to guide the ethical use of social networking sites (SNS) such as Twitter, Facebook,
networking sites (SNS). MySpace, YouTube, and Flickr allow people to publish and
share information in ways like never before. Additionally,
Keywords IS ethics  PAPA  Social networking sites the proliferation of mobile devices such web-enabled cell
phones allow for the instantaneous collection of informa-
tion for sharing on these sites. For example, a person can
Introduction take a picture or video of an event, post it to a media-
sharing site, and write about it in a blog, or post a comment
‘‘Our moral imperative is clear. We must ensure that on a SNS in almost real time as the event unfolds.
information technology and the information that it Nowhere has this been more evident than in the cover-
handles, are used to enhance the dignity of mankind. age of the 2009 Iranian elections. After a landslide victory
To achieve these goals we must formulate a new by the incumbent president, in an election believed by
social contract, one that ensures that everyone has the many to be closely contested, hundreds of thousands of
right to fulfill his or her own human potential (Mason, protesters took to the streets to dispute the results.
1986, p. 11).’’ Although the international media was blocked from
reporting on the events, the story was still relayed in the
In 1986, Richard Mason enlightened us to the challenges
form of web chats, emails, posted videos to YouTube and,
we face in the information age and the threats to intellec-
most notably, 140 characters or less micro-blog posts or
tual capital. The heart of this threat is a broad array of
‘‘tweets’’ to the social networking site Twitter. In response
to the public’s use of these sites to relay the protest events,
the government shut down many text messaging systems,
J. L. Parrish Jr. (&)
SNS, and Internet sites that supported Mir Hossein
University of Arkansas at Little Rock, 2801 S. University
Avenue, Little Rock, AR 72204-1099, USA Mousavi, the challenger to incumbent President Mahmoud
e-mail: jlparrish@ualr.edu Ahmadinejad. However, despite the efforts of the Iranian

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188 J. L. Parrish Jr.

government, information still managed to find its way out bounded in part by its artifactual nature. In this sense, an
of Iran via social networks and other technological means artifactual system is one created by people and subject to
(Johnson and Murphy 2009; Murphy 2009). change by people in the ways they are governed at the local
This information served as one of the only links between level (Donaldson and Dunfee 1994). So, what may be
the events on the ground in Iran and the outside world. In ethically appropriate on one SNS, may not be on another.
fact, the images and words were so important to those This may even be true within a single SNS. Take the
around the world following the protests that the U.S. State example of the Iranian elections. The people that are
Department asked Twitter to delay system upgrades that interacting on the site in support or opposition of a par-
might have caused service outages in the Iranian capital ticular political candidate certainly could qualify as a
(Landler and Mazetti 2009). Given the impact of this event, community given the definition above. However, what of
it seems a good look at the use of the posted information is the casual observer of the situation thousands of miles
warranted. Specifically, does the use of this information away? Do they share the same goals, values, or tasks?
violate the social contract Mason advocated that is Donaldson and Dunfee (1994) attempt to reconcile this
designed to protect individuals from such indignities as situation by differentiating the extant social contract into a
having private information revealed without their consent macrosocial contract, which are principles shared by all
or having decisions that could affect their personal liveli- participants in a system, and a microsocial contract that
hood or that of others based on said information(Mason specifies ethical norms for the local communities.
1986)? According to Donaldson and Dunfee (1994), the general
The goal of this paper is twofold. The first is to illustrate principles that make up this macrosocial contract are:
some of the ethical issues regarding the sharing of infor-
1. Local communities may enable microsocial contracts
mation on SNS by examining the information shared in
to establish norms for their members.
important world events such as the 2009 Iranian elections
2. The microsocial contracts must contain a right to exit
and the U.S. war in Iraq. These events will be examined
and be grounded in informed consent.
through the lens of Mason’s PAPA framework to highlight
3. The required elements of the microsocial contract must
issues related to each element. The second goal is to
be compatible with hypernorms.
develop principles that will provide guidance to those who
4. In attempting to satisfy the previous principles, conflict
post to and consume information on SNS and to support the
between norms will be settled by assigning priority to
establishment of norms that will allow better definition of
norms in a manner consistent with the spirit and letter
the social contract that protects individuals in the infor-
of the macrosocial contract.
mation age.
