The Ethical Perspective of the Proposed Internet Filtering - Coursework Example

The ethical perspective of the proposed internet filtering (Name) (Institution) (Course) (Instructor’s Name) Date of submission Australia is one of the western countries in the world where the media is most suppressed by the government. It is often compared to communist states such as China when it comes to media freedom. Nadine Strossen, the President of Civil Liberties Union, way back in 1999 described Australia’s internet censorship laws as “draconian and repressive” (Morris and Waisbord 2001, p.21). More than ten years on, the government has announced plans to introduce more censorship through internet filtering. This declaration has attracted debates questioning the role of the government in media matters. Such strict internet censorship actions have already been taken by countries such as China and Iran, countries that have also faired very poorly in terms of democracy and human rights. Could this be one baby step that Australia is taking into an era of government excessiveness where individual human rights are denied? This calls for a good ethical analysis of the governments planned action. Freedom of expression is one core pillar of the basic human rights recognized by the UN’s Universal Human Rights Declaration of 1948. Unfortunately, Australia has been accused of being not fully committed to this declaration as one of its requirements is that human rights must be protected in the constitution through a bill of human rights which Australia lacks (Morris and Waisbord 2001: Byrnes, Charlesworth & McKinnon 2008). Human rights in Australia are only enforced by statutory law instead of an act of parliament. This paper adopts a social theoretical framework that assesses the ethical dimension of the government intention of filtering the internet to block some websites that are considered immoral or offensive to the Australian public. The paper uses two basic approaches to the problem; Kantianism and social contract theory which have conflicting views on the role and obligation of the government to individuals and to the society as a collection of individuals. Kantianism is a general term for contemporary positions or approaches to ethics, politics and philosophy of mind that was developed by one Immanuel Kant with this school of thought named after him (Social Contract Theory n.d.; Plaisance 2008). His ideas were based on deontology which basically emphasizes on the duty rather than the end or the emotions and feelings involved in an action. His perception of ethical behavior by the government or persons was to question the rationality of the action which he derived from his belief that all human beings are rational. He therefore argued that actions were to be judged not by the emotions involved in the action either by the subject or object, nor the benefit or disbenefit to either, but rather how rational that action is. This however presented problems in assessing the rationality of an action. He thus explained that an action was only rational if it was possible to be applied universally and be sustained. Therefore, any actions by the government, as the ultimate authority created by the people, must be beyond reasonable doubt and above all applicable universally and sustainably (Plaisance 2008). The social contract theory on the other hand takes an opposing stand by arguing that the rationality of an action is based on the outcome/goals. The major proponents of this theory are Hobbes, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. They argued that if man was to exist in a “state of nature” with a need to create and sustain social goods such as education, housing, farming industry technology among other things, then there would be no order (Social Contract Theory n.d.). So as to maintain these social goods, then there is need to create some order by assigning the role of an overseer to a superior body created by members of the society. Therefore, the social contract theory is a hypothetical agreement signing by all members of the society that they collectively transfer their individual rights to the superior body (government) to act as if it were another being for the benefit of all the people (Wilkins & Christians 2009). As such, the individual has to put the welfare of the whole society ahead of his own. The government is the only body then that can ensure that the people can keep their agreements. By virtue of being a member of particular society, then it is assumed that the member has signed the social contract agreement through which he agrees that he will only engage in rational activities that are only beneficial to the society at large and not himself alone and subject to approval by the superior body (government). In this case individual rights do not count except collectively as understood by the government. In the past, the Australian government has not enacted any active legislation through parliament that limit the online content within the Australian boundaries. However, some territorial and state governments have enacted legislations that make it illegal to distribute offensive material as the constitution does not allow the commonwealth government to enact and enforce such laws (Deibert 2008). This implies that the commonwealth government has lower recognition by the social contract theory which would imply that the common wealth government has the authority and the ethical mandate to protect the public from offensive materials. However, the commonwealth government does not define clearly what offensive materials are. This makes it hard for the state and territory governments to enforce such laws. It can be therefore assumed that the states and territory governments have signed a social contract theory to collectively transfer their individual rights to the commonwealth government. This therefore, gives commonwealth government the ethical mandate to filter the internet where deemed necessary. The preexisting media censorship and the proposed internet filtering laws in Australia are based on certain assumed ‘facts’ about the media. One major assumed ‘fact’ is that, while the government recognizes the existence of immorality in the Australian society, the media’s participation in this activity amplifies its effect on the people (Deibert 2008). The government according to the social contract theory has the authority to bring down such medial channels with the objective of protecting the masses. This is what the government is proposing to do. The government is allowed ethically according to the SCT to filter internet content in order to protect the society. This course of action does not put into considerations the effect this may have on individuals or smaller groups of individuals but is concerned with the wellbeing of the people. As such, the action remains rational. On the other hand, the enactment of any laws on media censorship is a violation of the individual human rights and also contravenes the deontological approach led by Kant. According to Kant, the proposed action by the government is not rational. This is because the action itself is not sustainable. As per the definition of Kantianism and the rationality test, internet filtering cannot be applied universally without literally ‘killing’ the internet and rendering the freedom of expression useless. Therefore, it is not within the government’s jurisdiction to filter internet content. In support of the Kantianism, John Stuart Mill argued that the good ideas always prevail over bad ones as the human mind develops its own filtering mechanism. In this sense, the government is just replicating what the mind is capable of doing naturally; filtering bad content. Proponents of social contract theory argue that agreeing to membership to a society and ceding individual rights to another body which is bestowed with the rights of protecting those of the members implies that the natural human mind filtering concept is irrelevant. Supporters of this theory argue that the individual human mind has no role to play in deciding what is right for the individual mind (Deibert, 2008). This role of choosing what is bad for the people and what is good is designated to the government formed by the people. From this perspective, the Australian government has an ethical obligation to decide what is right to the Australian people by filtering all the bad internet content. To assess the goodness of badness of content is based on agreed morals and values. There are certain conditions that permit internet filtering recognized by the social contract theory namely scope, weight and nature (Hjorth, Milne & Gibbs 2007). The existing laws on censorship and internet filtering in Australia are mainly on violent games and pornographic material. By developing such an agreed scope of censorship and filtering, then the government has the ethical mandate to carry on with its internet filtering as long as the scope is well defined. Weight is more centered on the relativity of bad information while nature is based on what Kieran (1998) calls negative right. Kieran (1998) says that although the media and in particular internet websites are based on one or a few peoples’ ideas with a reach to millions, the millions are not given an opportunity to give back their ideas in what is called a “market of ideas.” The government, as a creation of the people, has the right and ethical mandate to protect the masses from possibly harmful internet content through filtering. It is obvious that the social contract theory supports the involvement of the government in information sharing and regulating human rights. Proponents of this theory indicate that human rights are not rational and unless controlled by a commonly accepted authority such as government, there can be no order. On the other hand, proponents of Kantianism uphold that human beings are rational. They can choose the good ideas from bad ones and hence assess only the “good websites” To them government involvement in filtering is a blatant infringement of human rights. Nonetheless, as a country that claims to uphold democracy, internet filtering should be abolished. However, this remains a challenge as the constitution does not recognize human rights which include freedom of expression under which this issue of internet filtering falls. References Byrnes, A., H. Charlesworth and G. McKinnon (2008). Bills of Rights in Australia: History, Politics and Law. Sydney: UNSW Press, 2008 Deibert, R. (2008). Access denied: the practice and policy of global Internet filtering. Massachusetts MIT Press, Hjorth, L, E. Milne & Y. Gibbs. (2007). Proceedings, the Fourth Australasian Conference on Interactive Entertainment. Melbourne: Yusuf Pisan Kieran, M. (1998). Media ethics. London: Routledge Morris, N. & S. Waisbord (2001). Media and globalization: why the state matters. London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001 Plaisance, L. (2007). “Transparency: An Assessment of the Kantian Roots of a Key Element in Media Ethics Practice.” Journal of Mass Media Ethics, 22, (3)187-207   Plaisance, P. (2008). Media ethics: key principles for responsible practice. London: Sage Social Contract Theory. (n.d.) http://www.csus.edu/indiv/g/gaskilld/ethics/sct.htm Wilkins, L. & C. Christians (2009). The handbook of mass media ethics. Melbourne: Taylor & Francis Read More

