People cherish freedom as a powerful concept that is invoked in political practises and discourse. It is a much-contested concept that has been disagreed upon by ordinary people, philosophers and politicians by using Isaiah Berlins definition of freedom as a lack of constraints on one’s action and Phillip Pettit’s interpretation that freedom needs non-domination. We should be very concerned whenever a policy or law to restrict freedom. 1 Heightened security measures due to the terrorist threats and high tax infringements on individuals are some of the controversies even though some constraints are necessary such as imprisoning criminals and moderate levels of taxation. In my opinion the freedom to the use of the internet should not be regulated by political influence to infringe on the rights of user privacy by accessing their use of it to monitor how people use it.
The challenges and critical task of promoting moral behaviour and pro-social order are high. The traditional methods such as moral education have some effect but they are limited. Different authors have made suggestions that:
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
employing biomedical means such as pharmaceuticals or electrical stimulation of the brain to alter individual psychologies in a more direct way — moral bio-enhancement. 2
It has greatly been ethically debated that such interventions to the human mind poses a serious threat to the person’s freedom. Some claim that it is not a threat but it is based on a very narrow sense of freedom comprising only freedom of will and action but only affects the freedom of the mind . Although this concept should be among the highly rated political and mental freedoms, the freedom of mind has not received a lot of attention. Since advocates of bio-enhancement do not fully understand the freedoms they are trying to undermine, they do not understand that their ignorance has a wide range of consequences and can be dangerously premature.
With the advancement and easy access of technology the internet has become a significant part of the everyday life. In this light Joyce argues that:
Internet has become so significant, for the provision of, and access to, information and in the formation of political community and associated questions of participation, that it requires further human rights protection beyond freedom of expression. 3
Earlier debates over the freedom of expression and communication have been taken to understand the importance of an informed society and internet regulation. With this open freedom and the anonymity of the internet, criminal element like terrorists uses it to spread their malaise to the rest of the world. Cyber-crimes such as fraud, identity theft, data kidnapping for ransom and even cyber bulling have gone on a rise. Such situations force the authorities to implement regulations and surveillance on how people use the internet but there are no outlined guidelines as to the extent of the regulations. There have been many debates as to how far the authorities should be allowed to regulate and surveillance its citizens without infringing on their privacy. At the moment there is very little internet regulation with a jumble of different organizations performing different roles. There are decentralized organizations based in the United States which are overseen by technical governance, their main purpose is to create standards that encourage growth of the internet and keeping it in proper function . 4
Runciman argues that with such organizations regulating the internet and its use with no clear cut out guidelines to their jurisdiction. Some people argue that there are chances of them infringing with the freedom of people on the internet by putting in restrictions on its access. 5 In addition Tomalty states that:
The Internet has become a central and indispensable means of exercising the right to freedom of expression and opinion. In many ways, the modern conception of the Internet has become almost synonymous with freedom of expression. This is plainly not entirely true, given that there are countries that limit public access to the Internet, such as China. Even states that have a better track record respecting access have shown weakness when under pressure; this has been evidenced recently in Egypt and Turkey. 6
In conclusion, I maintain that there should be clear regulations in how the internet is monitored so as not to over regulate on its usage by people and their privacy. Internet is a human right as an access to information and ability to communicate and access to political information
Bibliography
List, Christian, and Laura Valentini. "Freedom as independence." Ethics 126, no. 4 (2016): 1043-1074.
Bublitz, Christoph. "Moral enhancement and mental freedom." Journal of Applied Philosophy 33, no. 1 (2016): 88-106.
Joyce, Daniel. "Internet Freedom and Human Rights." European Journal of International Law 26, no. 2 (2015).
Sears, Alan. "Protecting Freedom of Expression over the Internet: An International Approach." Notre Dame J. Int'l Comp. L. 5 (2015): 171.
Runciman, David. "Political theory and real politics in the age of the internet." Journal of Political Philosophy 25, no. 1 (2017): 3-21.
Tomalty, Jesse. "Is There a Human Right to Internet Access?." Philosophy Now 118 (2017): 6-8.
