This issue addresses three of the most fraught and pressing ethical issues of our digital lives: cyberbullying, suicide trolling, and hateful speech. But it also features a discussion of American journalism at its best.
For victims of cyberbullying, the harm of such behavior is clear. But in recent debates, some commentators have argued that proposed remedies, including speech restrictions, posed as much or more harm than the original behavior. Rachel Young uses Moral Dyad Theory to analyze how parties articulated both harm and responsibility on cyberbullying in opinion media.
Spotlight wasn’t just a great movie; it also showcases the power and importance of good journalism. Yayu Feng analyzes how the film illustrates journalists embodying the highest ideals of virtue ethics and, as such, serves as a compelling vehicle to teach virtue ethics to journalism students.
With a series of recent suicides linked to sites that promote suicide and even allow people to stream their own deaths, Raphael Cohen-Almagor and Sam Lehman-Wilzig examine how we might make such intermediary platforms more responsible and accountable. They suggest a range of ways to do so at the technological, organizational and societal policy levels.
Finally, Leslie Klein and Brett Johnson offer a framing analysis to explore how editorial and opinion writers might draw on the ethics of care when addressing a landmark Supreme Court decision protecting hateful speech. They suggest that the tendency to frame the competing arguments of emotional harm and free speech in Snyder v. Phelps as a moral equivalency resulted in a missed opportunity to emphasize the seriousness of the harm posed by the homophobic activists.