Digital Ethics This fifth volume in Christian Fuchs’s Media, Communication and Society series presents foundations and applications of digital ethics based on critical theory. It applies a critical approach to ethics within the realm of digital technology. Based on the notions of alienation, communication (in)justice, media (in)justice, and digital (in)justice, it analyses ethics in the context of digital labour and the surveillance-industrial complex; social media research ethics; privacy on Facebook; participation, co-operation, and sustainability in the information society; the digital commons; the digital public sphere; and digital democracy. The book consists of three parts. Part I presents some of the philosophical foundations of critical, humanist digital ethics. Part II applies these foundations to concrete digital ethics case studies. Part III presents broad co nclusions about how to advance the digital commons, the digital public sphere, and digital democracy, which is the ultimate goal of digital ethics. This book is essential reading for both students and researchers in media, culture, communication studies, and related disciplines. Christian Fuchs is Chair Professor of Media Systems and Media Organisation at Paderborn University, Germany. His fields of expertise are critical digital and social media studies, Internet and society, the p olitical economy of media and communication, information society theory, social theory, and critical t heory. He is the author of numerous publications in these fields. Digital Ethics Media, Communication and Society Volume Five Christian Fuchs Cover image: mammuth, Getty Images First published 2023 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 Christian Fuchs The right of Christian Fuchs to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Fuchs, Christian, 1976- author. Title: Digital ethics / Christian Fuchs. Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2023. | Series: Media, communication and society; volume five | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2022010363 (print) | LCCN 2022010364 (ebook) | ISBN 9781032246147 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032246161 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003279488 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Internet—Moral and ethical aspects. | Internet—Social aspects. | Information society. Classification: LCC TK5105.878 .F83 2023 (print) | LCC TK5105.878 (ebook) | DDC 395.5—dc23/eng/20220625 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022010363 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022010364 ISBN: 978-1-032-24614-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-24616-1 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-27948-8 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003279488 Typeset in Univers by codeMantra Contents List of Figures vi List of Tables vii Acknowledgements ix PART I Foundations 1 1 What Is Digital Ethics? 3 2 Foundations of Communication/Media/Digital (In)Justice 21 3 The Ethics of the Digital Commons 45 PART II Applications 81 4 Information Ethics in the Age of Digital Labour and the Surveillance- Industrial Complex 83 5 “Dear Mr. Neo-Nazi, can you please give me your informed consent so that I can quote your fascist tweet?”: Questions of Social Media Research Ethics in Online Ideology Critique 105 6 Towards an Alternative Concept of Privacy 119 7 The Ethics and Political Economy of Privacy on Facebook 141 8 Information Technology and Sustainability in the Information Society 165 9 Theoretical Foundations of Defining the Participatory, Co-operative, Sustainable Information Society (PCSIS) 193 PART III Conclusion 219 10 The Digital Commons and the Digital Public Sphere: How to Advance Digital Democracy Today 221 Index 244 Figures 2.1 The matrix of domination in intersectional theories (based on Adams and Zúñiga 2016, 162) 29 3.1 Tweet by Nigel Farage in the context of the Brexit-referendum 73 7.1 Capital accumulation on Facebook 146 8.1 The vicious cycle of neoliberalism 179 9.1 Society as a dynamic, dialectical system 195 9.2 Share of developed economies in world GDP 198 10.1 Club 2.0, first published as Creative Commons in Fuchs (2018b, 74) 230 Tables 1.1 The application of four ethical approaches to digitalisation 7 2.1 A typology of theories of justice 23 2.2 Axel Honneth’s theory of recognition 25 2.3 Nancy Fraser’s theory of justice 26 2.4 I ris Marion Young’s concept of the