Hillbuzz is the right wing website leading the charge to get Bristol Palin, who can’t dance a lick, voted as the best celebrity dancer on TV’s “Dancing With The Stars” because, illogically enough, the site’s operators like her mother. Makes sense to me! Actually, it only makes sense in that I am familiar with how self-absorbed political fanatics on the Right and Left think, which is often inherently unethical. In this case, Hillbuzz thinks it’s reasonable to louse up the fun of a dancing competition and turn it into an expression of Tea Party power. Continue reading
Unethical Websites
“How Not To Apologize” by Cook’s Source Editor Judith Griggs
Not many of you chose to read about the “Cook’s Source” fiasco, which is a shame. It is admittedly a tiny blip on the ethics radar screen–a dispute between a writer and a narrow audience website that launched an Internet vigilante movement—but there are many useful lessons to be learned. Now one of the two key figures, “Cook’s Source” editor Judith Griggs, has generously provided us with yet another: how not to apologize. Continue reading
What Gawker Calls Unethical: Poor Ex-Rep. Etheridge Was “Tricked” Into Assault
The ethics-free web zone known as Gawker is indignant that it now appears that the young men roughed up by now-defeated North Carolina Democrat Rep. Bob Etheridge were G.O.P operatives stalking him in the hopes of catching him in a gaffe. Etheridge lost, in part because the video of him grabbing one of the young men in a bear hug was turned into an effective campaign ad by his adversary. He deserved to lose, as much as any candidate running in any race in the country.
Gawker apparently believes that under some circumstances it is no big deal for members of the U.S. Congress to commit assault and battery on the citizens they are supposed to serve, a view that Etheridge shares, but that Ethics Alarms does not.
Neither does Ken, over at Pope Hat, who makes a definitive argument that Etheridge has no excuse whatsoever. I can’t improve on it. You can read it here.
WordPress Ethics, Or How Offensive Obama T-Shirt Ads Ended Up On My Blog
WordPress supplies a versatile and useful product that is user-friendly (if I can manage it, believe me, it is user-friendly), inexpensive, and well-serviced. It also seems to be diligent about supplying regular information, which is especially important to me. So many companies, and especially the government, regularly surprise me with unpleasant, disrupting, or costly changes in what they provide that I only learn about by accident, or when they start causing me trouble.
A few months back, for example, Direct TV gave me no-charge charge access to HBO, just a couple of months after I had canceled it. There was no notice about this, and as a result, we didn’t watch the network at all for some time, since we didn’t know we were receiving the signal. It was puzzling that the access to HBO just appeared, and when it had hung around a few months, I decided to look at the bill, which we paid automatically. Now, I discovered, we were being charged for HBO, which I had just canceled.
When I called Direct TV, the representative apologized, took off the charge, credited me with a past months charge before I had realized what had happened, and removed HBO. He also gave me a long explanation about why this had happened, which boils down to this: when your service is interrupted (as it was several months ago; I was late with a bill payment), it is my responsibility to tell Direct TV what channels I was getting before the interruption, or it might just slip in premium channels without telling me when it reconnects my service. Is this written anywhere? No, it isn’t.
I no longer trust Direct TV.
I don’t trust the Transportation Security Administration, either. Last week, in the middle of a trip that involved several flights, I set off the gate alarm, as is my custom (I have a metal hip), and prepared for the ceremonial wanding. But this time, it wasn’t a wanding; oh no no no! It was a bona fide, full-body, rough massage feel-up that included a sprightly hello to my throat, rear-end, and naughty bits. In many cities, such stimulation would have cost me a pretty penny, though only if it were not performed by a large, heavy, middle-aged guy named Carl, as mine was. Yes, in rapid response to the underwear bomber, whose attempted act of terrorism was more than a year ago, TSA has now instituted new pat-down procedures designed to determine, among other things, what’s in your BVDs. There was no advance notice of this to flyers, of course, until I was actually at the feel-up point of no return, having made my meeting schedule and bought my non-refundable ticket. In fact, the new procedures had been instituted mid-day, after I had taken a flight including the usual game of Wand Me.
Now, back on the ground, I learn that some readers of my WordPress blog see a string of Google Ads in the text, ads triggered by key words and automatically generated. Continue reading
Unethical Website of the Month: Domainscalping.com
We haven’t had a good example of an unethical website for a while, but here’s a classic.
Describing itself as the doorway to a “sneaky but ethical” way to make lots of money fast, with no talent or benefit to society while going by a name—domainscalping—that accurately describes its so-called business for the slimy and unethical practice it is, this site wins multiple prizes for forthright sleaze and ethical ignorance. Continue reading
Unethical Website of the Month: dontvoteformydad.com
http://www.donotvoteformydad.com raises interesting questions about the ethical duties of families versus the ethical duties of citizens, bias, conflict of interest, and the difficulty of distinguishing ethical from unethical or non-ethical motives. Continue reading
Unethical Web Site of the Month: Essay Emperor
Masquerading as a blog (Ethics offense #1 : Dishonesty) when it is, in fact, a commercial web site advertising an essay writing service, Essay Emperor includes “informational posts” purporting to give general information about essay writing services but which actually links the reader to just one service: the service provided by—what a coincidence!—Essay Emperor, Inc. (Ethics Offense #2 : Deceit)
Three of the posts on the home page claim to discuss the ethical issues of using essay-writing services. Continue reading
Doritos, Web Hoaxes, and the Need For An Ethical Consensus
“A fake coupon for a free bag of Doritos has gone viral, leaving consumers angry when they can’t cash it in, retailers holding the bag if they do redeem it and Frito-Lay dealing with damage to its image. The scam problem has increased in the past few weeks as more and more people e-mailed the coupon to one another. And though a $5 bag of chips may not sound like a big problem, Frito-Lay spokeswoman Aurora Gonzalez said the losses could end up in the multimillions: The dollar value of fake coupons submitted in recent weeks equaled 5 percent of Frito-Lay’s real coupon offerings for all of 2009, she said.”
Pretty funny, huh? Continue reading
AshleyMadison Finds Its Perfect Symbol
Well, if you run an unethical website, I suppose the most ethical thing you can do, other than shutting it down, is to be transparent about what you are selling, and how wrong it is.
Thus I have to reluctantly tip my ethics cap to the pro-adultery website, AshleyMadison, for finding the perfect symbol. [You can read my earlier commentary on this particularly atrocious site here and here.] Yes, TMZ is reporting that Bombshell McGee, the Nazi-celebrating tattoo model who helped Jesse James wreck his marriage with actress Sandra Bullock just as the couple was adopting a child and while she was proclaiming her trust and love for him to the world, will be promoting AshleyMadison’s adultery services. If seeing Bombshell McGee promoting a service endears makes it attractive to you, AshleyMadison can’t lead you astray: you are too far gone already. Bombshell’s (can I call her “Shelley?”) enthusiasm for adulterous relationships has destroyed a family and devastated another woman who never did her any harm. This is truth in advertising at its best: an irredeemable unethical business, hiring an openly despicable spokeswoman.
Unethical Website of the Month: Eater.com
I would not have been able to resist giving the the Unethical Website title to Gizmodo [see previous post] unless there was a more typical candidate (as in “not criminal”) available. Thanks to a tip from Ethics Alarms quote-maven Tom Fuller, I give you Eater.com. It hasn’t stolen anything. It just sold out the interest of its own readers—lovers of fine foods and patrons of excellent restaurants—for a splashy feature destined to attract a flood of traffic, and to stick a knife in the backs of its competition. Continue reading
Ethics Alarms 