It Is the Responsibility of Organizations to Make Sure Their Sites Are Safe for Vulnerable Users.

Statement: It is the responsibility of organizations to make sure their sites are safe for vulnerable users.  

For the Motion:

        It is the responsibility of organizations to make sure their sites are safe for vulnerable users. Organizations have the responsibility of making a site that is safe enough for all users to use without worrying about if their information could be preyed on. For vulnerable users like children, organizations have an obligation to ensure that children are unable to access the site. Children are naïve and susceptible to coercion and pressure from external forces, so it is the responsibility of organizations to make sure that it is not possible for these children to access its site to begin with.

Against the Motion:

        It is not the responsibility of organizations to make sure that their sites online are safe for vulnerable users. A big question when we talk about whether sites are safe for vulnerable users, is who are these vulnerable users? Are these vulnerable users’ children, the elderly, or people who are just unfamiliar with the internet and are easily affected by sketchy popups and advertisements? At which point does the responsibility fall onto the person itself who is vulnerable, and at which point is it the organization’s fault? I believe that if we constantly force the responsibility onto the organizations, then it is a slippery slope until organizations can be held responsible for the safety for ALL vulnerable users.

My Position:

I do not believe that it is the responsibility of organizations to make sure that their websites are safe for vulnerable users. There are simply too many factors that can affect a person’s user experience when visiting people’s websites. To tell the website owner that they are fully responsible for making sure that the person who is visiting the website does not accidentally get tricked into doing something should not be their responsibility. For instance, if a child under 13 is using Facebook, it is because that child illegally accessed that website, because they lied about their age. Is that Facebook’s fault that they can just say that their age is something else, or is it the child’s parent’s fault because they are not supervising the child when the child is using their computer? I believe that it falls on the latter.