Digital Rights and Responsibilities – Using Technology in an Appropriate Manner

Being part of a digital community comes with certain digital rights and responsibilities. As a digital citizen, you must be mindful of your responsibilities when creating or putting out content in the digital community. Act in awareness of others in the community.

The aim of digital rights and responsibilities is to ensure the safe and appropriate use of technology. This quick guide highlights the freedoms and privileges of all digital technology users and the behavioral expectation that come with those rights.

What Are Digital Rights and Responsibilities?

Digital rights and responsibilities refer to the liberty to access and use various digital technologies in appropriate ways. Every digital technology user has the freedom to express their opinions and ideas while also respecting those of others.

It is your responsibility as a digital citizen to learn the ethical use of digital resources and follow copyright laws. As technology is used to gather information, communicate with others, or have fun, you must protect your privacy while using the internet. You should also be aware of what you can do when others harass, abuse, or step on your right in some way.

Thanks to the overabundance of smartphones, nearly everyone can stay in touch with the important people in their lives, stay entertained, or search for information on the go. Research shows that 95% of teenagers in the United States have digital identities—meaning they are online—and many access the internet via smartphones and other mobile devices. This makes mobile devices the most common way young people experience electronic harassment and cyberbullying.

When it comes to instilling respect, integrity, and responsibility in teens and young school children, parents, guardians, and educators have a huge role to play. Young people and adults must learn to protect themselves from the negative effects of internet misuse. And it starts with knowing your digital rights and responsibilities as well as practical ways to implement them.

List of Digital Rights and Responsibilities

Everyone has the right to create, access, use, or share digital content online. But while you are at liberty to use as many digital technologies as possible, you must remember that with rights come responsibilities.

Here are the rights and responsibilities in the digital space.

Digital Rights

• Right to express your opinions and ideas freely
• Right to access and use digital content, computers, and other devices
• Right to create and share digital content and get credit for your work
• Right to privacy and to protect your identity in digital communities
• Right to report inappropriate content or suspicious conduct in the digital space

Digital Responsibilities

• Responsibility to stream, download, or use digital content legally
• Responsibility to obey intellectual property laws
• Responsibility to use appropriate language during interactions
• Responsibility to secure data and information from unauthorized users
• Responsibility to respect other people’s ideas and opinions
• Responsibility not to assume a false identity
• Responsibility to report harassment, threats, cyberbullying, identity theft, and inappropriate use of digital content
• Responsibility to cite authors, websites, and other people’s work used for research
• Responsibility to follow the codes of conduct, rules, and regulations of digital communities and internet websites

Inappropriate Use of Digital Technology

The Internet provides many opportunities, making life easier for many people, especially students, researchers, job-seekers, and entrepreneurs. Nowadays, anyone can access information and learn about virtually anything online.

You can attend classes from home, read about groundbreaking innovations, and access medical and emergency services all from the comfort of your home.

These positives are good and all, but there are also some downsides. For example, cyberbullying is one inappropriate use of digital technology, and unfortunately, it is a real problem for both teenage and adult internet users.

While any form of bullying can hurt, using technology to bully people can cause significant damage because the effect can instantly reach millions of internet users. Cyberbullying typically has physical, mental, and emotional effects on the victims, and these negative effects can stick with them for a long time.

Besides bullying or harassment of digital citizens, people can misuse digital technology in the following ways:

• Texting answers or accessing stored information on smartphones during tests (cheating with technology)
• Using other people’s work as if they were yours (plagiarism)
• Sending suggestive images or messages to others
• Creating fake copies of items like credit cards, legal documents, and currency (digital counterfeiting)
• Posing as someone you are not (identity theft)
• Sharing people’s digital information ― name, pictures, contact details ― without their permission (stalking)
• Logging into an institution’s or other people’s accounts without their permission (unauthorized access)
• Accessing prohibited information and materials or downloading movies and music illegally (digital piracy)
• Threatening and intimidating others
• Sending unwanted advertising (spamming)

What It Means to Use Technology in an Appropriate Manner

Using digital technology the right way means maintaining certain standards, like protecting your privacy, following ethical rules, and more. Here’s a breakdown of how to implement these standards.

Follow Your Organization’s Acceptable Use Policy

Organizations strive to promote safe internet usage. This is why they have an acceptable use policy for anyone using their systems to access the internet.

Before you use the internet, computers, or other technology at your school or workplace, read the acceptable use policy. This will help you understand acceptable behaviors and comply with the applicable rules.

Maintain Your Privacy

You must beware of online predators when using digital technology, particularly the internet. Do not share private or personal information with people, especially unauthorized individuals, whether on social media, through email, or via text on your cell phone.

One of your biggest responsibilities is keeping your private information safe. Report the incident if someone tries to steal your private information.

Be Civil and Respectful

While using the internet, respect other people’s opinions and what they stand for, even if you disagree. Be civil and use proper online etiquette when sharing your views.

Respectfully voice your opinions without degrading, disrespecting, humiliating, or causing others to lose their sense of self-respect.

For example, you have a digital right to make posts or comment on other people’s posts. But you are responsible for ensuring your opinions are not harmful to other digital citizens.

Beware of Strangers

Be careful when communicating with people you don’t know online. While you should do your best to be civil and respectful, you don’t want to be too trusting. If you are a small child or young internet user, remember your parent’s advice not to talk to strangers; it applies online, too.

Follow Plagiarism and Obey Copyright Rules

As a digital citizen, you must properly cite all online sources, including research materials and images. Presenting someone else’s work as yours is plagiarism, and that is unethical. Students can be suspended or expelled for plagiarism. And professionals who engage in plagiarism risk destroying their reputations.

In addition to being against the law, downloading videos, movies, or music illegally is very unfair to content creators, artists, and producing companies.

Parents, guardians, and teachers must set good examples for their children, wards, and students by giving credit and properly citing online sources used in research work.

Conclusion

Digital rights and responsibilities ensure the proper use of the internet and mobile devices to create, access, use, and share digital content in the most appropriate way. Generally, this comes down to exercising self-awareness while using the internet and respecting others in the online community.

To safely use the internet, all digital technology users must maintain these standards, regardless of age.

There are many benefits to properly using technology. Authors and creators will get credit for their work, young and old people will feel respected even if their opinions differ, and no one will intrude into your privacy without your express permission. These and many more are the positive effects of following the rules and ethics of digital technology.

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