Norms that pass principles 1 and 2, are called authentic
norms. Obligatory norms are authentic norms that also pass
Social contracts principle 3. The hypernorms referred to in principle 3 are
ethical principles that are fundamental to human existence
Extant social contracts such as the one referred to by Mason such as human rights, freedom, physical security and well-
are defined by Dunfee (1991, p. 32) as ‘‘existing social being, and the obligation to respect human dignity (Don-
contacts embodying actual behavioral norms which derive aldson and Dunfee 1994). It is apparent that Mason also
from shared goals, beliefs and attitudes of groups or com- considered these hypernorms as he developed the social
munities of people’’. The social contracts these communities contract illustrated in his PAPA framework.
create are generally informal arrangements in which the This notion of a macrosocial contract as it relates to
participants are not bound by an explicit set of rules, rather social networking, however, is a bit amorphous in light of
they consent to the norms of the group by becoming a part of the pace of technological advancement. One of the primary
or engaging in transactions within the community (Donald- purposes of SNS is to share information, but do the norms
son and Dunfee 1994; Dunfee 1991). A community is defined of this information sharing adhere to the principles of the
by Donaldson and Dunfee (1994, p. 262) as ‘‘a self-defined, macrosocial contract? It is apparent that local communities
self-circumscribed, group of people who interact in the have the ability to establish microsocial contracts to govern
context of shared tasks, values, or goals and who are capable them. However, the exit and informed consent in principle
of establishing ethical norms of behavior for themselves’’. 2 is not so clear. The SNS Facebook has experienced some
It would be difficult to define a social contract that high profile issues with privacy over the past few years
would encompass the entirety of SNS much like it would stemming from its Beacon program that relayed informa-
be difficult to define a social contract to govern all eco- tion about its user’s visits to third party websites in some
nomic practice across the globe. This may be because, cases even after their accounts had been deactivated. It has
much like economic ethics, the ethics that govern SNS are also been accused of allegedly sharing user information

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Ethical use of SNS 189

without proper consent. However, the issue of whether or (1986) argues that it is important to focus on just four:
not SNS are providing proper informed consent at an privacy, accuracy, property, and accessibility. In Mason’s
organizational level is a matter of argument and outside the framework, privacy relates to the information an individual
ethical scope of this paper. has to share with others, the safeguards they have to protect
At the individual level, there is little doubt a lack of themselves as a result of sharing the information, and the
informed consent as it relates to the sharing of information rights of the individual to not share information at all.
exists. This may not be an issue for individuals acting in a Accuracy addresses the questions of the authenticity of
public space with little expectation of privacy, but it is for information, accountability for the authenticity of the
those that are acting in a space where the expectation for information, and reciprocity as a result of damage done due
privacy is valid. Imagine that an individual takes pictures at to the use of inaccurate information. Issues of information
a private social gathering and posts them to an SNS. What ownership and exchange are covered in the area of prop-
if a member of the community subscribing to the micro erty. Finally, accessibility is concerned with those issues
social contract who is pictured in those images deactivates surrounding the access to information (Mason 1986).
their account, do they disappear from the images? What Some would argue that the PAPA framework is not
effect does this have on their right of exit? Furthermore, broad enough in scope to deal with the ethical environment
what are the chances the person posting the pictures pro- of today. For example, Fairweather (2000) argues that
vides informed consent to every individual captured in the focusing on the issues related to the four aspects of PAPA
images? What about those individuals who indicate what may result in other ethical issues being overlooked and
others are doing in their status updates, do they provide some areas of information technology do not fit within the
informed consent? These are the actions enabled by the framework. This paper argues PAPA is focused on infor-
ability to capture images and text using mobile devices for mation, rather than information technology and the four
direct posting to SNS. While this technological advance- areas covered in PAPA are applicable to all information.
ment allows individuals to interact with more people and in Thus, because PAPA is focused on the more stable nature
more ways than ever before, it also inhibits the formation of the qualities of information, rather than the dynamic
of authentic norms within the community on which a nature of the technology itself or those who interact with it,
macrosocial contract can be defined. it is an applicable base from which to develop ethical
While the amount and type of information shared can vary principles to guide the use of SNS.
from community to community, it can be argued that sharing
at least some information is obligatory to become part of the Privacy
community. It can also be argued that in some cases the
information shared may not be compatible with hypernorms. Mason (1986) writes that two forces threaten our privacy.
