Electronic harms carried out remotely escape personal moral control because outcomes stay diffuse

Evidence

Additional unique features of electronic communication technologies make them perilous if used for harmful purposes. They are readily accessible, portable, easily implementable remotely by clicks, connected worldwide for far-reaching consequences, and exceedingly difficult to control as institutions. Transgressive actions that produce diffuse outcomes via circuitous paths are also less amenable to personal control than actions that beget direct, tightly contingent outcomes. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 477

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Milgrom on how distance institutions solve information problems — here the reverse: distance dissolves moral accountability. — connects to: Technological rationality neutralizes guilt and conscience under reification — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 346; The web kept its romantic aura long after real harms accumulated — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 1091; Moral outrage online substitutes for confronting offenders in person — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 456 (+1 more)