Regulation On Internet: ICT

“The Information and Communication Technology or Technologies”, or simply ICT is an umbrella term involving various applications, communication devices and encompassing (Vaishnavi & Kuechler, 2015). The limiting or managing the access of some data aspects is known as the “Internet regulation” (Curran, Fenton & Freedman, 2016). 

Along with identifying the contentious scenario in the ICT, the evaluation of the elements of arguments dissecting it, is needed to be demonstrated.

The essay has chosen the “Regulation on Internet” in identifying various ethical issues arising.

The multi-regulation, a core supporting system for the ethical regulation of Internet, has delivered various solutions. They have been complicated and hard to make sense. It has been well recognized that the environment of global network, especially Internet has been defying the traditional regulatory theories.  The primary causes have been connected with disintegration of the idea of sectors and territory. Thus it is proposed to move towards the Internet regulation under the lens of four ethical philosophies.

The “Utilitarianism” claims that any action is to be considered right as the outcomes of the action are more appreciable that unfavorable for everyone. As the variation in the outcomes of the alternative activities is not good enough, few Utilitarian never consider the choosing between them a moral issue. As claimed by Mill, the activities could be distinguished as right or wrong as the importance of the results are such that any individual would desire to see the agents compelled (Joyce, 2015). The act should be in a preferred manner not merely exhorted nor persuaded.

From the point of view of utilitarianism there has been some parties impacted due to the net neutrality decisions. As the neutrality of Internet is to be made strong, the organizations should achieve the aims of the open internet ultimately. This indicates that their utilities must grow due to their regulations in the place to help the profit for largest number of people possible. Various organizations have been continuing to claim that they have been experiencing decline in utility on the other hand. This is due to the fact that the philosophy slows down the innovation and violating the freedom of speech (Dong & Xiang, 2014). The overall social utilities of the content providers have been varying on the basis of the size of the organizations. With the internet neutrality, the Internet users would possess same access to everything over net. The avid users of Internet have been feeling that it would raise their utility.

The deontology has been the approach of ethics focusing on the right and wrong nature of the actions themselves. It does not consider whether the outcomes were right or wrong or to the habit or characters of the doer.  Thus it is seen that for the deontologists the rightness or the wrongness of the results has been relying on the actions that brought that about has been right, or wrong. The aspect of making right choice has been the conformity with the moral norm. Thus, right overshadows the priority of being good. For instance, some suggested slaying everybody currently settled over the land not supporting any agriculture. This might bring a world where there is no starvation. In such a scenario a deontologist would argue by saying that the scenario without starvation has been the poor “state of affair” (Díaz-Campo & Segado-Boj, 2015). This is because of the manner by which it was done. In order to seek the responsibilities imposed on internet regulation, the source of right that the users having on this are to be considered. This could be achieved by human, legal, position and contact rights.    However, it has been difficult to impose internet regulation as human rights. For internet regulations the human right needs regulation and legislation making it a legal right. The internet regulation could be seen as the contract right (López Jiménez, Redchuk & Vargas, 2016). This is done at the particular scenarios where the contracts are present to establish that rights. Any rights regarding internet regulation require establishment as legal rights to seek the desired responsibilities facilitating the security of that rights.

The virtue ethics has been person based rather than dealing with actions. The moral or virtuous character of the individuals performing tasks are considered rather that the ethical rules and duties. In addition of delivering the righteousness or the wrongness of individual activities, it gives guidance to sort the behaviors and characters of a good individual .Thus, the virtue ethics has been concerned about the complete life of a person rather than considering specific actions or episodes. A person is considered to be good as he lives his life virtually rather than acquiring or living with virtues. It has been a helpful theory as the human beings has been generally interested in analyzing other person’s characters than the goodness or the badness of any specific activity (Kenneth McBride, 2014). This idea proposes that to create a perfect society the good persons among the members must be chosen and helped. It does not consider the using of laws and the punishments to deter or prevent bad activities. The virtue of the solidarity has been the measure of the internet regulation for common good. This common good supplies the context to consider the ethical questions like whether media has been used for good or the bad. Every Internet users have been obliged to utilize it in the disciplined and informed way. This is done for good purposes like the parents must supervise or guide the usage of the children. The schools and other institutions of education should deliver training about the discerning usage of Internet as the portion of the comprehensive media education (Floridi & Taddeo, 2014). This not only includes the training of technical skills like computer literacy but also the capacity to be informed and discerning evaluation of the contents. The people whose actions and decisions have been contributing to shape the contents and structure of Internet regulation possess crucial responsibilities. This role is nothing but the duty to make the solidarity practice for delivering common good.

One of the popular theories advocated to reduce the intergroup conflicts has been the contract hypothesis. According to the philosophy, contracts under some specific conditions like equal status institutional support, cooperating for common goal create positive encounter in intergroup (Martin, 2016). It is not only the study of binding contracts legally but also studies the design of informal and formal agreements. This has been motivating people with the conflicting interests to take the actions benefitted mutually. It guides in structuring agreements among the employers and the employees, shareholders with chief executives and the companies with their suppliers. In other words, the contract theory provides every party to proper motivations and incentives to work together effectively (Werbach, 2015).

After weighing every social utility in every circumstance more people have been getting benefits as Internet regulation is in action. From the Utilitarian view, internet regulation is ethical. In case of virtue ethics latest regulations has been required in dealing with the internet regulations. The codes of deontology could be applied to the data distributed by media professionals on Internet currently and in future. The social contract theories have provided practical approaches to understand the regulation of Internet. This is done by the relationships formed among those internet individuals by their interactions. 

References:

Curran, J., Fenton, N., & Freedman, D. (2016). Misunderstanding the internet. Routledge.

Díaz-Campo, J., & Segado-Boj, F. (2015). Journalism ethics in a digital environment: How journalistic codes of ethics have been adapted to the Internet and ICTs in countries around the world. Telematics and Informatics, 32(4), 735-744.

Dong, Y. A. N. G., & Xiang, L. I. U. (2014). The Perfection of Laws and Regulations Concerning the Public Raising of Equities in China from the Perspectives of Internet Finance. Journal of Guizhou Minzu University (Philosophy and Social Science), 2, 021.

Floridi, L., & Taddeo, M. (Eds.). (2014). The ethics of information warfare (Vol. 14). Springer Science & Business Media.

Joyce, D. (2015). Internet freedom and human rights. European Journal of International Law, 26(2), 493-514.

Kenneth McBride, N. (2014). ACTIVE ethics: an information systems ethics for the internet age. Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, 12(1), 21-44.

López Jiménez, D., Redchuk, A., & Vargas, L. A. (2016). The Self-Regulation of Electronic Commerce: An Appraisal in Accordance to the Chilean Law of Unfair Competition. Revista de Direito, Estado e Telecomunicações, 8(1).

Martin, K. (2016). Understanding privacy online: Development of a social contract approach to privacy. Journal of Business Ethics, 137(3), 551-569.

Vaishnavi, V. K., & Kuechler, W. (2015). Design science research methods and patterns: innovating information and communication technology. Crc Press.

Werbach, K. (2015). Reflections on Network Transitions and Social Contracts for the Broadband World. J. on Telecomm. & High Tech. L., 13, 45.