As an example, let’s return to the example of the Iranian One is the advancement in information technology and its
elections. Is the picture of a Iranian protester shared on a ever-increasing ability to capture, compute, and commu-
SNS, resulting in that person losing their freedom because nicate information. The other is the value of information to
they were incarcerated by the ruling party or beaten by sup- those who can use it to their advantage. For instance,
porters of the other candidate, compatible with hypernorms? mobile computing devices can be and are used to access
One would think that sharing this information in certain SNS from anywhere in the world. However, the real threat
contexts violates some of these basic human principles. to privacy lies in the fact that the devices can take still
For the reasons presented above, the notion of a social images, record video, text commentary, or any combination
contract relating to communities as espoused by Donaldson of the three and send it directly to SNS for consumption by
and Dunfee may be inapplicable to SNS. This paper argues the community. This information is not only valuable to
that the elements affecting ethical principles created for those that wish to enjoy the benefits provided by SNS, but
information sharing on SNS are derived not from the also to those that would wish to do us harm. For example,
people involved, but from the information that is shared. studies have shown that attempts to gain information from
For that reason, the PAPA framework seems to be a rele- individuals for purposes of identity theft are significantly
vant foundation from which to develop the aforementioned more successful if information about the target’s social
ethical principles for information sharing on SNS. context is used (Jagatic et al. 2007). This demonstrates the
importance of taking steps to ensure the privacy of the
information that one shares on SNS.
PAPA and social networking In examining the world events discussed earlier, the
scope of the issue of privacy broadens beyond the indi-
The ethical issues relating to the use of information are vidual. For example, when a U.S. Representative was
wide ranging in scope and in number. However, Mason touring Iraq in February of 2009, he released micro-blogs

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of the trip via the social networking site Twitter. In doing context.’ In a report for the Associated Press by Brian
so, he detailed not only his location, but that of the entire Murphy (2009), CNN spokesperson Nigel Pritchard states:
congressional delegation on a trip that was supposed to be
‘‘It is important that the audience has a clear under-
secret (Templeton 2009). SNS have changed the privacy
standing of not only that (vetting) process, but also
equation such that users of these sites must be responsible
the fact that in some cases we are not able to fully
for their information privacy as well as the information
verify content from those third-party sites,’’ Pritchard
privacy of all that accompany them and those that happen
said. ‘‘Especially in a media situation like we have in
to be in same general vicinity as well.
Iran, it is vital that all elements of our reporting are
Take as another example the images that are being
placed in full context.’’
posted on SNS from the streets of Tehran. Updates from
the protests in newspapers are littered with images and When faced with such violent and moving images such
videos from anonymous sources (Mackey 2009). While as those that are being shared on SNS, can context serve as
those that take the images or record the videos have their a proxy for accuracy?
privacy protected by the veil of anonymity, who will pro- It is not just the issue of anonymous posting of content
tect the individuals who appear in the images? Did they on SNS that contributes to the issues of accuracy. Many
give consent to have the information of their attendance people deliberately post inaccurate items or pretend to be
broadcast to the world? Who ensures their rights to protesters while, in reality, they are actually spectators with
privacy? an agenda. For example, while the Associated Press
The U.S. military has become all too familiar with these reported items from social networking that can be con-
threats as they use SNS in the war zones of Iraq and nected to actual events, they are also aware that some
Afghanistan. While recognizing threats exist to themselves people are changing their profile locations to Tehran in an
and to others, they also realize the benefits that SNS pro- attempt to gain more global exposure for their postings
vide. The general response to the threats to information (Murphy 2009). Additionally, just because there are post-
privacy by the service men and women has been to develop ings by people posing as protesters in Iran, the postings
a culture of ‘‘self-censorship’’ to ensure the privacy of not may have nothing to do with the Iranian elections. A quick
only themselves, but those around them as well (Templeton look at the site twitspam.org will reveal there are postings
2009). This leads us to our first ethical principle of SNS: that spread misinformation and ill will regarding the
Iranian elections, suggest violence against police, make
1. When sharing information on SNS, it is not only
anti-Semitic remarks, or spam individuals with pornogra-
necessary to consider the privacy of one’s personal
phy and other unwanted sites (Twitspam 2009). The
information, but the privacy of the information of
problem is compounded by the fact that those spreading
others who may be tied to the information being
disinformation have the ability to create multiple accounts
shared.
to carry out their agendas. While communities such as
Twitspam work diligently to inform the users of SNS of
those that would misuse the sites, it is ultimately the
Accuracy responsibility of users to ensure that they are not legiti-
mizing the inaccuracy of the information by passing it
The response to the Iranian elections has also highlighted along to others. This is the foundation for the second
issues regarding the accuracy of the data shared on SNS. principle of ethical social networking site usage:
Many of the accounts and images being shared on SNS are
2. When sharing information on SNS, it is the responsi-
posted by anonymous sources. This makes verifying the
bility of the one desiring to share information to verify
accuracy of the information of great importance to the
the accuracy of the information before sharing it.
