Ethical Issues in Digital Product Management Notes

Weekly Learning Outcomes

  • Gain an appreciation for morality, ethics, and ethical responsibility in building digital products.
  • Understand ethical issues in Digital Product Management.
  • Understand different perspectives to view and analyze ethical issues.
  • Understand frameworks for mitigating ethical issues in product management.
  • Real-world example: Facebook (Meta) – involved in public discussions about privacy and data use.
    • Cambridge Analytica scandal: Millions of users' data accessed without consent for political advertising, highlighting the importance of responsible data handling and ethical product management.
  • Tools used today: algorithms, artificial intelligence, and big data aiming to improve user engagement and service efficiency.
    • Potential for misuse: manipulative tactics, encouraging addictive behavior, spreading misinformation, or invading privacy if not carefully used.
  • Ethical considerations apply to all organizations, including smaller, local ones in Australia like Commonwealth Bank or tech startups.
  • Companies like Meta are building frameworks (oversight boards, AI for harmful content detection, data management changes) to manage ethical issues.

Morality, Ethics and Law

  • Morality: Norms, values, and beliefs embedded in social processes that define right and wrong for an individual or a community.
    • Broader in scope; assessed by the broader community/society.
  • Ethics: Study of morality and the application of reason to elucidate specific rules and principles for morally acceptable actions.
    • Narrower in scope, pertaining to specific disciplines or areas of concern.
    • Assessment at the individual level: "What should I do?" "How should I live?" - principles derived from governing morals.
  • Law: System of rules recognized by a country or community, regulating actions and enforced by penalties.
    • Morals are codified into Law; there may be a lag between what is “moral” and what is “lawful”.
  • Differences:
    • Morality: Shared beliefs.
    • Ethics: Application of beliefs in individual decisions.
    • Law: Formal enforcement of beliefs in society.

What is Ethical Responsibility?

  • Ethical responsibility: Ability to recognize, interpret, and act on multiple principles and values according to standards within a professional field/context.
  • Professions have ethical responsibilities when providing services and products.
    • Examples: Healthcare, Engineering.
  • Professional disciplines are guided by profession-specific ethical codes of conduct to address ethical issues and dilemmas.

Example 1: Medical Ethics Principles

  • Respect for autonomy: Patients have the right to refuse and choose their treatment.
  • Beneficence: Practitioners should act in the best interest of the patient.
  • Non-maleficence: Avoid causing harm; promote more good than harm (Utility).
  • Justice: Fair distribution of scarce health resources; decisions on who gets what treatment.

Example 2: Engineering Ethical Principles

  • Hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public.
  • Perform services only in areas of their competence.
  • Issue public statements in an objective and truthful manner.
  • Act for each employer or client as faithful agents or trustees.
  • Avoid deceptive acts.
  • Conduct themselves honorably, responsibly, and ethically.

What are Ethical Issues and Dilemmas?

  • Ethical dilemma: A problem in decision-making between two possible options, neither of which is absolutely acceptable from an ethical perspective.
  • Example: Heinz dilemma
    • Should Heinz steal medicine he cannot afford to buy for his sick wife, or stick to the rule ‘do not steal’, regardless of the circumstances?
    • Competing duties: positive duty to help those in need vs. negative duty to avoid stealing.

Ethics Theories

  • Ethics frameworks help address ethical issues and dilemmas – give us a basis for deciding a way forward
    • Consequentialism
    • Deontology
    • Care Ethics
    • Virtue Ethics

Ethics Framework (1): Consequentialism

  • Consequentialism: Whether an act is morally right depends only on consequences.
  • Focus on “the Good”: Whatever choices increase the Good are morally right.
  • Assessment: Assess possible outcomes and choose the action that maximizes the good or minimizes the harm.
  • Criticism: what it seemingly permits – innocents can be lied to, deceived, for the greater benefit of others
  • Ex: Resolving the Heinz dilemma from a consequentialist lens: a moral agent should steal the medicine because saving the wife’s life is a better outcome than whatever negative consequences may result from stealing

Ethics Framework (2): Deontology

  • Deontology: Actions are good or bad according to a clear set of rules.
  • Some choices cannot be justified by their effects—that no matter how morally good their consequences, some choices are morally forbidden
  • Actions judged by their intrinsic moral value without regard for consequences.
  • Universal rules, principles, and rights guide conduct.
  • Ex: Treat others as you would like be treated yourself; right to freedom from discrimination, right to privacy

Ethics Framework (3): Ethics of Care

  • Consequentialist and Deontological theories of ethics require or encourage the moral agent to be unemotional.
  • Contrarily, ethics of care defends some emotions, such as care or compassion, as moral.
  • 'Other’ is seen as concrete, relational, and specific to a particular context, not abstract or generalised.
  • Recognizes that rules must be applied in a context, influenced by relationships.

