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“Be a Pattern for the World”: The Development of a Dark Patterns Detection Tool to Prevent Online User Loss

Dark Patterns are designed to trick users into sharing more information or spending more money than they had intended to do, by configuring online interactions to confuse or add pressure to the users. They are highly varied in their form, and are therefore difficult to classify and detect. Therefore, this research is designed to develop a framework for the automated detection of potential instances of web-based dark patterns, and from there to develop a software tool that will provide a highly useful defensive tool that helps detect and highlight these patterns

Minding the Gap: Computing Ethics and the Political Economy of Big Tech

In 1988 Michael Mahoney wrote that “[w]hat is truly revolutionary about the computer will become clear only when computing acquires a proper history, one that ties it to other technologies and thus uncovers the precedents that make its innovations significant” (Mahoney, 1988). Today, over thirty years after this quote was written, we are living right in the middle of the information age and computing technology is constantly transforming modern living in revolutionary ways and in such a high degree that is giving rise to many ethical considerations, dilemmas, and social disruption. To explore the myriad of issues associated with the ethical challenges of computers using the lens of political economy it is important to explore the history and development of computer technology

Technical Debt is an Ethical Issue

We introduce the problem of technical debt, with particular focus on critical infrastructure, and put forward our view that this is a digital ethics issue. We propose that the software engineering process must adapt its current notion of technical debt – focusing on technical costs – to include the potential cost to society if the technical debt is not addressed, and the cost of analysing, modelling and understanding this ethical debt. Finally, we provide an overview of the development of educational material – based on a collection of technical debt case studies - in order to teach about technical debt and its ethical implication

Developing an IT tool for improving workforce motivation and capabilities: An empirical case study with reference to Qatar

Human, Organisation and Technology (HOT) are all important components of IS. However, organisations look to technology as the main tool of change that can help them achieve their goals. This change usually concerns the needs of the organisation, and not the needs of its human resources, despite it being the latter that is the principal actor that any organisation depends upon to achieve its goals. The aim of this research is to develop an IT tool that itself can satisfy the workforce humanistic needs. In order to develop this IT tool, a theoretical investigation and practical experimentations were conducted in a series of case studies involving government organisations in Qatar. Based on the theoretical investigation, an approach was proposed based on Socio-Technical Theory (STT), supported by learning from the ETHICS application of STT concepts and Client-Led Information systems Creation (CLIC) application of Soft System Methodology (SSM) principles. This approach was used to guide the development of the IT tool which was then used in actual organisational work environments to assess its impact on the Qatari workforce's motivation and capabilities. Empirical results from this research show that an IT itself cannot be used to improve workforce motivation and capabilities in the case of Qatar. However, IT can do this by supporting a work environment enabled by necessary managerial practises and work environment requirements. Based on the proposed approach, this requires firstly, an understanding of the needs of the social subsystem of the organisation to improve workforce motivation and capability; then these needs should be developed into functions that are enabled by the work environment and supported by the IT tool. Lastly, the new IT tool needs to be integrated into the existing technical subsystem of the organisation. These findings have both theoretical and practical implications. They contribute to a better understanding of the role of IT in improving the workforce's motivation and capabilities. They extend the application of STT principles in the area of developing human-focused IS by finding an alternative to the participatory approach via learning from SSM principles. They also provide specific understanding of how to develop an IT tool as well as what the work environment needs to provide to enable the application of the IT tool, to improve workforce motivation and capabilities. This PhD research also has social implications for the way IT is utilised in organisations. It can affect areas of IS utilisation and workforce well-being, as well as the role of leadership in maximising the value of IS from a human-focused perspective and the area of utilising IT in a virtual team to consider their humanistic needs

Proceedings of the ETHICOMP 2022: Effectiveness of ICT ethics - How do we help solve ethical problems in the field of ICT?

This Ethicomp is again organized in exceptional times. Two previous ones were forced to turn to online conferences because of Covid-pandemic but it was decided that this one would be the physical one or cancelled as the need for real encounters and discussion between people are essential part of doing philosophy. We need possibility to meet people face to face and even part of the presentation were held distance–because of insurmountable problems of arriving by some authors– we manage to have real, physical conference, even the number of participants was smaller than previous conferences.The need of Ethicomp is underlined by the way world nowadays is portrayed for us. The truthfulness and argumentation seem to be replaced by lies, strategic games, hate and disrespect of humanity in personal, societal and even global communication. EThicomp is many times referred as community and therefore it is important that we as community do protect what Ethicomp stands for. We need to seek for goodness and be able to give argumentation what that goodness is. This lead us towards Habermass communicative action and Discourse ethics which encourages open and respectful discourse between people (see eg.Habermass 1984;1987;1996). However, this does not mean that we need to accept everything and everybody. We need to defend truthfulness, equality and demand those from others too. There are situations when some people should be removed from discussions if they neglect the demand for discourse. Because by giving voice for claims that have no respect for argumentation, lacks the respect of human dignity or are not ready for mutual understanding (or at least aiming to see possibility for it) we cannot have meaningful communication. This is visible in communication of all levels today and it should not be accepted, but resisted. It is duty of us all.</p