1. STS have seven broad components: hardware, software, physical surroundings, people/groups/roles, procedures, laws, and data/data structures.
2. Socio-technical systems embody values
- These include moral values like safety, privacy, property, free speech, equity and access, and security. Non-moral values can also be realized in and through Socio Technical Systems such as efficiency, costeffectiveness, control, sustainability, reliability, and stability.
- Moral values present in Socio Technical Systems can conflict with other embedded moral values; for example, privacy often conflicts with free speech. Non-moral values can conflict with moral values; developing a safe system requires time and money. And, non-moral values can conflict; reliability undermines efficiency and cost effectiveness. This leads to three problems that come from different value conflicts within Socio Technical Systems and between these systems and the technologies that are being integrated into them.
- Mismatches often arise between the values embedded in technologies and the Socio Technical Systems into which they are being integrated. As UNIX was integrated into the University of California Academic Computing STS (see Machado case at Computing Cases), the values of openness and transparency designed into UNIX clashed with the needs of students in the Academic Computing STS at UCI for privacy.
- Technologies being integrated into Socio Technical Systems can magnify, exaggerate, or exacerbate existing value mismatches in the STS. The use of P2P software combined with the ease of digital copying has magnifed existing conflicts concerning music and picture copyrights.
- Integrating technologies into STSs produces both immediate and remote consequences and impacts.
3. Socio-technical systems change
- These changes are bought about, in part, by the value mismatches described above. At other times, they result from competing needs and interests brought forth by different stakeholders. For example, bicycle designs, the configuration of typewriter keys, and the design and uses of cellular phones have changed as different users have adapted these technologies to their special requirements.
- These changes also exhibit what sociologists call a "trajectory", that is, a path of development. Trajectories themselves are subject to normative analysis. For example, some STSs and the technologies integrated into them display a line of development where the STS and the integrated technology are changed and redesigned to support certain social interests. The informating capacities of computing systems, for example, provide information which can be used to improve a manufacturing processes can or to monitor workers for enhancing management power. (See Shoshanna Zubof, The Age of the Smart Machine
- Trajectories, thus, outline the development of STSs and technologies as these are influenced by internal and external social forces.
In this section, you will learn about this module's exercises. The required links above provide information on the frameworks used in each section. For example, the Socio-Technical System module provides background information on socio-technical analysis. The "Three Frameworks" module provides a further description of the ethics tests, their pitfalls, and the feasibility test. These exercises will provide step by step instructions on how to work through the decision points presented above.
For more information see Huff and Jawer below.
Decision Point One:
You are the publicist for the company Biomatrix, a manufacturer of biotechnology products including Synvisc, a promising treatment for osteoarthritis. The CEO, Endre Balazs, and Vice President, Janet Denlinger, come to you. It seems that they are quite upset. Biomatrix and its top level employees have become the victims of cyber-smear. Dozens of messages have appeared in the highly visible Yahoo Financial Bulletin Board that make the following unsubstantiated accusations:
- Synvisc (a product manufactured by Biomatrix) produces seriously harmful side effects
- Biomatrix has deceived its stockholders by suppressing negative financial and product information
- Biomatrix and its employees have connections to the mafa
- Company public releases that the merger between Biomatrix and Genzyme is friendly are false. In fact, the messages allege that the merger will never take place because of Biomatrix's terrible financial profile
- Biomatrix CEO is under investigation by famous Nazi hunter, Simon Wiesenthal, for crimes he allegedly committed in Germany during the Second World War
- Biomatrix Vice President requires sexual favors from employees under her supervision as a condition for promotion
None of these charges is true. But Balazas and Denlinger are devastated by the personal attacks made upon them. Biomatrix also stands to lose a great deal from the negative publicity. Allegations of side effects from using Synvisc, a promising new produce patented by the company, threaten to drive the product out of the market. The recently announced friendly merger between Biomatrix and Genzyme has produced modest gains in stock prices but the cyber slanderers seem determined to drive Biomatrix stock value down.
You have been charged by Balazs and Denlinger, as publicist, with designing a rapid and effective campaign against this cyber-smear. Several issues have arisen that demand your immediate attention:
- The identity of the cyber-slanderers is unknown. What can you do, if anything, to find out who these individuals are?
- One of the slanderers claims to have worked for Biomatrix in the past. He/she uses this to lend credence to the attacks made on the company and its managers. If true, is there anything that can be done to prevent future employees from resorting to slander as a way of retaliating against the company?
- If the real identities of the individuals posting the Yahoo messages are revealed, should they be sued? What are the advantages of defamation lawsuits if those sued do not have the financial resources to compensate the victim for damages suffered?
- Should the cyber-slanderers be attacked? If so, how? How, in general, should corporations and their managers respond to cyber-slander? By publicly refuting the messages? By ignoring these attacks? By ignoring them until they produce clear damage? Or by responding quickly and proactively before they produce damage?
