Fall UIL Topic Overview

RESOLVED: Standards of professional behavior ought to be valued above freedom of expression on social networking websites.

Introduction

This topic is not the best in recent memory. However, there is still an opportunity to learn and grow as a debater. In fact, awful topics often present even more opportunities to improve as a debater because they necessitate creativity. So don't be discouraged.

In a world where you can link your profile to hundreds of other profiles, join networks and groups that promote common interests, users of social networking sites are able to share increasingly more information about their lives, interests and beliefs.  Often it is impossible to prevent this information from stopping with only its intended recipients. 

The internet does not belong to anyone, and claims of internet privacy are often disregarded because of sheer impossibility. Sites like 123people, Rapleaf, and Upscoop make finding someone's personal information even easier. All you need to do is type their name or email address into a search bar, and you instantly have a compiled set of pictures, personal information, and even contact information. What you put on the internet is out there for everyone to see, regardless of whether or not you set your account to "private."

Moreover, social networking websites like Facebook, Myspace and Twitter are generally not well protected. Given time and desire to cause damage, hackers can gain access to someone else's account and obtain personal information. Slightly more knowledgeable hackers have been known to shut down sites and spread viruses.  Often the only way to prevent certain people from getting certain information is to limit what you put on the internet.  

Information posted on Facebook has even been used in court cases.  In early 2009 a Vancouver defendant in a personal injury case produced photos from a plaintiff's Facebook showing that even post-accident the defendant was able to kayak, bike and hike. 

The resolution discusses social networking sites in light of standards of professional behavior.  In terms of your professional life, why should what you put on the internet have any effect on how you do your job, or what kind of job you can get? Arguably, job interviews now involve much more than a resume. They now include anything and everything your employer can find via Google search. Should your boss be able to fire you based on what information you put on your Facebook? Should you be denied a job because of a picture that a co-worker found on your Myspace? These are just some of the questions you will have to answer while debating this topic.

Social networking websites have recently made headlines.  Earlier this month the Marines banned social networking sites for security reasons.  In a document released about the decision the Marines stated that these sites are high risk due to information exposure and are an easy conduit for information leakage.  Also earlier this month, a drill team member at Burleson High School in Burleson, Texas was suspended from performing at her school's first football game because of content posted to her Myspace page that school officials deemed inappropriate.   

In addition, there are many companies that require people to sign contracts stating that they will not release certain information on their social profiles, and a few companies even ban their employees from having such accounts at all.  But why is that the case?

Legitimate concerns regarding company security and the appropriateness to which their employees conduct themselves outside of the office are becoming larger because of the lightning fast ability to access almost a complete account of someone's personal life by looking them up on Facebook.  This debate will come down to whether or not how you conduct your personal life on the internet has an impact on your professional life, and if it does, whether or not the ability to express yourself on the internet is more important than that impact.

A Discussion of the Resolution

This resolution is extremely vague and leaves much room for interpretation. What are "standards of professional behavior"? Is "freedom of expression" synonymous with free speech? To what "social networking websites" is the resolution referring? Most of these questions will have to be answered in-round.

"Standards of professional behavior" is a tricky term. It is incredibly difficult to define since standards of professional behavior vary across professions. Physicians, journalists, mechanics, Marines, professors and gymnasts all have very different jobs and therefore very different professional standards.  Because these standards vary so much, affirmatives may choose to narrow the scope of the debate down to a single profession or at least area of professions. The medical profession, the teaching profession, and the law profession are good examples since all three have national organizations that publish general codes of professional behavior. Another strategy is to define standards of professional behavior in a more general way that means social norms of civility or something similar.  The benefit of this definition is that it will apply to all people regardless of their employment.    

One important word to note in the resolution is "ought." This word usually implies a moral obligation to do something. So, debaters can frame the debate in terms of morality.  This can include many things such as justice, social welfare or common good.   Remember that you must explain why your definition of ought is preferable and why the definition implies a particular value premise.

