Blogging and Internet Ethics

On the 20th of September, Venerable Bodhi gave us a sharing on Internet Ethics.
It was a very interesting session for most of us.
We were separated into 4 different groups to discuss on the topic that we were given.
Such as Areas where Ethics are needed, How can we protect ourselves? , How to protect others?
What can we do?


We discussed that the areas where ethics are needed would be blogs, Friendster , Facebook , Email , Gaming, Instant Messenger , Online Shopping, Youtube , Downloading from the net.
When people blog, they should have “Internet Manners”. If one do not have the “manners” , blogs will be exploited as a mean to provoke people, create misunderstandings, , straining relationships among people as well as creating a upheaval. But of course, some bloggers have been quite successful in maintaining “ Internet Manners” and definitely sbmyouth is one such example =D. Besides blogging, applications such as facebook and Friendster can also hurt others if not controlled , for example, people use this media to make fun of their friends .


Next , how can we protect ourselves and protect others?
There are quite a lot of issues that are quite dangerous in the internet. Such examples will be hacking of accounts, credit card frauds, lottery scams, sensitive information leaked, young people addicted to gaming.


The way to prevent the hacking of your account and avoiding sensitive information being leaked out is to put a strong password which is not easily cracked by others. Recently there have been numerous cases of lottery scams and credit card frauds. There may not be many solutions to help this issue. But campaigns have been establish to raise awareness among the public to ask the people not to be easily taken in by those lottery scams.


What can we as Young Buddhist do?

We have discussed what are the things we can do, and we have came up with quite interesting ideas , some which may be implemented. Such as creating a eBuddy that is a desktop application that will teach you more on internet ethics, also allowing children from as young as primary 5 to be educated on the internet , also raising awareness and teaching others how to avoid lottery scams and frauds. And also to fight off the addiction among youths, we came up with an anti addiction day, whereby young people try not to game for a day. Starting from small, let’s try it ourselves! Any takers? ( refer to Venerable Bodhi).


Whatever we hope to implement to the public, we must also be practicing it.
Tune in to this blog for more tips on how to avoid lottery scams and also the response of our “Anti Addiction day! “. AH HAH! I see vicky’s thinking of joining this.


Cheers ! Wilson Chua signing off :)