groups using it. For example, look at the differing
responses by journalists to the video depicting the shooting
of the young woman known as ‘Neda’ posted on the social
networking sites YouTube and Facebook. As the images Property
began to appear on various worldwide media outlets, the
Associated Press verified the videos existed after contact- Perhaps no area of PAPA has changed with the advent of
ing several protesters via email or phone but found no one SNS and the user-generated content shared on them more
who actually witnessed the incident (Murphy, 2009). CNN than property. In regards to property, Mason’s (1986)
reports they broadcast fully verified content, but they also concerns centered on taking information from individuals
broadcast content derived from SNS that has not been (called ‘disemmindment’) and embedding it into intelligent
verified with the caveat of putting the content in ‘full systems. While intellectual property rights are obviously

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important, this paper is focused on the ownership issues Internet. Whether this happens with or without the consent
regarding personal information users share on SNS. of the user, the point is that placing information on SNS
As of late, the issue of who owns the information posted may not relieve the user of ‘‘actual’’ ownership of the
to SNS has been one of great debate. This debate reached information, but there is a good chance that they will lose
critical mass in February of 2009 when Facebook changed ‘‘effective’’ ownership of it. In order to truly ‘own’ infor-
its terms of service to allow the company to retain the mation an individual must not only have a legal right to it,
content existing in user accounts indefinitely even after but to be able to account for its various locations as well as
termination of the account. This resulted in a backlash from have access to those locations. The principle for the ethical
the users of the social networking site who believed this use of SNS related to property is as follows:
meant Facebook was claiming that any content that they
3. A user of SNS should not post information about
generated on the site would be owned exclusively by and
themselves that they feel they may want to retract at
used in whatever manner Facebook wished (Selter 2009).
some future date. Furthermore, users of SNS should
While Facebook contended there was no malicious intent
not post information that is the product of the mind of
and the social networking site did not want to claim the
another individual unless they are given consent by
content of its users, consumer groups saw the issue dif-
that individual. In both cases, once the information is
ferently calling it a ‘‘digital rights grab’’ and warning users
shared, it may be impossible to retract.
to ‘‘never upload anything that you don’t feel comfortable
giving away forever (Stone and Selter 2009)’’. Three days
later, responding to pressure from many angry users and Access
the threat of litigation from a group of consumer advocacy
groups, Facebook reverted back to an earlier version of Access in Mason’s framework is intended to combat
their terms-of-service contract that did not contain the ‘information illiteracy.’ His conception of access consists
ownership clause and stated that it would work with its of access to education so that citizens of the information
users to develop a more amenable terms-of-service contract society can develop the intellectual skills to cope with
(Stone and Selter 2009). information, access to the technological tools with which to
Despite the fact that Facebook retreated on their changes store and process the information, and the access to the
to their terms-of-service contract, users should still con- information itself. Access was an issue in 1986 when
sider carefully the content they wish to share on SNS if Mason originally penned the PAPA framework. Mason
they don’t want to lose control of the information forever. even went as far as to say that the level of access as he
This has nothing to do with the site. Rather, it has to do described it was in a state of retreat (Mason 1986). While
with search engines and their ability to cache content. Say, this may have been the case in 1986, it is not today. Issues
for example, a user posts an image on a social networking such as Net Neutrality, where providers can throttle down
site and then thinks better of it a few days later. If it was the bandwidth of some online content providers while
cached by a search engine, it will still be accessible allowing others full access to bandwidth in exchange for
regardless of whether or not it is removed from the site payment do affect an individual’s access to information,
(Mitrano 2006). Is it still the user’s picture? Do they have but not to the extent that they did in Mason’s time. The
the right to have it removed? Of course they do. However, Internet and its effects on globalization have been well
they now have to work through the search engine to do so chronicled in the book The World is Flat, by Thomas
by following their procedure for removing the cached Friedman. In this book, Friedman discusses how the
content. Then, they have to follow the same procedure for Internet has allowed individuals to collaborate and compete
any other search engine that may have indexed and cached globally (Friedman 2005). This is partially because infor-
the content on the social networking site (Mitrano 2006). mation technology has become ubiquitous in the global
The prior example deals with the loss of control and society and that gives us access to information and to each
exclusive property rights to information posted on SNS (or other. In the case of SNS it is also partially due to the fact
anywhere on the Internet) via technological means. Just that Web 2.0 technologies have made it easier for indi-
imagine the people that may come across a user’s profile viduals to create and consume information without the
and find something interesting enough to share with others. requirements of possessing detailed knowledge of the
Perhaps the user doesn’t mind that they take a copy of technology they are using to do so.