Because ought frames the debate in terms of ethical desirability, rather than practical desirability, debaters can argue that the feasibility of affirming or negating is irrelevant.  All that matters is whether an affirmative world or a negative world would be more ethically desirable, regardless of whether or not one of these worlds would be difficult to achieve.  For instance, someone might argue that I ought to by a new Prius instead of a 1984 Ford Pinto because it is better for the environment. It does not matter if I am a poor college student who only has $1,000 to spend on a car and the Prius exceeds that budget by twenty five times. I still ought to buy the Prius.

So, in terms of this debate, you can dismiss arguments about whether it is possible to monitor a person's online professionalism.  Debaters can argue that the feasibility of enforcement is not pertinent to a moral argument and should be avoided.

Freedom of expression is also very broad. Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo once defined freedom of expression as "the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom." It basically allows you to express your beliefs, ideas, thoughts, and feelings without fear of persecution. Because it is so broad you certainly shouldn't limit your definition of freedom of expression to a single right like "the freedom of speech." You'll have to find the definition that works best for your case. Remember, though, that Lincoln Douglas is typically a debate of generalities. Country specific definitions, like quoting the U.S. Constitution to define freedom of expression, are usually less applicable.

What social networking websites entail can also be tricky. First, remember that all current social networking sites are privately owned, and thus freedom of expression is limited by the owners. No one has complete rights to freedom of expression on social networking websites, so neither the affirmative nor the negative should debate under the guise that they do. Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter all have guidelines that ban lewd images, hate speech, and profanity.

In their alert to teachers about social networking websites, Phi Delta Kappa (an international association of professional educators) defined social networking sites as, "interactive websites designed to build online communities for individuals who have something in common - an interest in a hobby, a topic, or an organization - and a simple desire to communicate across physical boundaries with other interested people. These sites are not unlike the old-fashioned ‘party line' telephones, but they leave a more permanent record of the conversations. Most social networking sites include the ability to conduct live chats, send e-mails, upload videos, maintain a blog or discussion group, and share files. Users can also post links to pictures, music, and video, all of which have the potential to create a virtual identity." While long, this can be a very useful definition to have in a debate round.

Because such tools for expression have only come about in recent years, the academic research on this issue is extremely limited. Your best bet for finding information is probably going to be through a search engine that compiles many different academic journals. My advice is to use something like EBSCO or Gale from your school computer. If your school does not have these resources, local universities and community colleges will. I do not recommend Google Scholar, since the articles are typically outdated; recent academic publications are generally not free.  However, never underestimate the power of a Google search. 

But even with these mega search engines, it will still be difficult to find completely topical information. You will most likely have to resort to using articles about the need to maintain professionalism on the internet in general rather than just on social networking websites. The internet has been a part of professional life for more than a decade, while social networking sites are a recent phenomenon, so there will be much more information available if you broaden your search slightly beyond the scope of the topic.  Also, the array of academic literature on Web 2.0 (social networking sites, as well as user-generated content sites like Google and YouTube) has dramatically expanded in the past two years.  Since 2007, many law reviews have been published on the topic.

Affirmative

This resolution is difficult for the affirmative. "Standards of professional behavior" is a very vague term, and a good chunk of your round will probably be dedicated to defining what exactly that means. The best way to shorten the length of that inevitable debate is to narrow the scope of the debate to a single profession. My best advice is to narrow it down to a profession that has a defined standard for professional behavior. Professions that have national organizations or labor unions typically have such a standard and it is usually readily available on their website.

Especially with these types of organizations, freedom of expression is limited to begin with. Doctors do not have complete freedom of speech because they all have to uphold standards of patient confidentiality. Professionalism would dictate that it is not ethical to post a Facebook status that could potentially breech that confidentiality, or post pictures of patients undergoing treatment on the internet without their consent.

Likewise, lawyers, psychologists, and members of the clergy also have burdens of confidentiality. It would be entirely unprofessional for them to post information on their social networking sites just because they wanted to express themselves. In this instance, standards of professionalism clearly outweigh the freedom of self expression.

Members of the government and the military are also held to standards of confidentiality. On the occasion that a member of the government or military were to divulge information on a social networking website, it would qualify as a serious breech of security. If someone in the military were to divulge troop locations, plans for attack, or release information about POW locations, they could seriously endanger the lives of thousands. The need to be professional in these instances clearly outweighs a soldier's right to freely express him or herself.

