My Ethics

revised 09 July 2011

The WikiLeaks and Radia Tapes scandals of 2010 have raised questions on Ethics versus Whistle Blowing.  The slant of this blog has been to make fun of anyone and everyone when they act wrong, hilarious or stupid.  There are no issues about their ‘personalities’, but only on their ‘actions’ - nothing personal, just blogging.

WikiLeaks and Radia Tapes can be taken as leaking of confidential information covered under Official Secrets Act (or its regional equivalent).  Or it can be viewed as a Whistle-Blowing action.

In such troubled waters, it seems right to float some markers to safely navigate away from danger and hence this Ethics page.  The code of ethics has been modelled on Prashant Agarwal’s on WSJ (http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2010/11/24/my-journalistic-code-of-ethics/).

(Amendment Feb 2011) :

In view of the proposed update of Child Porn Laws in EU and some repeated suspicious URL search on the post My Farmer is making me a Junkie, and my own response, the Ethics code is updated to reflect stance against anti-social, immoral or illegal behaviour.

(Amendment Jan 2011) :

In view of the UK Office of Fair Trading crackdown on bloggers and twitter endorsing products there is a requirement to update the Ethics code.  Henceforth and even retrospectively, all endorsements, reviews and write-ups for which some gratuity is received will be categorized under 'Sponsored-Advt' category (complying with the US Federal Trade Commission guidelines).[http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/10/endortest.shtm]

Not that I live in US/UK; or such laws exist in IN; or that I routinely endorse products; or that I have so many followers :-/

(Note Dec 2010) :

From the WSJ article, the reference to serving the republic has been omitted as sometimes what is good for the republic may not be good for the common man.  And reflecting the views expressed in WSJ, the promise should be short and simple.  It should also sound in-the-face like the WTFPL and be released under WTFPL

So, here, I give the world the 

PISS Code - Promise of Integrity, Short and Simple Code

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PROMISE OF INTEGRITY SHORT AND SIMPLE (PISS) CODE

Version 03 - February 2011

1. Write on facts to the best of my ability
2. Neither support nor condone any anti-social, immoral or illegal behaviour
3. Disclose any possible conflicts of interest
4. Not be influenced by monies, gifts, gratuities or threats from anyone
5. Disclose when 'material connections' exist in reviews or endorsements
6. Remain focussed, unbiased, practice Satyagraha and take utmost care
7. Not ask, request, endorse, demand or encourage release of any information of any nature covered by Official Secrets Act (or its national equivalent), into public domain by anyone who is not authorised to do so by competent authority, except when such information reveals illegal acts of any nature
8. Obey all rules, laws and regulations in existence subject to above

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version history:

version 03 - released 18 February 2011:  new Clause (2) added

version 02 - released 10 January 2011 :  new Clause (4) added

version 01 - released 04 December 2010 :  original code