whatever information that they find interesting, but then While the level of access enjoyed by the members of
what happens to those people that take it from them, with today’s information society is unprecedented, it comes with
or without permission? It seems that the very ‘disem- a level of risk. Private businesses have found reasons to
mindment’ that Mason feared is happening on a grand scale restrict access to SNS citing reasons of lost worker pro-
being facilitated by the pervasive interconnectivity of the ductivity, non-business usage of network resources, and

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security (Yun and Kelley 2008). While the first two reasons any type of threat goes out the window if the content
are primarily of concern to organizations and are outside comes from someone within a circle or from a known
the scope of this paper, the third is a concern to both source.’’
businesses and individuals. It has been previously noted
This means that when a user of SNS provides access to
that phishing attacks become much more successful when
their information they are also, in many cases, providing
the attackers use information gained from sources such as
access to the information of other users they are associated
SNS (Jagatic et al. 2007). However, SNS can also be used
with on the SNS. Even if the access to the other user’s
as the tools to carry out phishing attacks, as well as being
information is not direct, they have, at a minimum, given a
distribution vectors for viruses and other forms of malware
reason to trust the person or program that they have granted
(Yun and Kelley 2008). It is this concern about the security
access to. Because of this, the SNS user has some level of
of corporate systems and individuals that have spurred
responsibility with regards to harm that may be caused to
researchers (Carminati et al. 2009; Carminati et al. 2008)
others as a result of allowing persons or programs that are
and practitioners (Yun and Kelley 2008) to devise ways to
not legitimate access to their account.
control access to SNS, mostly at the organizational level.
One may wonder about the responsibility that the SNS
Given that access to shared information is a concern to both
has in this regard. Many SNS programs have provided a
organizations as well as individuals, what ethical obliga-
means for SNS users for not allowing a program or person
tions do individuals have relating to the access of their
access to their account or to restrict the information that is
shared information on SNS?
available if they do grant access. While these controls are
Mason (1986) stated that systems should be accessible
provided to SNS users, the user has to activate them. This
so that individuals would not be illiterate with respect to
is most likely done for practical reasons since SNS are
information. He also believed in accessibility of systems so
meant for sharing information so high levels of default
that people would not be deprived of information. It may
security go against the spirit of the SNS. It could also be
be that today’s issues of access as they relate to individuals
that the administrators of the SNS fear that a higher level of
are no longer issues relating to the intellectual and tech-
security would would be viewed as intrusive by their users
nological barriers that cause information illiteracy, but
much like the security in the Windows Vista UAC (Albro
rather are social and legal issues. Also, because the tech-
and Dahl 2007), thus causing them to go to SNS that are
nology in general and SNS in particular has made the
more user friendly. The point is that while the SNS can
sharing of information so prevalent, individuals that are
provide security features, the SNS user still has to make the
illiterate about the qualities of information may be more
final decision on whether or not to allow a person or pro-
vulnerable to information exploitation rather than infor-
gram access to their account. From this stream of thought
mation deprivation.
comes the final principle:
A recent study by security software vendor AVG found
that only 43% of users of the SNS Facebook use the site’s 4. It is the responsibility of the SNS user to determine the
access controls to limit the access that others have to their authenticity of a person or program before allowing the
information. Even more alarming is that the same study person or program access to the shared information.
reveals that 21% of SNS users accept ‘‘friend’’ requests
from people they don’t know, 26% share files, and 64%
click on unknown hyperlinks despite knowing the risks
Conclusion
involved. As a result, the study found that 47% of the users
surveyed had experienced a malware attack, 20% had their
The explosion of SNS has changed the way human beings
identity stolen, and more than 50% were phished (Ragan
connect, collaborate, and live their daily lives. There is no
2009). Additionally, sites such as Facebook and MySpace
doubt that as technology becomes more advanced these
allow users to grant profile access to applications and
changes will continue. With these changes, however, we
games that can be written by anyone.
are also faced with a multitude of new ethical dilemmas
Often, it is not only the individual sharing the infor-
caused by our interaction with the technology. These
mation that is at risk. People can use the access granted by
changes will require reconsideration of the existing social
one user to attack others. Steve Ragan (2009) writes:
contracts that govern ethical behavior in order to stay
‘‘The idea of exploiting trust in the website and in the effective in protecting the rights of SNS users. Although
community circle is how many criminals stay suc- the information society Mason (1986) envisioned when he
cessful. If a person or source is seen as trusted, then originally conceived of PAPA has changed dramatically
there is little risk associated with anything that source over the years, it is still concerned with the ethical use of
offers in the eyes of the user. The foreknowledge of information. To summarize, the principles are:

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