The affirmative can argue that when someone accepts a certain job they consent to abide by the company's rules of professionalism. This line of logic could apply to many different careers. You have taken a job, and you have agreed to do what is best for the company. Clearly posting classified or otherwise harmful information online would not fall into that category.

Work life and personal life are becoming more closely related every day. More companies are embracing the idea of allowing people to work from home or from an office in another state because the internet is a useful tool for doing business. Since business is becoming more and more internet centered, typing in the "National Center for Policy Analysis" into a search bar will not only pull up their website, but may actually pull up Facebook profiles of people who have listed the NCPA as their employer. Your business and your personal life are only separated by a few clicks on the internet.

Next, affirmatives can make arguments about the limits of rights.  Freedom of expression always exists in the context of competing values. Your right to freedom of expression only exists so long as you do not violate someone else's rights. As Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "The right to swing my fist ends at the point of another person's nose." Arguably, social networking websites are the perfect place to violate someone else's rights. Without much effort, you can post slanderous messages about a person, and then top it off with a picture of them that they did not give you permission to post. 

Instances like the one I just described happen easily within professional environments. A disgruntled employee may post on Facebook that the CEO of their company is embezzling funds or practicing insider trading. Such rumors may spread before anyone has a chance to figure out whether or not they are factual. 

Next, the affirmative will have to consider social networking sites in terms of political discourse; the argument that people are able to use such sites as an effective tool for speaking out against harsh regimes will be a popular one. Affirmatives can argue that political discourse can still be done professionally, and that there is no inherent conflict between the need to voice your political concern and the need to be professional. If your job is not political then standards of professionalism should only dictate how you say things and not what you say. After all, people stage protests in the physical world all the time without them getting out of hand.

Continuing with this logic, affirmatives can argue that you should be professional in all areas of your life. When you are driving, and someone cuts you off, you honk. You do not ram into the back of them to show them who is boss, even though you might want to. A certain measure of professionalism is needed in all aspects of life to make living in a society possible and worthwhile. Arguably, the internet is simply an extension of our society. We interact with friends, we buy and sell things, and we meet people. It is a virtual world that is completely accessible from your computer. Standards of professionalism don't go away because we are not confronting people face to face. In the physical world, no one has complete and uninhibited freedom of expression. If certain standards of professionalism take precedence over freedom of expression on a regular basis in the real world, why does the same not apply on the internet? This is certainly a question that you will have to make the negative answer.

Also, the affirmative can argue that remaining professional on your social networking site is a greater personal benefit than completely expressing oneself. Applying for jobs has gone beyond an application and a resume. Hiring managers often Google search your name and look you up on Facebook to find out more about you. The internet is a real time display of how you conduct your life. Because anyone can see the information you post online, making sure the content is professional improves the chances you will be hired and keep your job. Affirmatives can argue that being an active member of society and being able to feed yourself probably outweigh the benefits of being able to freely express yourself via Facebook.

While this resolution is definitely not ideal for the affirmative it is by no means an unwinnable debate. You simply have to draw out the logic of the negative and show the judge that complete freedom of expression is not available in any other aspect of life and that the internet has become a major aspect of our daily lives. As the affirmative, you are in a good position to show the benefits of the internet and at the same time show how we can remain just as professional online as we can on the streets without becoming a completely fascist society that dictates what we say and how we say it.

Judges will appreciate the straightforward approach of the affirmative. Older judges will specifically appreciate the call for professionalism, and you will often win them over. You may have a more difficult time with younger, college age judges because they have grown up with the internet and do not see it as a portal of professionalism. But that does not mean that they cannot be won over by thoughtful and logical argumentation.

Negative

This resolution makes life quite easy for the negative. You get to defend freedom of expression, which has had centuries to evolve in laws and court decisions, whereas standards of professional behavior are less refined and specific. Also, professionalism evokes images of working and conforming, whereas freedom of expression suggests political contestation and open-endedness. These factors, combined with the negative time advantage, mean that you absolutely must write thoughtful and strategic negative cases. This is because you will have a harder time winning your affirmative rounds and will depend more on winning your negative rounds in order to advance to elims. Here are a few negative arguments to consider when deciding what negative case you will use.

