Alexandra Jimenez
Bill Sourour started working for an interactive marketing firm in Toronto, Canada when he was 21 as a programmer. He addressed how in Canada, pharmaceutical companies are limited to advertising prescription drugs to consumers online. So companies created informative websites with listed symptoms these drugs aided. One of his projects was directed towards teenage girls. The website would need to have the girls take a quiz and would then recommend them a prescription drug based on what their answers were. Before submitting his project to the client, the project manager tested the site and saw that no matter what answers they put on the quiz it would always lead to what drug the company was trying to sell. Sourour told her that that was what he was told to do with the answers. He was not doing anything illegal, a job was a job. He was later sent an email with a link to an article about a young girl who took the drug and committed suicide. The drug was linked to depression and suicidal thoughts. He knew about the site, what its marketing strategy was and decided to ignore it. I do not think it was ethical of him to create a website that essentially tricked all these young teenagers to take a drug that they probably did not need, which resulted with one of them committing suicide. He should have said not to the job offer. Why was it that someone had to die for him to realize it was wrong? When he had the power to not be part of this scheme in the beginning? The only people that benefited from his actions was the pharmaceutical company because they were making money from all these teens buying this new drug because they all believe that this was there only hope of getting better. Instead, they gained severe depression and suicidal thoughts. If I was in his position I would have looked for a new job, it is not worth the money to put people at risk. While he was working on the website, his nineteen year old sister had been prescribed the drug the site was selling and he told her to get off the medicine and luckily for him she did. He managed to save one person, while contributing to the pain of so many others. No, he did not kill anyone, no he did no prescribed or sell the medication to these girls, but he did contribute to the cause. Instead of helping the cause, he helps the company creating the problem. Technology is taking over our lives. In his situation is was with a drug prescription recommendation, which at the time seemed harmless, but as the years go on and technology gets smarter, technology will start making decisions for us and at one point we have to take a moment to think about what is more important: lives or money. As technologists, we have to learn where to draw the line and remove ourselves from these kinds of situations. We have to see the bigger picture and not get held up with how much money is on the line.
4 Comments
Luigi
2/3/2017 07:46:42 pm
It is possible that this person had no real education or exposure to ethical standards. Not everyone has a moral compass and not everyone has the ability to decide right from wrong. All in all it is a sad story, but an important one that provides a great example of what not to do!
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Darren Chan
5/3/2017 08:59:59 pm
It is common that people don't have any idea what is right or wrong. Everyone only does what he or she thinks is right, which is sad to say that this world is messed up with a lot of people who aren't perfect.
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Noemi Cuin
5/10/2017 11:53:51 pm
hi alexandra,
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Cammron Keehley
5/20/2017 09:58:30 pm
Alex,
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AuthorHello! I'm 19 years old. i'm a 3rd year Communication Design major with an emphasis is visual design and a minor in Business Marketing. Archives
May 2017
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