Ethical Issues - Libel/Acts

Libel

This is the law put in place to make sure you don’t miss represent something or someone. For example if a football player like David Beckham was put in a football game, but his character acted like an idiot and missed every kick and fell over all the time this wouldn’t be right. Another example of this is if it came on the news that Peter Sutcliffe said that he hadn’t ever paid his TV license in his life, this isn’t going to effect his reputation because he is known for being a mass murderer. However if this was said about the BBC boss Greg Dyke this could seriously effect his reputation and even loose him his job working for a famous TV company.

http://www.urban75.org/info/libel.html

Race Relations Act

The race relations act was put in place by the British parliament in 1976 to prevent racial discrimination. This is put in place to prevent discrimination against race, colour, education and work. This is basically to say no matter where you come from or what colour your skin is we should all be treated equally.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_Relations_Act

Obscene Publications Act

The obscene publications act has been in place since 1857 in Britain, since then there were two more acts put in place, one in 1959 and one in 1964. Only the 1959 and 1964 laws are still in place today. This law is about criminal obscenity, an example of this is in 2009 a man posted on the internet about the band Girls Aloud. He claimed they had been kidnapped, raped and murdered.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obscene_Publications_Act

Computer Misuse Act

The computer misuse act was put in place by the UK parliament in 1990. This act is what you would be convicted under if you used your PC for something illegal. A great example of this is R v Gold & Schifreen. These two people used their home PC’s and Modems in 1984/85 to obtain the password and login name of a BT employee which was 22222222 and the password being 1234.They were able to browse the BT files and even view the private messages of Prince Phillip. This sparked another conflict with BT and they were said to be not taking their security seriously enough.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Misuse_Act