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Confronting the Internet's Dark Side: Moral and Social Responsibility on the Free Highway

Confronting the Internet's Dark Side: Moral and Social Responsibility on the Free Highway by Raphael Cohen-Almagor

Publisher

Woodrow Wilson Center Press with Cambridge University Press, 2015

ISBN

978-1-1071-0559-1 hardcover; 978-1-1075-1347-1 paperback
Confronting the Internet's Dark Side: Moral and Social Responsibility on the Free Highway by Raphael Cohen-Almagor

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Terrorism, cyberbullying, child pornography, hate speech, cybercrime: along with unprecedented advancements in productivity and engagement, the Internet has ushered in a space for violent, hateful, and antisocial behavior. How do we, as individuals and as a society, protect against dangerous expressions online?

Confronting the Internet’s Dark Side is the first book on social responsibility on the Internet. It aims to strike a balance between the free speech principle and the responsibilities of the individual, corporation, state, and the international community. This book brings a global perspective to the analysis of some of the most troubling uses of the Internet. It urges net users, Internet service providers, and liberal democracies to weigh freedom and security, finding the golden mean between unlimited license and moral responsibility. This judgement is necessary to uphold the very liberal democratic values that gave rise to the Internet and that are threatened by an unbridled use of technology.

Raphael Cohen-Almagor is Professor and Chair in Politics at the University of Hull, United Kingdom. He has published extensively in the fields of political science, law, ethics, and philosophy, including The Right to Die with Dignity (2001), Speech, Media, and Ethics (2nd ed., 2005), and The Scope of Tolerance (2007). His second book of poetry, published in 2007, is entitled Voyages.

See this July 21, 2015, blog post on the Cambridge University Press fifteeneightyfour blog for more information about Confronting the Internet’s Dark Side, as well as the virtual roundtable on cyberpsychology with Raphael Cohen-Almagor and several other authors of related books. The author has also created a short video introducing the key points of his book.

About the Author

Raphael Cohen-Almagor

Raphael Cohen-Almagor

Global Fellow;
Chair and Professor in Politics, University of Hull, The United Kingdom
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