Whether or Not the Internet Should Be Censured - Coursework Example

Ethics and E-Privacy By Ethics and E-privacy A Discussion on Whether or not the Internet should be censured Internet censorship can variously be defined as the suppression or the control of what can be accessed, or published on the internet. Internet censorship can be carried out by the government, or by the private organisation, either on their own initiative, or at the request of government or other regulators. The main aim of internet censorship is to control the people by restricting the information that they receive; internet censorship is also meant to protect people from the security problems that may come with uncensored internet. But not withstanding the advantages that come with internet censorship, there are also many disadvantages of internet censorship. Internet censorship therefore is a controversial issue. This essay discusses whether or not internet should be censured. In the essay, I have argued that internet should be censured because its advantages far outweigh its disadvantages. The main problem with internet censorship is that it is inconsistent with the universal human rights to freedom of expression and freedom of speech; internet censorship also is against the individual right to access of information. The main tenet of the freedom of expression or speech is that, every person has an inalienable right to freely express themselves; on the other hand, the right to information means that every person has the right to access information that they need in their lives. On this basis, the critiques of internet censorship contend that the censure of internet is against these basic human rights, and for that reason, they conclude that internet censorship is unethical and illegal. A critical look at this view, however, shows that internet censorship is not against human freedoms to speech and information. This is because, although every person has the right to freely express themselves , and to access the information that they need, the human right freedoms of expression, and access of information, however, are not absolute. The law does not allow one to exercise their rights of speech, and access of information, if by so doing they interfere with the rights of other people. For this reason, internet censorship is not illegal because it is meant to protect the human rights of other people by blocking access to information that can harm the people in one way or the other. The second argument against internet censorship is that, internet censorship limits education resources for the people. For instance, filter of internet contents in institutions of higher learning limits the education resources for the students in institutions of learning (Poland, n.d). While it is true that internet censorship does indeed limit education resources for the students in institutions of learning, internet censorship in institutions of higher learning has big advantage, i.e. internet censorship protects the young students from exposure to immoral literature like pornography. This fact therefore shows that although internet censorship limits education resources, it also protects the young learners, or the public from immoral and bad literature. Again, it is argued that internet censorship is expensive in terms of resources and time. For this reason, the critiques of internet censorship argue that the resources used in internet censorship by the government and other private organisations should be channelled to other worthy courses, instead of being squandered on futile restriction of the public from accessing all the information that they need in their lives. For the critiques of internet censorship, the people will always access the information that they need, through different methods, when the internet is censured. A critical look at this view, however, shows that this argument is flawed. This is because, first, the costly nature of internet censorship is not a sufficient reason to stop censuring the internet because the advantages that comes with internet censorship far outweighs the costs incurred by the government and the private organisations in the censuring of the internet. For instance, the advantage of the protection of young people from bad literature far outweighs any monetary resources spent in censuring the internet. Secondly, it is not true that all people will be able to easily access the information that is blocked on the internet as the result of internet censorship. Of course some people will be able to access the information through other means, but not all people. This fact therefore shows that internet censorship is not a futile exercise as the critiques of internet censorship want us to believe. As we have seen in the critique of the arguments against internet censorship, the advantages of internet censorship far outweighs the disadvantages of internet censorship. One major advantage of internet censorship is that we have not looked at in details is that, internet censorship is quite important for security purposes. With the threat of terrorism in the modern world becoming a real threat to world security, it is indeed quite important to censure the internet and ensure that the terrorist do not have access to critical information that they can exploit to cause harm to other people. This is a major advantage of internet censorship. In conclusion, internet censorship is indeed a controversial issue because it raises pertinent issues on the human freedoms to speech and access to information. Internet censorship also can be misused by the authoritarian regimes for selfish interest, leading to the exploitation of the people. However, a critical comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of internet censorship shows that, the advantages of internet censorship outweigh the disadvantages of internet censorship. For this reason, internet should be censured. To mitigate the misuse of internet censorship, however, there is need of proper legislations that would ensure that internet censorship is done for the common good of all people, and not for selfish ends. Organizational intellectual property rights (IPRs) should be restricted to socially important technological