Decision Point Two: Defending Against Defamation:
The cat is out of the bag. The BXM Police, those self-styled whistle-blowers against the corporate greed of Biomatrix, have been revealed as Richard and Raymond Costanzo and Ephraim Morris. (Richard Costanzo and Ephraim Morris were former Biomatrix employees.) These are the real world names behind the 23 pseudonyms under which 16,000 anti-Biomatrix emails were posted on the Financial Bulletin Board of Yahoo between April 1999 and August 2000. These messages accused Biomatrix managers of sexual harassment and Nazi war crimes and Biomatrix of corporate greed.
Biomatrix managers feel that the company has a problem if its former employees find the motivation to behave in this manner. You are a human resourceofficialin the Biomatrix and it has fallen on you to design a strategy and program to prevent a reoccurrence of this cyber-smear disaster. What should you do?
- Bring a defamatory lawsuit against the three? Would this help to recoup damages? What other benefits could a successful defamation lawsuit bring? What would be the downside of such an action?
- Alter the way in which employees are let go. (In other words develop procedures for firing or laying off employees that would defuse the desire to get even.) What could be done to sever a relation with an employee in as good a fashion as possible?
- What steps could be taken to reduce the possibility of a former employee taking a "short selling" strategy? For example, could steps be taken to restrict the ways in which former employees use the confidential information they have about the company? Could risk identification measures be taken to uncover those who could or are benefiting from short selling a company's stock?
- Could Human Resources develop an effective program to counter cyber smear by effective communi cation of true and accurate information? How can a good reputation be established that could serve as a basis for counter-acting defamation?
- In short, design a strategy for Biomatrix that could minimize the risk of future cyber-smear attacks and/or minimize the impact of these attacks. Defend your strategy in the Ethics Bowl debate.
Decision Point Three: How far does free speech go?
You work with a public service organization devoted to the defense of free speech, both of and online. For this reason you immediately noticed a newspaper story that three individuals, Richard Costanzo, Raymond Costanzo, and Ephraim Morris, were found guilty in a summary judgment of defamation. It seems they published, under 23 psuedonyms, some 16,000 messages that made negative claims against Biomatrix and its managers that they were unable to substantiate.
The claims made by these individuals in their emails were pretty strong:
- Biomatrix's most popular product, Synvisc, has produced significant harmful side effects and the company has taken wrongful measures to suppress this information. Synvisc is a manufactured substance that resembles the natural fuids that lubricate knee movements. These fuids disappear with age producing a condition called osteoarthritis. Synvisc has been presented as a highly promising treatment for this problem.
- They also accuse Biomatrix of covering up that fact that they are targets of potentially damaging lawsuits.
- These three individuals, who style themselves the BXM Police, also accuse the company of covering up negative, harmful information about their upcoming merger with Genzyme. The messages claim that inside information reveals that the merger will never take place.
- The BXM police also accuse Biomatrix top management of having committed war crimes and acts of sexual harassment.
During pre-trial depositions, the accused were unable to substantiate any of these claims. While the motives for posting these messages have never been made clear three stand out: revenge, short selling, and the perception that rules of defamation did not apply in cyber space. You have been asked by your organization to contact the BXM Police and propose that they appeal this decision. You and your organization think that there are strong legal and ethical arguments, based on the right to free speech, that need to be put forth in this case. Your job in this decision point is to set forth these legal and moral arguments. In other words, construct a comprehensive defense for the BXM Police.
Important Considerations
- EPIC (Electric Privacy Information Center) and the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) present an amici curiae (friend of the court brief) outlining their concerns about the use of John Doe lawsuits to pierce online anonymity. This brief is summarized in the Biomatrix case materials.
- Perhaps the strongest case for Free Speech is made by John Stuart Mill in On Liberty. Consult this book and find his argument in the first chapter. The summary of this argument in the Biomatrix case materials will help. Do defamation lawsuits suppress free speech. Why does Mill think that it is wrong to suppress even completely false speech?
- Did Biomatrix and its management team suffer damages as a result of the Yahoo messages? What is this damage? What evidence proves that the damage was caused by the negative speech and not something else? Who bore the burden of proof in the summary judgment against the BXM Police?
- What is the strongest argument that Biomatrix made against the speech of the BXM three? How can you and organization counter this argument?
- The strongest argument the BXM Police offer for their actions is that they are not bound by rules of veracity and defamation while operating pseudonymously online. Should we be held responsible for what we say online? In the same way that we are held responsible of line? Doesn't Yahoo's disclaimer to readers that they should not assume that what they read is true suffice to exculpate those who post false speech?
- It has been suggested that the BXM Police were motivated by greed. Their speech was designed to lower the price of Biomatrix stock so they could profit from short selling it. Does this change you defense? There is also inconclusive evidence that they were not acting alone? Does this change your defense?
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