five faces of oppression (based on Young 1990, Chapter 2) 27 2.5 A typology of injustice as alienation in the economy, politics, and culture 33 2.6 Alienation as injustice in capitalist society 35 2.7 The communicative dimension of different forms of injustice 36 2.8 F orms of alienated communication and alienated media/means of communications 37 2.9 The interaction of class, racism, gender oppression 37 2.10 Types of digital alienation 39 2.11 Dimensions of a humanist society 40 2.12 Forms of humanist and just communication/media 41 2.13 A typology of just, humanist digital communication(s) 42 3.1 Types of goods in the economic theory of goods 46 3.2 Three dimensions of the digital commons 69 5.1 The most active and most mentioned users in the Corbyn dataset 115 6.1 A typology of privacy theories 123 8.1 Approaches on sustainability and information society policies (based on: Fuchs 2010) 170 8.2 Internet and computer use statistics for the EU (data source: Eurostat) 173 8.3 Regions in the EU, where in 2015 less than 60% of households had broadband access at home (data source: Eurostat) 174 8.4 Regions in the EU, where in 2015 40% or more have never used a computer (data source: Eurostat) 174 8.5 Market share of the incumbent in fixed line broadband subscriptions and minimum level of the Herfindahl–Hirschman-Index, data for 2015, data source: European Commission 2015 176 8.6 Market share of the incumbent in mobile network subscriptions and minimum level of the Herfindahl–Hirschman-Index, data for 2014, data source: Eurostat (Digital Agenda Key Indicators), UK and Germany: Ofcom (2015) 177 viii Tables 8.7 The world’s most profitable transnational information corporations in the year 2015 (data source: Forbes 2000, 2015 list) 183 8.8 A dialectical view of the un/sustainability of ICTs and the information society 187 9.1 An overview of structures in society 196 9.2 Approaches on the sustainable information society 200 9.3 Dimensions of sustainability 210 10.1 T he domination transnational communication and digital corporations, data sources: Forbes 2000 List (year 2020), https:// www.forbes.com/global2000, accessed on 7 October 2020 222 10.2 Four types and dimensions of the commons 233 10.3 Four types and dimension of the digital commons 234 10.4 Three political economies of digital platforms (further development based on: Fuchs 2021, Table 8.2) 237 Acknowledgements Chapter 2 was first published as a journal article using a Creative Commons CC-BY li- cence that allows reprint: Christian Fuchs. 2021. Foundations of Communication/Media/ Digital (In)Justice. Journal of Media Ethics 36 (4): 186–201. http://doi.org/10.1080/2373 6992.2021.1964968 A shorter version of Chapter 3 was first published as a journal article. The chapter is an extended version of the original paper. It has been reused and extended based on a contractual stipulation in the author agreement with Taylor & Francis that allows republi- cation and modification. Christian Fuchs. 2020. The Ethics of the Digital Commons. Jour- nal of Media Ethics 35 (2): 112–126. https://doi.org/10.1080/23736992.2020.1736077 Chapter 4 was first published as a book chapter. It has been reprinted based on a stip- ulation in the author agreement that enables the author to reprint his chapter in a volume of his own works. Fuchs, Christian. 2016. Information Ethics in the Age of Digital Labour and the S urveillance-Industrial Complex. In Information Cultures in the Digital Age: A Festschrift in Honor of Rafael Capurro, ed. Matthew Kelly and Jared Bielby, 173–190. Wiesbaden: Springer. Chapter 5 was first published as a book chapter. It has been reprinted based on a stipulation in the author agreement that enables the author to reprint his chapter in a volume of his own works. Fuchs, Christian. 2018. “Dear Mr. Neo-Nazi, can you please give me your informed consent so that I can quote your fascist tweet?”: Questions of Social Media Research Ethics in Online Ideology Critique. In The Routledge Companion to Media and Activism, ed. Graham Meikle, 385–394. Abingdon: Routledge. Chapter 6 was first published as a journal article. It has been reprinted based on Em- erald’s Author Rights (https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/our-services/authors/ author-policies/author-rights) Fuchs, Christian. 2011. Towards an Alternative Concept of Privacy. Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society 9 (4): 220–237. https://doi.org/10.1108/14779961111191039