inventions Organizational intellectual property rights should be restricted to socially important technological inventions so as to encourage organizations to make technological inventions that will positively impact on the lives of the members of the society. One counter argument to this argument is that, by restricting organizational property rights only to socially important technological inventions, we deny organizations rights to other important intellectual properties that may not necessarily important to the larger society. However, although restricting organizational intellectual property rights to socially important technological inventions will deny organizations rights to other intellectual property that are not socially important, the restriction, however, will be in the interest of the society for it will encourage organizations to focus on technological inventions that are socially important. Mandatory governmental licensing of IT Professionals would be a good thing I agree with the view that the government must license all IT professionals. This is because the licensing of IT professionals will mean that it is only the trained and well skilled IT professional will be allowed to work in the IT sector. Without the licensing of the IT professionals, many people who are not trained as IT professionals may pretend to be IT professionals and do many IT jobs, thus denying the trained IT professionals the chance to practice their profession. Licensing of the IT professionals will also mean that there is more governmental control on the IT profession, and this will mean that the licensed IT professionals will have to abide by the government regulations. This in turn will lead to reduced malpractices in the IT profession because many licensed IT professionals will be afraid of losing their licenses through professional malpractices. The Practice of Data Mining of Consumer information by Commercial Organisations Data mining of consumer information refers to the process of analyzing consumer information from different sources, and summarising the data into useful information. However, consumer data mining is done without an informed consent from the consumers. This fact makes data mining to be a controversial issue. Some scholars hold that data mining of consumer information is ethical, while other scholars hold the opposite view that data mining is unethical. Data mining of consumer behaviour also may put the lives of consumers into risk because data mining can reveal a lot of personal information about an individual. The personal information may land in the hands of criminals, thus putting the lives of the consumers into risk. The Effectiveness of Legislation, Industry-self regulation, and privacy enhancing technologies, to privacy protection Legislation is quite important on the protection of individual right to privacy. Legislations ensure that there are sufficient laws to protect the individual rights to privacy. Legislation also ensures that those who flout the privacy protection regulations are punished accordingly. Industry-self regulation on the other hand ensures that the industry has internal mechanisms and means to protect its stake-holders rights to privacy. Industry-self regulation therefore is also a very effective means of protecting the individual right to privacy. Privacy enhancing technologies, on the other hand, are meant to ensure that the identity of internet users is protected, this again enhances the protection of individual right to privacy. These three methods of protection of privacy are therefore quite effective and important in protecting the privacy of individuals. A Discussion on the Impacts computer systems have had in the work place in terms of knowledge, skills, and working conditions. The major impact of computerization on knowledge is that computerization has made the access of knowledge quite easy. Computers store a lot of information and the access of the information is quite easy. Also, through the internet, it is possible for one to easily access unlimited amount of information/knowledge. In terms of skills, computerization has made work quite simple. The various softwares that perform different tasks have complimented human skills, thus making work quite simple. On working conditions, computerization has made the working conditions quite effective and efficient because with the use of computers, less man labour is required. A Discussion on how in the information society people are using computers people are using computers to make decisions for them too often, thus abdicating personal responsibility. In the modern information society, people have developed computer programs and softwares that they rely on in making pertinent decisions in life. This of course has made some people to abdicate personal responsibility, since it is the computers that make important decisions in life that require actual human being. But, it has been argued that computers have not made people to abdicate their personal responsibility because, the computer programs and softwares that aid man in making important decision in life are actually made by man to help him in this kind of tasks. For this reason, relying on this kind of computer programs and softwares in making decision should not be viewed as an abdication of personal responsibility. A Discussion on whether or not hacking is ethically neutral. Hacking is not ethically neutral because it often leads to harm on the person whose computer system or network has been hacked. Also, hacking is an invasion of one’s privacy because through hacking, one is able to access private information of another person, without the owner’s consent. These two facts therefore show that hacking is unethical. Although hacking has some significant advantages on security, such as discovering and averting a possible terrorist attacks, hacking is, however, an unethical because it is an infringement on personal privacy and for that reason it is intrinsically unethical. A Discussion on the Concept of Privacy as: a positive right and a negative right In Ethics, positive right refers to the right that obliges someone or a group of people to do something for you because you deserve it. Negative right