First, you can claim that "standards of professionalism" are too diverse to make a value judgment. What counts as professional behavior for a garbage handler is different from that of a doctor.  If you are a waiter, and you apply a lawyer's standards of professionalism, you might be acting unprofessionally by being overly-formal. Standards of professionalism differ by field, but they also differ from firm-to-firm and employee-to-employee. Southwest Airlines instructs their employees to be friendly and personable, which includes light-hearted comments and jokes, whereas China Eastern Airlines encourages employees to behave more formally. Interns have different professional standards than CEOs.  Thus, important differences in standards of professionalism across industries, firms, and employee positions mean that you can't lump them all together and say they are more important than freedom of expression. You can also apply this argument to say that professionalism functionally has no meaning, since "standards of professional behavior" has no substantive content.    

Second, even if we could nail down which profession and firm we're discussing, standards of professional behavior are very subjective. Seemingly simple tenets such as "Do not share details about the company's operations on social networks" or "Do not display any sexually explicit material on your Facebook profile" turn out to be quite subjective. What counts as a compromising detail about the company? How suggestive or racy does an image have to be before we call it "sexually explicit"? What counts as pornography, and what counts as artistic expression? The answers to these questions are nearly impossible to answer in objective terms (hence, we have seen very subjective tests for inappropriateness such as "I know it when I see it"). It might be the case that freedom of expression also invokes subjective concepts, but imposing subjective standards of professionalism seems more dangerous because it allows employers to arbitrarily and maliciously interfere with a worker's personal life. Subjective standards of behavior are often abused for a particular political or personal end (for example, Sudan's law against "inappropriate clothing" has been used against feminist organizations). The advocacy would claim that valuing standards of professionalism over freedom of expression is bad because it allows employers to take advantage of the vagueness of professional standards and arbitrarily interfere with freedom of expression or personal lives of employees. I expect that this argument will be quite popular.

Third, you can claim that limiting freedom of expression on any internet medium should be regarded with suspicion because the internet facilitates criticism and dissent against the government. Restricting freedom of expression would limit the efficacy of this critical discourse. The reason the internet is such a powerful source of counter-hegemonic discourse is that a particular government cannot meaningfully regulate the internet. The internet is not "based" in a particular country, and clever users enjoy near complete anonymity, complicating efforts to police the internet. Also, users are always one step ahead of censors. China's army of censors that scour the net for inflammatory or politically sensitive material usually cannot keep up with the volume of content from or changing tactics of activists. The political impact of Web 2.0 is not to be neglected. This year, Twitter was a key organizational tool of the Iranian protesters who spoke out against the likely election fraud of the Ahmadinejad regime. It's not just that Kanye and Chuck Grassley use Twitter, or that it's just the new, hipper version of AIM. Twitter, Facebook, Wikipedia, YouTube, and the blogosphere represent fundamentally different kind of internet, because the content is user-generated. As opposed to Web 1.0, where particular authors and webmasters maintain a website and provide content, Web 2.0 is decentralized and resists direct regulation. China's Public Security Bureau cannot arrest Mark Zuckerberg because someone posted a Facebook note about Tibet. Facebook's user-generated decentralizes the operation of the website. At this point, you simply need to prove that standards of professional behavior are prone to manipulation (the vagueness arguments above might help), or that people will use social networking sites less in an affirmative world. For more about how the internet might create new avenues for political dissent, look for Barney Warf and John Grimes' work. Also James Boyle, Tal Zarsky, and Greg Lastowka are useful authors. Boyle's article "Foucault in Cyberspace: Surveillance, Sovereignty, and Hardwired Censors" is particularly good. Also, the Boston Bar Journal published a brief discussion of the legal dimensions of Web 2.0 in January of 2009. For a discussion of the sociological implications of Web 2.0, try Guy Pessach's "[Networked] Memory Institutions: Social Remembering, Privatization and Its Discontents."