Ethics Framework (4): Virtue Ethics

  • Focus is on character, not just actions.
    • What kind of a product owner should I be?
    • What makes a ‘good’ product owner, a ‘good’ team member, a ‘good’ scrum master?
  • Virtues are aspects of our character that we develop through practice & commitment
  • Virtue ethics concerns itself not with which actions are right, but what sort of person one should be
  • Examples of virtues: Integrity, Constancy, Courage, Self-control, Generosity, Compassion, Gentleness, Friendliness, Truthfulness

Negative Impacts of Digital Products:

  • Reduction of attention.
  • Creation of addictions.
  • Promotion of misleading information.
  • Impeding social interactions.
  • Creation of algorithmic biases.
  • Creation of unrealistic world-views.

Defining Digital Product Management Ethics

  • Digital Product Management Ethics is the study of digital product development activities and decisions where issues of right and wrong are addressed

Towards Digital Product Management Ethics

  • Put the human in the center
  • Make your technology understandable
  • Give users control
  • Avoid manipulating
  • Avoid creating inequality

The Digital Ethics Compass

  • Adopted from Danish Design Centre - https://ddc.dk
  • Examples of the kinds of tools organisations use to reflect on ethical issues throughout the product development process.
  • Structured like a canvas, with core ethical principles at the centre
  • Around these core ideas, you will see layers of prompts and questions.
  • Designed to help teams think more deeply about the ethical impacts of their design decisions at each stage of development.

Ethical Issues and Dilemmas in Digital Product Management

  • Data: Collection, storage, use, and sharing of data.
    • Concerns: privacy, user consent, data security, commodification of personal information.
  • Behavioral Design: Building products to influence user behavior.
    • Issues: manipulation, nudging, addictive use.
  • Automation: Use of AI and machine learning.
    • Dilemmas: job displacement, lack of transparency, accountability.

Potential Ethical Issues in Data

  • Are you collecting too many data points, and do you keep them for too long?
  • Do you anonymise your data?
  • How do you store data?
  • Do you give people access to their own data?
  • Have you obtained user permission to collect and pro-cess data?
  • Do you inform your users about how they are profiled?

Potential Ethical Issues in Behavioural Design

  • Does your design play with negative emotions?
  • Do you deliberately make it difficult for users to find or understand information or functionality?
  • Do you exploit your user’s inability to concentrate to your own advantage?
  • Do you manipulate actions by taking advantage of people’s need to be social?
  • Are you trying to create addiction to your product with cheap tricks?
  • Do you validate or challenge your users?

Potential Ethical Issues in Automation

  • Are your users aware that they are interacting with an automated solution?
  • Do your automated systems comply with legislation and human rights?
  • Does automation cause people to lose the abilities to do a job?
  • Is your automated system transparent, so the user can see the engine room?
  • Can your automated system explain itself?
  • Are your algorithms prejudiced?
  • Is there an unnecessarily high risk with your automated system?
  • Is someone in the company ready to step in when automation fails?
  • Is your automated system adaptable to changes?
  • Can your automat-ed system be hacked?

Ethical decision-making framework (1)

  1. Assess the situation
    • What are the facts?
    • Why does this situation raise ethical concerns?
    • Who are the stakeholders involved?
  2. Assumptions and worldviews
    • What assumptions or beliefs are influencing your thinking?
    • Are there any biases — personal or organisational — that might need to be challenged?
  3. Principles, duties, and care needs
    • What ethical principles apply here?
    • Are there justice or rights issues?
    • Are there care responsibilities toward anyone affected?
  4. Options, outcomes, and consequences
    • What are the possible actions you could take?
    • What would each outcome look like for key stakeholders?
  5. Character factors
    • What kind of person do you want to be in this situation?
    • What virtues are important — honesty, courage, empathy?
  6. Comprehensive assessment
    • Weigh everything you have considered.
    • What is the most ethical path forward?
  7. Justify your decision
    • Be ready to explain your reasoning — especially if others suggest a less ethical path
    • Think about how to communicate your decision clearly and with integrity

Ethical decision-making framework (2)

  • Assess the situation: What are the facts; Why does it have moral content? (issues of right or wrong); Who are the stakeholders? Understand the ethical dilemma
  • Alternatives: List the possible alternative choices; Consider the pros and cons for each possible choice
  • Analysis: Identify your candidate decision and test its validity
    • To what extent will your candidate decision have a positive impact of prevent harm to the identified stakeholders
  • Application: To what extent is your candidate decision consistent with the values outlined in ”Digital Product Management Ethics” and other relevant values and principles that may be relevant to the situation?
  • Action: Make and justify your decision

Summary

  • Ethical issues arise with digital products allowing companies to collect vast amounts of data, change user behaviour and automate tasks using AI
  • Management of ethical issues in digital product management is therefore key to avoid any potential harm to key stakeholders.
  • Various ethical theories give us templates for action to address ethical dilemmas in practice.
  • Ethical decision-making frameworks help individuals and teams collectively decide on future courses of action considering the nuances of the situation.