on the other hand obliges someone not to do something for you because it is against what you deserve. The right to privacy can be viewed as both a positive right and a negative right. As a positive right, privacy is a basic human right that obliges other people to recognize and respect our privacy. In other words, other people owe me respect for my privacy, and for this reason, the government is obliged to put in place the appropriate relevant laws that will ensure that other people respect my privacy. As a negative right, the right to privacy obliges other people not to do anything that is contrary to my right to privacy. For instance, my right to privacy obliges my employer not to use technologies that infringe upon my right to privacy. A Discussion on the Statement “The ends can justify the means” This ethical principle means that in making ethical decisions, the end results of our actions, and not the means used to perform the actions should be the sole determinant of the morality of our actions. I really don’t agree with this moral dictum because even the means used to perform an action is important in determining the morality of an action. For instance, in judging the morality of data mining, we should not be guided solely by the benefits that comes with data mining, as the proponents of utilitarian ethical theory (the ends can justify the means) would contend. In determining the morality of data mining, we should also take into consideration the means used to acquire the data and to analyze the data, i.e. collecting the consumer data without the consumers consent is unethical. For this reason, I don’t agree with the utilitarian dictum that, the ends can determine the means. A Critique on the Practice of Data Mining Consumer Information by Commercial Organisations As Connoly and Begg define data mining, data mining is the process of extracting valid, previously unknown, comprehensible, and actionable information from large databases and using it to make crucial business decisions (Connoly &Begg, 2004). Data mining therefore is used by commercial organizations in various ways in their efforts to boost their businesses and to maximise profits. For instance, the information gained through data mining can provide marketers with accurate trends on their customers purchasing behaviour. But although data mining actually provides valuable information to commercial organisations, a critical look at the practice of data mining shows that data mining is an infringement on individual privacy. Before we look at how data mining is an infringement of individual privacy, let us look at the main advantages of data mining to the commercial organizations. As we have already seen, data mining helps commercial organisations in knowing the purchasing patterns of their customers/clients. Through this knowledge, the commercial organisations are able to market their products better, guided by the customers purchasing trends. The information gained through data mining can also help marketers in commercial organisations in predicting the kind of products the customers are interested in. Through the prediction, commercial organisations are able to come up with products that suit the customers’ interests. Data mining is also quite useful in law enforcement. Through data mining, law enforcement agencies are able to detect criminals through examining the criminals’ trend in location, habit, crime type, and other relevant patterns of the criminals’ behaviour. The knowledge gained through data mining can also be applied by financial institutions such as banks in detecting fraud. Examples of fraudulent behaviour that can easily be detected through the knowledge gained through data mining are credit card fraud detection, and checking for false insurance claims. In nutshell, data mining is quite important to commercial organisations. Based on these many advantages of data mining to commercial organisations, some scholars contend that data mining is quite important to the survival of commercial organisations. For this reason, the scholars contend that data mining is moral and should be legalized since it does not negatively affect any body directly. However, a critical look at the practice of data mining of consumer information by the commercial organisations shows that data mining is an infringement on the individual right to privacy, and therefore, it is immoral and illegal. Before we look at how data mining is an infringement of individual right to privacy, it is important to note that data mining is done without the knowledge and the consent of the consumers. Mining data without the knowledge of the individual consumers is clearly against the ethical guidelines for statistical practice (Ethical Guidelines for Statistical Practice, web). This fact therefore shows that data mining of consumer information by commercial organisations is unethical. Besides violating the ethical guidelines for statistical practice, data mining infringes upon personal right to privacy in the following way. The process of data mining is normally a long process which in some instances involves putting different datasets from different sources. This is made in an effort to uncover previously unknown pattern of consumers’ purchasing behaviour. The putting of different datasets from different sources can lead to knowing almost everything about an individual. For instance, if datasets from social media such as facebook, twitter, and LinkedIn, are put together, you may end up with a lot of information about a person, such as, the telephone number of the individual person, age, physical address, level of education of the individual, and also the profession of the individual. This kind of information is clearly the personal information that one should not possess without the permission of the individual owner. Getting this kind of information without the owner’s permission, therefore, is against the individual right to privacy. In addition, this kind of information can land on wrong hands, thus compromising the security of the individual person. This concern has made some people to avoid purchasing things online for fear that their personal information may end up in wrong hands, thus compromising their