There are a variety of reasons why the affirmative might discourage the use of social networks and other Web2.0 media. In some fields, having a Facebook profile at all might violate some tenet of professionalism. The Marines are not allowed to access Facebook while on duty because of the security risk. Many school districts forbid their teachers from having Facebook profiles, since they might allow students to find personal or inappropriate information about their instructors. Also, some people might abandon Web 2.0 social networking because they might become frustrated with their company meddling in their personal affairs and constantly monitoring their online lives. This can create a particularly vicious double-bind wherein an employee is seen as disloyal to the company if they do not register under the company's Facebook network. However, when they join the network, other members of the network can see their profile and pictures. Thus, some might abandon social networking websites because they face a catch 22: be seen as disloyal by not joining the company network, or have their private profile with unprofessional material exposed to co-workers and employers.  Third, people may abandon social networks in the affirmative world because they fear having other people write or say something inappropriate about them on the network. You cannot delete someone else's comment unless it's on your profile page, and you can't force people to take down inappropriate pictures of you unless it's illegal. This means that, even if you're comfortable with editing your profile information to look more professional, you still might be at risk because someone else might post compromising photos or messages about you. Given that this risk could result in getting fired or missing a promotion, many will back away from social networking sites. There are a few conclusions you can draw. Social networking sites allow for more political participation and are very useful for social activists. They also give us another chance to think about who exactly we are (when's the last time you listed your favorite books?), and how we would want our pseudo-public identity to look like. In addition, social networks have spurred innovation and better market competition because they connect experts and creative entrepreneurs.

Fifth, social networks are used to undermine government injustices, but also have the potential to undermine abuses by corporations. It's pretty clearly "unprofessional" to write on your Facebook wall about why your company is evil, or a specific level on which they're committing a crime. However, it might be more ethically desirable to expose corporate wrongdoing by posting that information, and Web 2.0 allows this information to spread very quickly. This is not some kind of far-fetched scenario, since some corporations have been accused of bribery, labor abuses, and excessive pollution. Arguably, there needs to be more checks on bad corporate behavior. After all, there is no International Corporate Criminal Court, and there are many problems with jurisdiction and inconsistent statutes that allow corporate misbehavior to go unpunished.  The argument would claim that freedom of expression on Web 2.0 platforms is a vital check against corporate abuses, and that professionalism standards would detract from social networks' potential to check against corporate wrongdoing.

On a more basic level, you can argue that privacy protections should include social networks pages. There is a basic level of individuality that people deserve as a result of their human worth, and this level of individuality requires a private space to allow for self-cultivation and personal development. There is a huge variety of reasons why privacy matters, but your main concern should be to explain why someone's social network profile should count as something in their private, personal life. Many affirmative debaters will dismiss this argument by claiming that social network pages are not covered under privacy protections because they're inherently public, since other people can view them. You can answer this objection by claiming either that some people choose to keep their profile strictly available to approved parties, or by claiming that Facebook, Myspace, YouTube, Wikis, Blogs, and Twitter have allowed us to create a digital self that's entitled to privacy. The "digital self" approach to the privacy argument is more interesting than the conventional privacy argument, and it might have some validity. Facebook and Myspace are the inner shell of your digital self. Your music or other creative projects can be displayed on YouTube. Twitter is the equivalent of your digital self getting cafeteria lunch with some friends. These functions are fundamentally different than in real life, and the social interactions that your digital self experiences are often impossible in the physical world. Consider running this argument only after doing extensive reading into the interaction of technology and human identity or the nature of the human subject/self.

Seventh, many affirmatives will discuss the harms of a lack of professionalism online, and might bring attention to companies that might face security risks or rely on a positive public image. You can say that many of these problems do not result from a fundamental conflict between free expression and professionalism; they instead result from an under-developed legal framework for approaching the content of social network sites. Why can't school districts simply insert a clause into their teachers' contracts that they may not have Facebook profiles or friend students? Why can't the company say in the contract that they reserve the right to tell you to take something down? It seems like a developed system of contract law dealing with employees' online behavior would solve many of the problems resulting from a lack of professionalism, but would avoid making a sweeping generalization about free expression.