Online Privacy

Today, there are many media and journalists get the information and news stories by hacking into the phones and computers of celebrities or people who involved. This action is unethical and illegal in journalism but there is nobody has been charged and no newspapers have yet been identified by the police.

I think these are the main reason why invasion of privacy are being so serious in journalism nowadays. There is an example about Miley Cyrus who is one of the famous actresses was hacked by people in Tweeter. The hacker wrote something bad about Miley Cyrus on the Twitter and this account was suspended by Twitter later.

Referring to Privacy Rights Clearinghouse / UCAN (2011) about online privacy, there are still no actual policies for govern the Internet therefore the Internet still remains largely unregulated. Additionally, laws concerning online privacy are still being developed.

Social Networking like Facebook, Twitter contain information of users or consumers as these sites are to help people to keep in touch with friends and built relationship and connections to other Internet users. According to Pickup (2011), the number of hacks has almost doubled in less than two years since 2009.

Besides that, invasion of privacy is against journalism ethics. Al Jazeera’s Code of Ethics (2010) mentioned that journalist should observe transparency in dealing with the news and its sources while adhering to the internationally established practices concerning the rights of these sources.

In my opinion, although public interest is very important, journalist should use fair, responsible and honest to obtain information and material. They have to treat the audiences with due respect while giving full consideration to individual privacies and public.

References:

AL JAZEERA 2010, Code of Ethics, viewed 13rd November 2011, <http://english.aljazeera.net/aboutus/2006/11/2008525185733692771.html>.

Pickup, O., 2011. Third of teens say they've had their Facebook or Twitter accounts hacked into, according to survey. Daily Mail, [online] (Last updated at 3:53 PM on 6th October 2011). Available at < http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2046045/Third-teens-say-theyve-Facebook-Twitter-accounts-hacked-into.html> [Accessed 13rd November 2011].

UCAN 2011, Fact sheet 18: online privacy: using the internet safely, privacy rights clearinghouse, viewed on 13rd November 2011, from <http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs18-cyb.htm#Browsing>.