Tag: ETHICS

When you think of Stanford University, you probably think of a pristine campus shining as a beacon of academic excellence on the West Coast. But, believe it or not, there's a seedy trend happening at this California school. According to The New York Times, cheating is running amok in the university's computer science classes. Last year, copy-and-paste cheaters made up about 22-percent of the ...

Facebook and the workplace have never been exactly the best of buddies. Facebook/co-worker protocol deemed "acceptable" varies widely by occupation or sector. But for lawyers and judges in Florida, the choice is simple: Facebook's one thing, the courtroom's another. And nary the twain shall meet. The New York Times reports Florida's Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee recently published an ...

As part of the latest trend in online advertising, ad companies are paying normal people to pimp companies or products to their online friends or followers. According to the New York Times, companies think that consumers will be more likely to trust the opinions of their Facebook friends than they are a faceless commercial -- even if those "opinions" are formed with the promise of financial ...

A retooled set of guidelines released yesterday by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will force bloggers to be more transparent when reviewing products. According to Mashable, the new version of the "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising" forces writers to reveal any payments or products they may have received from advertisers when endorsing a product on a ...

Kids have always loved to mix it up with a little school-time tomfoolery, whether it's streaking at a football game or leaving a flaming bag of poop on a teacher's doorstep. But in the digital age, the mischief has moved online. What may seem like harmless virtual-reality hijinks can have devastating real-world consequences. Switched consulted sociologist Carrie James of Harvard's GoodPlay ...

Dr. James Heilman of Moose Jaw, Canada recently created a stir in the psychology and psychiatry fields when he posted to Wikipedia 10 inkblot images used in the Rorschach test. Relying on how an interviewee describes what they see in the blots, the blotchy images can supposedly reveal the workings of a human mind. The copyright on the images (published in 1921 by a Swiss psychiatrist of the same ...

The groundwork for robotic morality was laid by science fiction writer Isaac Asimov, who created the 'Three Laws of Robotics.' Taking these ideas to war, Georgia Institute of Technology professor Ron Arkin has tried to establish ethical mores for bots on the battlefield. Arkin, who used an advanced simulation system called MissionLab to create scenarios based on real-life, tested artificial ...

Video game outlet GameStop allows consumers to buy and sell used games, and, until recently, has been the only major retailer to provide such a service. According to reports this month from video game blog Kotaku, the franchise has been taking advantage of its market domination by selling used games as new ones. GameStop permits its employees to "check-out" games by playing them for up to four ...

This week, Fox News columnist Roger Friedman provided lecture fodder for journalistic ethics professors everywhere. When news of a pirated copy of 20th-Century Fox's forthcoming 'X-Men Origins: Wolverine' recently surfaced (the movie's set to hit the big screen May 1st), comic fans and interested moviegoers began scouring the Web for an early viewing. Mr. Friedman not only found and watched ...

Wow. Things at Office Depot appear to be worse than we could have possibly thought. In fact, the alleged apparent systematic misleading of customers makes the shenanigans at BestBuy look quite tame by comparison. Laptop Mag has published a follow up to its initial report of employees being encouraged to lie to customers at Office Depot. It turns out that salespeople at other Office Depot ...

Some Office Depot sales managers have been encouraging their employees to lie to customers, Laptop's blog revealed in an investigative report Tuesday. According to a number of the Web site's readers, who also claim to work for Office Depot, the practice of lying in regards to laptop availability is a common at the company due to strict corporate sales quotas. One reader named Rich, who Laptop ...

You know, when armchair futurists (and jive talkin' bloggists) make note of some of the scary new tech making the rounds in defense circles these days it's one thing, but when the Doomsday Scenarios come from official channels, that's when we start to get nervous. According to a report published by the California State Polytechnic University (with data made available by the U.S. Navy's Office ...

Even with Arnold Schwarzenegger in charge of California, we humans need to smarten up if we're to avoid the doomsday future foretold in movies like 'The Terminator' or 'The Matrix.' With robots on the verge of being able to think and feel on their own (like good ol' Johnny Five from 'Short Circuit'), and humans increasingly getting replaced on the job by robots, a no holds barred battle between ...