Technology, Society & Corporate Responsibility

In a thought-provoking article in Information Week entitled, "Can Tech Companies Do the Right Thing?", Michael Hickins points out that some technology companies who have been held up as model corporate citizens in one continent are being castigated as bad actors in another.

He is referring to the recent allegation by Iranian protesters that Nokia--by use of its advanced technology by the Iranian government to spy on and track demonstrators--is complicit in the denial of basic of human rights to Iranians.

The irony, Hickins points out, is that Nokia recently was lauded as a leading socially responsible company for all of its good work in the U.S.

What this all suggests to me is that norms of corporate behavior can be adjusted to fact-specific situations and cited as either positive or negative.

Moreover, technology, which is normally thought of as a neutral tool (or force) that can be utilized for good or evil, may not be so innocent. I hesitate, though, to jump to the conclusion reached by the Iranian democracy dissidents that mere usage of a technological tool by a repressive regime, renders the technology inherently bad.

In their earnest efforts to draw international condemnation on the Iranian government, the democracy demonstrators have directed their wrath in the wrong direction.

(c) 2009 Adonis E. Hoffman