[Air-L] workshop on ethics of cyber activism at the University of Warwick

[Mariariosaria Taddeo]

Apologies for cross-posting

 
The ethics of cyber-activism 
Cyber activism or Hacktivism is an emerging phenomenon, which has recently become more prominent thanks to the actions of a group called Anonymous. In brief, cyber-activism is an evolution of hacking activities motivated by political and ethical reasons directed at both public institutions and private citizens and which rests on the perception of the cyberspace as a digital commons that should be freely and equally enjoyed by all individuals.
 
Issues pertaining to cyber activism have been observed and analysed by several scholars over the past decade. However, cyber activism is now becoming a concerning phenomenon mainly thanks to the actions of Anonymous. This is a highly distributed group famously identified by Guy Fawkes mask, which since 2008  has become a symbol of the movement and of the fight against power and authorities that Anonymous' members claim to conduct.
 
Members of this group launched in the past several 'operations' targeting both individuals who had allegedly committed immoral acts and commercial or public websites as in the case of Operation Payback or in the attack launched against Scientology with the so called Project Chanology.
 
The growth of Anonymous and, more in general, the dissemination of the use of the cyber sphere as a new medium to foster activism poses several questions at the crossroad between social and political sciences and ethics. 
 
Programme:
Time
Speaker
Topic
10:00
Opening remarks
10:15 – 10:45
Lee Salter (University of Sussex)
Media Understandings of Cyberactivism: Ethics and power in public discourse
10:45 – 11:00
Coffee
11:00 – 11:30
Keren Elazari
Unmasking Anonymous – the Global hacker movement
11:30 – 12:00
George Lucas (US Naval University)
Three ways of being a Cyber Hacktivist
12:00 – 12:30
Stefania Milan (European Institute)
Ethics of technology and ethics of organising: the Cyberactivists’ struggle for moral values in cyberspace
12:30 – 13:00
Timothy Jordan (KCL)
Generations of Hacktivism
13:00 – 14:30
Lunch
14:30 – 15:00
Llouis Reynolds (DEMOS)
Service Generation: a step change in youth social action
15:00 – 15:30
Simon Lindgren (Umea University, Sweden)
Global media, Local movements: The role of local context in social media mobilisation
15:30 – 16:00
Pollyanna Ruiz (LSE)
Activism, Anonymity, Accountability
16:00 – 16:30
Coffee
16:30 – 17:00
Carolyn Gideon
Spill over Effects of Cyber Activism and Policy Implications
17:00 – 17:30
Round table
 
Location:
Building 28 (See below)

Where is the International Manufacturing Laboratory?
   
 
Further information:
 
For further information, please see the website:http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/research/ierg/cyberethics or contact Dr. Mariarosaria Taddeo (M.Taddeo at warwick.ac.uk)
 
If you would like to attend this workshop, please email Mrs. Shona Parsons s.m.parsons at warwick.ac.uk
 

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Dr. Mariarosaria Taddeo
Research Fellow in Cyber Security and Ethics, PAIS, University of Warwick
Research Associate - Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, University of Oxford
President, International Association for Computing and Philosophy
http://rosariataddeo.net