Ethics Tools: The YouTube Test

Originally submitted by: jadelay

Last week, I suggested in Ethics Tools, that taking away someone's knighthood was not a very effective approach to getting the very unethical to suddenly think twice about the ethical messes they have created. For recall only: the post was about Queen Elizabeth's decision to strip the knighthood ornament from Robert Mugabe, the President of Zimbabwe. This is the same Mugabe who, in addition to destroying Zimbabwe's economy over the last few years, has kept himself in office through violent confrontation with and repression of his opposition. Since we don't routinely have the opportunity to give and take away knighthoods, we can turn to other common ethics or ethical tools (take your pick, though some of these tools are perhaps not always ethical, and the use of the word tool suggests additional meanings that the a2ethics.org senior ethics correspondent on language, Sandy Bottoms, might address in future posts). By ethics tool, I am referring to a practice that we can try and act on whenever we are faced with an ethics situation. Most often, ethics tools can be used whenever you are thinking about doing something that your gut or your heart signals to you that it may not be quite right. One ethics tool that is pretty handy to use is commonly known as the publicity test. It is also called the TV test, or more recently,depending on the technologies you rely on, the YouTube test. In this test, all you do is imagine whether you would want what you are thinking about doing, say at your work to some fellow co-worker, to be available a few minutes after you do it on YouTube. The questions you ask in doing this test take into account the following: 1. What would people think about the action I have just taken or am thinking about taking? Would they think it is ethically alright? A bit unethical? Or really unethical? 2. Why would people think that my action was ethically alright? Why a bit unethical? Or why really unethical? After answering these questions in your head, you then ask yourself: Should I have backed off from taking this action? Or alternatively, if you haven't yet done it, should I back off from taking this action? Because, the point of the publicity and YouTube tests is to give others, and increasingly the world, an opportunity to tell you what they think about the ethics of what you have done or are up to doing if you have the chance to do it. So, what is the usefulness of the YouTube test as an ethics tool? This test becomes useful in those situations where you might think twice, and reconsider what you have done or are planning...because of the fact that the action can be easily publicly outed and judged by almost everyone with an opinion about it. And most importantly for you... from its public outing, most people decide it is just not quite right. That it is not just a bit unethical, but really unethical. Would it work for Robert Mugabe? He has had alot of publicity and condemnation in the world media for his actions. Yet, he still remains the President of Zimbabwe. So, I guess for some the publicity test is just that...publicity for your actions, whether they are ethical or unethical. Before concluding that any publicity, whether it is good or bad is probably good in the end, consider what the person has done or is planning to do, not the publicity itself. That may make the YouTube test more useful to you. At least it might be more useful than the tool of stripping knighthoods from really unethical people.