personal security. In conclusion, data mining of consumer information is indeed quite useful to the commercial organisations. However, a critical look at the practice of data mining of consumer information by the commercial organisations shows that, the data mining is unethical and an infringement upon the consumers privacy. This is because, first, data mining of consumer behaviour is done without the consent of the consumers, secondly, the practice of data mining of consumer behaviour can lead to uncovering of an individual personal information, and the personal information can land in wrong hands because many companies lack good security systems to protect their information. For this reason, data mining of consumer behaviour is unethical and an infringement of personal right to privacy, although it is indeed useful to commercial organisations. Commercial organisations therefore should look for other means of collecting data on consumer behaviour, rather than using data mining method which is unethical and an infringement upon the individual right to privacy. A Criticism on the Contemporary use of CCTV (Closed Circuit Television) CCTV refers to a TV system in which video cameras are used to transmit signals to a specific place, on a limited set of monitors. CCTV technology is used primarily for surveillance and security purposes. The difference between the CCTV and the broadcast television system is that, while the broadcast television system signals are publicly distributed, the CCTV system signals are not openly distributed. There are pros and cons of the use of CCTV system. A critical look at the advantages and disadvantages of the use of CCTV system shows that the use of CCTV system is unethical and counter-productive. The main advantage of using CCTV cameras is that the CCTV cameras enhance security within the building or the area where they are installed. CCTV cameras are able to capture high-resolution footage; the CCTV cameras also are able to capture sound in a very clear way. For this reason, the use of CCTV ensures that everything that happens within the building where the cameras are installed is captured and sent to the monitors. This discourages crimes like theft and vandalism within the organisation. Also, in case of a crime, like theft, the CCTV footage can be used as foolproof evidence in court. Again, the CCTV footage can be used as a solid support for insurance claims. The use of CCTV cameras therefore deters commission of crime because criminals will be afraid of stealing in a building installed with CCTV cameras. But, although the use of CCTV cameras is meant to deter crime, it is arguable whether the use of CCTV cameras can indeed deter crime. This is because criminals like thieves can use masks so as to avoid being identified by the CCTV cameras while they commit crimes. This fact therefore shows that CCTV cameras may not be very effective in deterring crime. A look at the disadvantages of using the CCTV cameras for surveillance and security purposes will show that the use of CCTV is unethical and counter-productive. Firstly, the use of CCTV to monitor workers activities within an organisation is an invasion into the workers privacy. The right to privacy demands that people’s right to privacy be respected. Monitoring the activities of the employees through the use of CCTV cameras therefore is an invasion of personal privacy. The proponents of the use of CCTV cameras in work place argue that the work environment/ offices are public space and not private space, and for this reason the use of CCTV cameras in work environment is justified. However, although the work environment may not be private space, people have freedom of privacy even in public space. One does not lose his/her rights to privacy simply because they are in public space. For this reason, whatever way we may look at the use of CCTV cameras to monitor workers actions within an organisation, the use of CCTV technology in work place is an invasion of personal privacy. Also, the use of CCTV technology to monitor the activities of workers in an organisation can lead to the loss of morale by the employees. Employees normally feel unease when all their activities within an organisation are constantly monitored. This may in turn make the employees to lose morale in their work, leading to low productivity within the organisation. Another pitfall of the use of CCTV cameras in monitoring workers behaviour within an organisation is that the CCTV cameras do not always work. Although the CCTV cameras are very good at recording the activities taking place within an organisation, the CCTV cameras do not monitor every area within an organisation. The other disadvantage of using the CCTV technology in an organisation is that it is quite costly to buy and install the CCTV cameras on a building. For this reason, an organisation may spend a lot of its resources in installing this security system. A comparison of the advantages of use of CCTV technology in monitoring activities within an organisation shows that although the use of CCTV cameras can lead to a reduction of crime within an organisation, the use of CCTV system, however, is an invasion on the individual right to privacy and on this ground it is unethical. Also, the use of CCTV system within an organisation can make the employees to lose morale in their work leading to lower productivity. All these facts show that the use of CCTV system in monitoring activities within an organisation is unethical and counterproductive. In conclusion, employees within an organisation should not be monitored by the CCTV cameras. CCTV technology should be used in other areas, for instance at the entrance to the organisation, but not inside the building and offices. The employees’ rights to privacy should be respected and upheld. References Ethical Guidelines for Statistical Practice. Web. Retrieved from: http://ri.search.yahoo.com /_ylt =A0SO8zLljzZTO3MAPL1XNyoA;_ylu=X3o>. Connoly, T & Begg, C. Data Base Systems: A Practical Approach to Design, Implementation, and Management. USA: Addison Wesley, 2004. Poland, A. The Disadvantages of Internet Censorship. Web. http://ri.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=X 3oDMTEzb> Read More