Introduction
Modern society’s order conditions unique ethical problems that affect different communities’ general functioning. The inter-social relationships are built based on the principle of gaining maximum profits, which diminishes the ethical values’ role. People holding power may use ethics as a manipulative instrument to control messes. Based on personal experience, it is vital to note that ordinary people often become the victims of imposed by influential personalities and ethical considerations, which, over time, become the social norm. In the modern world, mass media is in the first place among the sources of information, which has unlimited possibilities for manipulative impact. As a result, people are vulnerable to unpredictable influences imposing different positions which violate normative ethics principles. The current paper is focused on expressing the thoughts and experiences about the ethical aspect of the informational security of individuals.
Ethical Threats
Modern information technologies, widely used by the mass media, have an impact on a person, aimed at changing people’s needs, views, and moral values. Such changes are oriented in the interests of those who pay for achieving particular aims. For example, such goals can be pursued by politicians, influential personalities, or commercial structures. Based on personal observation, it is vital to highlight that people consuming the information presented by mass media rarely focus on the moral aspect of life. With such an informational impact, a deformation of the human psyche occurs, affecting both consciousness and unconscious spheres. Personality gradually loses its individuality; people become zombified by the imposed values without realizing this process. I even encountered situations when people radically changed their perspective on the topic of good and evil being affected by the mass media ideas. On the one hand, the ethical changes are natural for the human psyche. However, the social media-evolving ones often counter the moral principles resulting in cruelty, violence, despair, and a lack of compassion, empathy, and tolerance.
Ethical-evolving Manipulation
There are various methods and techniques of suggestion that allow the necessary information to penetrate the depths of the psyche, bypassing the protective barriers of consciousness. All people are susceptible to suggestions to a greater or lesser extent. A complete escape from such influence is practically impossible because the personality and ethical values are formed based on the people’s perception of themselves as members of society. Influential figures often use this principle in connection with ethical values to achieve particular aims. From my personal experience, this is the most dangerous manipulation mechanism. Discussed aims can be represented as a notion of informational war. In order to achieve particular political or economic aims, influential people or communities adjust their ethical values to suit their benefits. Such an approach itself is a violation of the moral norms being extremely harmful to the personality. An example of such influence is the recent conflict between Ukraine and Russia. My friends were significantly concerned with this problem and monitored the situation through social media. Later, they figured out that they started to feel aggression toward the people evolved in this case, which resulted in severe depression and other mental problems. The case shows that the impact of social media can be radical and damaging, evolving the ethical values violations.
Informational and Psychological Security
Controlling such issues is the question of the individual’s informational and psychological security. This notion, as a category of modern ethics, protects the psyche from harmful informational influences that can change psychological characteristics and behaviors against the will and desire of people. Ways of ethical and psychological protection should be based on the moral principles of preventing or neutralizing the negative impact of information in various situations (Hennell, 2019). Many researchers believe that the problem cannot be solved completely (Hennell, 2019). However, the situation can be improved by combining centralized morally-based governmental control of potentially influential information resources with increased public awareness of this problem.
Conclusion and Lesson
The negative and manipulative impacts of the information on the personality are one of the severe ethical problems of modern society. Manipulation and control over people may often be performed by violating the basic moral and ethical norms. In order to decrease the potentially harmful impacts, the advancement of informational and psychological security should be highlighted. Information security protects the individual, society and the state from external and internal information phenomena, processes and actions that have a destructive impact on the intellectual-cognitive consciousness of the individual. The fact is that even if society and the individuals are protected from harmful information impact, it is necessary, in addition, to set specific moral guidelines, a system of values, to form national ethics.
The main lesson which can be emphasized based on this discussion is that information is a powerful manipulative weapon which can be used for malicious aims. Therefore, it is vital to clear the informational field surrounding people in order to avoid negative psychological impacts. Even ethical values can be used for particular individuals’ benefits. Taking into consideration this information, people should always perceive the information from the perspective of their own moral values trying to protect their personalities from destructive impacts.
Reference
Hennell, K., Limmer, M., & Piacentini, M. (2019). Ethical dilemmas using social media in qualitative social research: a case study of online participant observation.Sociological Research Online, 25(3), 473–489. Web.