They have been chastised, made to walk with their heads down and the worst may still be coming. As the dust starts to settle on what others have described as the evidence of how morally corrupted our society has become, there is another face of the Malswitch pornographic scandal which most people have perhaps not considered. Once we start looking at that face, the obvious is emerging; the casualties of this scandal are not only the porn actors.
It is being widely believed that a technician at an IT company Mr. Mkungula took his computer to, was responsible for leaking the porno pictures. If this is true however, the IT company that is being linked to the leaked pictures may soon find itself as the biggest casualty.
Much as we do not condone sexual immorality, our society should not smile at the lack of professionalism displayed by the technicians who handled Mr. Mkungula’s faulty computer. I for one do not believe the victims had given the technician any permission to release what they took to be private information to the public. What is even more worrying is that we do not even know if this unprofessional technician was only interested in the information he released to the public. It might be the case that this being an official computer, Mr. Mkungula used to store more official information than just the porn pictures which the tech released to the public.
It is my view that technicians must be people with high professional caliber and can always be trusted. A technician ought to hold the same ethic as any other person who is dealing with people’s private information. An Information technician is in my view like a doctor who we tell our problems because we trust them. It would be totally absurd for a doctor to go to town disclosing that I for example have gonorrhea as that would be a gross violation of the doctors’ profession ethics. Similarly, the IT guys were given the computer to repair on trust. Their orders were clear, repair the computer and return it to the owner. Whatever was stored in the computer was thus none of their business. The release of the porno pictures to the public may be taken as a moral victory against the pornographic trio. But what about the IT company’s reputation?
It is unfortunate that many people have not considered this scandal as a threat to the survival of the IT Company. Essentially if you are in IT business, there is no way you can do without handling peoples information. That is why as I have said earlier on that anyone dealing with peoples private information needs to have the same ethic as a doctor. By releasing what by all means was private information, the technician has only damaged the reputation of the company he is working for. It will now be very difficult for a person or any institution which is serious with its information to consider taking their computers for repairs at the company. Already, rumours suggest that RBM has instituted an investigation to determine how much of the company’s information is in the public’s hands as a result of the scandal. That in itself, if it is true, is a vote of no confidence to the company. The RBM rightly feels that it is not only the porn pictures that may have found way into the public hands but also some sensitive information about the bank. It is unfortunate that this overzealous technician thought he had a moral duty to expose what Mr. Mkungula was doing forgetting that he also had a duty to protect the reputation of his company. It is likely that the IT company will suffer from this unprofessional conduct and that it is likely going to take a lot of time and effort to restore the company’s reputation.
The third casualty of the scandal may even be the technician himself. In my opinion, if the state is holding Mr. Mkungula and Mrs. Msisya on charges of circulating pornographic material, then the state has no case against the suspects. It is the one who leaked the information on the internet who needs to answer for his actions and not the suspects the police are holding. I am not trying to justify the suspects’ act of immorality, but a distinction always has to be drawn between morality and the law. What is immoral is not always illegal and vice versa. If the state is to hold on to the two suspects, then they should be held on legal and not moral grounds. Legally, it is the one who is responsible for circulating the materials who is supposed to defend himself. Only if the censorship act prohibits the making of such materials does the state have a case against the two but if we do not have such references and prohibitions in the act, then the two are being wrongly held by the state.
The technician, who released the pictures, ought to have acted responsibly not only in consideration to the image of his company but also to preserve the futures of the children of the actors. The parent’s perverse acts do not justify the suffering the children are likely going through as a result of the scandal. He should have thought about the children, some may still be in school and honestly, chances are very high that this disgrace may have severe consequences on the futures on these children. The act of publishing the pictures on the internet is by all means irresponsible and should not be accepted by all right thinking Malawians.
As people continue making fun of the pictures there is need to separate between responsible whistle blowing and reckless whistle blowing. There are many ways the technician could have let people know about what was happening apart from the internet circulations of the pictures. As a result of this reckless whistle blowing, there are more people who will suffer for what they were not supposed to suffer. This is enough reason to have the IT guy in the cooler as well.
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