The coronavirus has now infected 34664 people and caused 724 people dead. The Hubei province in China, which has 60 million people, is entirely locked down. Why the virus spread so quickly? This case might help.
Doctor Li, who exposed the existence of coronavirus at first in December, passed away because of virus. When he first published the information about coronavirus, the police locked him up and let him sign an official confession form.
The government immediately hold a press conference and said that "the coronavirus is totally fake news and people who spread the rumors will get punished". This happened in late December and the outbreak of virus came afterward. This is a severe information ethics issue that the government misled its people heavily and tried to block the truth. What is information ethics? According to Floridi, "it's described as the study of moral issues arising from availability, accessibility, and accuracy of information resources, independently of their format, kind and physical support". This is information-as-a-product ethics and morality comes how people decide to publicize their "product". Doctor Li realized the significant negative influence of virus and decided to publish the information due to the responsibility as a doctor and the action of the government came from long-term bureaucracy. They have the same product -- information of coronavirus and the difference in handling information caused a profound sequence to the society and entire humankind.
Kant's analysis shows the immortality of lying and we can see how ineffective management of information product can have tragic consequences. Admittedly, sometimes the lying is inevitable. However, it depends on the product we are facing with. A piece of good news is China has sent a special investigation team to get more details about doctor's death and the leaders of government made the decision to improve the management system of information products. Improvements are always good but the price is sometimes too high to be affordable.
Hi Hanping, the article you wrote has made me reflect on the privilege to speak our minds freely in the U.S. On one hand, we want to be able to exercise our freedom of speech, but on the other we do not want to spread misinformation or harm others. I believe that we should always do our own research before coming to a conclusion.
ReplyDeleteOverall, I think you did a great job connecting the readings to the idea of handling information. One thing you could work on is fixing up some of the minor grammatical errors in your article.
Hi Hanping, I thought this was a really good article that connects what we talk about everyday in class to what is currently going on in the news. This story behind Dr. Li and the spread of the virus is a very interesting one and you did a great job of summarizing the story, but since these are blog posts that can potentially go public maybe include a source that explains the story in more detail and validates what you've written. Additionally, I would give a little more context about Floridi, i.e. the reading its from, what he's arguing etc. Besides that, great post!
ReplyDeleteThis is a really great article that is extremely relevant to what is going on in the world today. The way you connected it to what we are learning is class was perfect. It is very immoral that the doctor was told not to say anything and connecting that to Floridi and Kant to highlight the horrible consequences flowed perfectly. One thing I might suggest would to give a brief background on who Floridi and Kant are because some people reading these blogs may not be in our class. Also, be sure to read through your article to check for grammatical errors. Overall, this is an amazing post!
ReplyDeleteThis was insightful and very relevant to the topic of information ethics. I especially liked this idea you mentioned: "They have the same product -- information of coronavirus and the difference in handling information caused a profound sequence to the society and entire humankind." The product is the same, but the way each party handled distribution was vastly different. I liked your connections to readings as well. As a commenter previously mentioned, there are a few minor grammatical errors, but aside from that, great article!
ReplyDeleteAs a Chinese, I feel really sorry about this thing happened. He is a good doctor, and he is doing what he think is right, but the government trying to deny him, and accuse him with the charge. This showed how the polices are not respect to doctor, to the medical advice. I think this is huge ethic problem, you should acknowledge what you know and don't know, show the respect about people who really know. For you post, you did great about tell us the whole story,and make a good connection with Floridi's idea,very Accurate.
ReplyDeleteHello Hanping,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your article and it ties closely with our course material of information ethics. The coronavirus is a serious epidemic affecting thousands of people and China censoring that information can have serious effects. Censorship in other countries makes you realize how lucky we are in America to have freedom of speech. Although I am not Chinese, as a Korean American it is very sad to hear of the recent events in China. This lock down by the Chinese government is doing more harm than good. If China was open with their information they could seek aid from other countries that would be more than willing to provide support. Overall I think this a very informational article.
Hey Hanping, great article! I like your spin on information ethics - in this case it's not necessarily how information is being misused, but rather misheld and distorted. If you choose to revise this article, I'd explore Kant's readings and their application to the scenario a bit further. Was the government lying, or employing deception? Do you think they knew immediately whether or not Dr. Li was telling the truth when they arrested him, or were they just trying to avoid unconfirmed hysteria, especially after seeing a similar outbreak not so long ago?
ReplyDeleteHey Hanping! The topic of your blog is very interesting and relevant given the current global situation regarding Coronavirus. I really like the way in which you tied the epidemic to information ethics and how the "handling of information" can led to serious consequences. The readings were very well-integrated into your post. To improve, I would just suggest expanding more on Flordi and Kant in terms of their arguments and points of view. But overall, great article!
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