ICT Professionals Identify And Ethical Challenges

Introduction

The ethical dilemma is the issues that arise due to the problem involving right or wrong. The increasing global arena of the cyber space and use of Internet has lead to the fact that government cannot just regulate for achieving the global electronic environment according to their needs. The government has to apply the approach of lighter regulations for allowing the development of the Internet. The Internet regulations are mainly to decrease the Internet related criminal activities. Since, Internet has allowed people to get access to a wide array of information, the easy access also pose challenge for the security of personal information. The ethical dilemma in Internet regulations is to decide about how much regulations should b enforced for a safe electronic system without interfering with privacy of people.

Ethical dilemmas in ICT have significantly affected the bossiness and the process of communication. ICT has also encouraged the illegal activities and cyber crimes. The ethical dilemma in regulating Internet is the main issue. The Internet related ethical dilemma requires following the rules and regulations. The ethical issues are associated with the type of content posted on Internet rather than feelings associated with expression (Dahl, 2007).. Australia also has some anti-spam agreements with a number of different nations. In order to control the problem of increasing spam, post related to offensive material, and different international agreements requires the Australian government to take the aggressive Internet regulatory measures. The policy of self-regulation has not effectively worked in the area of Internet.

Internet regulations are meant to regulate the misuse of internet. The information revolution has transformed many personal aspects of the life of people. Therefore, information and communication technology (ICT) had also resulted aim good and bad consequences. It is important that communication and computer ethics should be associated with best Internet practice. The different ethical theories can be associated with the concept of internet regulations.

The ethical theory of Consequentialism states that “the moral worth of an action is solely determined by its contribution to overall utility” (Dahl, 2007). The rightness of any actions are solely dependent on the degree or its capacity to produce the good consequences. This theory has important place in computer ethics. The theory of Utilitarianism is also a consequentialist theory which states that best actions are those that are responsible for producing greatest amount of good (Dahl, 2007). It can also be considered as the moral theory associated with risk analysis and cost benefits. The Australian information and communication technology (ICT) professionals are focused on solving various Internet related ethical issues.

Internet regulations in the country are important for fulfilling many external and internal ethical issues. The Internet regulations are also dependent on the social and cultural perspectives. This is the reason that many Western ethical theories like utilitarianism, Kantianism, or virtue ethics, are significantly applied in Internet regulations and computer networks (McDermid, 2008). Deontological theories are considered as the significant replacement of the consequentialism, which states that rightness of the actions is mainly dependent on consequences of the actions. However, the theories of utilitarian, deontological and virtue ethics are criticized, because various studies have stated that moral aspirations are absurd and such morality can be dangerous (Lichtenstein, 2011).

The regulatory provision of Internet in Australia focuses on the strategies for managing the problem of racism of Internet. The self regulatory aspects associated with internet are no more useful and country requires more specific internet regulation policies and laws (McDermid, 2008). There are various ways of analyzing the ethical issues in ICT. The flow of the Internet regulations has to be based on the ethical guidelines influenced by various ethical principles. The main problem that the ICT professionals are facing in Internet regulations is to find satisfactory outcomes (Burmeister et al, 2014).. However, the ethical standards can be applied to the Internet regulations. According to the theory of Utilitarianism, the good has to be maximized. However, there are also criticisms of this theory because it lacks sufficient considerations and provisions of rights and justice (Burmeister et al, 2014).. The unprofessional personal behavior and unprofessional organizational cultures increases the chances of Internet crimes and misuse of Internet. Therefore, the organizational policies have to firmly implement the Internet regulations for dealing with various kinds of unprofessionalism.

Regulating internet is very hard job in Australia because of the presence of the bipartisan policy that is used to implement wide access to Internet (Burmeister et al, 2014). The self regulatory culture of Internet can be effective in managing the ethical dilemmas aroused by internet regulations. Utilitarianism view can be applied to the Internet regulations in Australia, as it can help in providing the justifiable standards for internet regulation in the country. The ethical theory of Deontology states that moral actions of the people are regulated by the moral laws. The moral laws are required to be at the foundation of the Internet regulatory laws and international environment of the copyrights (McDermid, 2008).

The Internet regulations for preventing the ethical dilemma should also be focused on the principles of freedom, Justice, equality and benevolence. The liberty of every individual should be acknowledged through the regulations and should also be provided with complete moral freedom (Quinn, 2014). The justice and equality states that equal rights should be applied for every individual and even the non-regulatory aspects of internet should be supported with moral and ethical evidences. The potential capacity of the Internet regulations should be used to solve the ethical problems related to security, privacy and crimes. The government regulations should also apply the approach of blocking and filtering (Lichtenstein, 2011). However, the filtering and blocking can interfere with the freedom of expression. The regulatory power can be used over the filtering technique with the help of the rating system. The internet regulations in Australia, can have agreements with the search engines to regulate the content they allow people to watch, post and express. According to the study of Quinn (2014) “Deontological arguments in favor of freedom of expression, and of intellectual freedom in general, are based on claims that people are entitled to freely express their thoughts, and to receive the expressions made by others, quite independently of whether the effects of that speech are desirable or not”.

Conclusion

The ethical issues have been increased in the information and computer technology. The ethical dilemma related to internet regulations is the restriction of freedom and the trust issues. The self regulatory approach is mainly associated with internet. However, this approach has not been sufficient to address the various ethical problems. The regulatory system for the internet requires the honest culture. There are many specific issues associated with the internet regulations. The first issue is the spam. The spam or the junk folder is meant for the unsolicited bulk mails, and it has been found that black market people are using the spam mails for selling drugs, , hacking personal information through bogus prizes and there is also the high rate of Nigerian money laundering frauds. However, the regulatory system for Internet requires applying the moral and ethical theories for receiving the explicit and implied consent of the users. However, the moral and ethical principles can significantly influence the actions of the internet users. The theory of Utilitarianism states that moral and ethical actions are of two kinds, first that produce good results and he second that produce bad results. The good and bad results of the action are derived from the moral laws. Therefore, the Internet regulations in Australia are required to be derived from the moral theories and have to focus on regulating the used of internet in such a way that it do not interfere with the freedom of the users. Internet related transmission channels and exchange of information through internet should be derived from the ethical theories.

References

Burmeister, O., Al-Saggaf, Y., Schwartz, M., & Johnson, L. (2014). Internet resources to help Australian ICT professionals identify and solve ethical challenges. ACIS.

Dahl, S. (2007). Ethics in online marketing: a case-based analysis of ethical issues in internet marketing (Master's thesis).

Lichtenstein, S. (2011). Ethical issues for internet use policy: balancing employer and employee perspectives. International journal of technology management, 54(2/3), 288-303.

McDermid, D. (2008). Ethics in ICT: an Australian perspective. Pearson Higher Education AU.

Quinn, M. J. (2014). Ethics for the information age. Pearson.