Plagiarism
Closely associated with intellectual property – but slightly different – is plagiarism.
Responding to Plagiarism
While youth actively participate in copying, with 95 percent of students in a 2017 survey admitting to participating in some sort of cheating,[i] they have trouble seeing their acts of plagiarism as having a victim. Ultimately, if nobody is hurt then we are unlikely to feel empathy and without that it’s hard to see something as being morally wrong.
Sending sexts
Since sexting – and, in particular, our concerns about it – are regularly portrayed as a largely female phenomenon, it may be surprising that data from MediaSmarts’ study Non-Consensual Sharing of Sexts: Behaviours and Attitudes of Canadian Youth study show boys and girls being about equally likely to send sexts of themselves.[i]
Sharing sexts
There is little evidence that sending sexts is by itself a risky act. For example, one 2018 study suggests that “sexting can be a healthy way for young people to explore sexuality and intimacy when it’s consensual.”
Gender differences
Studies about the gendered aspects of sexting consistently show that while little criticism is attached to boys who send sexts, girls who do so are perceived as being sexually immoral: girls who sext are seen as using their sexuality to get public attention, while boys – even if their sexts become public – are assumed to be doing it only to get the attention of one prospective partner. [1]
Moral disengagement
Moral disengagement is used to describe the ways in which we convince ourselves to do something that we know is wrong, or to not do something we know is right. MediaSmarts’ research looked at the impact of four moral disengagement mechanisms:
Social norms, peer pressure and reciprocity
How common young people think sexting is has been identified as one of the strongest factors influencing whether they send sexts.
Privacy Ethics
One of the biggest ethical decisions young people have to make is how to handle other people’s personal information. Because nearly all of the services and platforms youth use online are networked, every time a friend or contact posts something they have to decide whether and how to share it. As well, youth may inadvertently share others’ personal information when posting their own content.