His ideas were based on deontology which basically emphasizes on the duty rather than the end or the emotions and feelings involved in an action. His perception of ethical behavior by the government or persons was to question the rationality of the action which he derived from his belief that all human beings are rational. He therefore argued that actions were to be judged not by the emotions involved in the action either by the subject or object, nor the benefit or disbenefit to either, but rather how rational that action is.

This however presented problems in assessing the rationality of an action. He thus explained that an action was only rational if it was possible to be applied universally and be sustained. Therefore, any actions by the government, as the ultimate authority created by the people, must be beyond reasonable doubt and above all applicable universally and sustainably (Plaisance 2008). The social contract theory on the other hand takes an opposing stand by arguing that the rationality of an action is based on the outcome/goals.

The major proponents of this theory are Hobbes, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. They argued that if man was to exist in a “state of nature” with a need to create and sustain social goods such as education, housing, farming industry technology among other things, then there would be no order (Social Contract Theory n.d.). So as to maintain these social goods, then there is need to create some order by assigning the role of an overseer to a superior body created by members of the society.

Therefore, the social contract theory is a hypothetical agreement signing by all members of the society that they collectively transfer their individual rights to the superior body (government) to act as if it were another being for the benefit of all the people (Wilkins & Christians 2009). As such, the individual has to put the welfare of the whole society ahead of his own. The government is the only body then that can ensure that the people can keep their agreements. By virtue of being a member of particular society, then it is assumed that the member has signed the social contract agreement through which he agrees that he will only engage in rational activities that are only beneficial to the society at large and not himself alone and subject to approval by the superior body (government).

In this case individual rights do not count except collectively as understood by the government. In the past, the Australian government has not enacted any active legislation through parliament that limit the online content within the Australian boundaries. However, some territorial and state governments have enacted legislations that make it illegal to distribute offensive material as the constitution does not allow the commonwealth government to enact and enforce such laws (Deibert 2008).

This implies that the commonwealth government has lower recognition by the social contract theory which would imply that the common wealth government has the authority and the ethical mandate to protect the public from offensive materials. However, the commonwealth government does not define clearly what offensive materials are. This makes it hard for the state and territory governments to enforce such laws. It can be therefore assumed that the states and territory governments have signed a social contract theory to collectively transfer their individual rights to the commonwealth government.

This therefore, gives commonwealth government the ethical mandate to filter the internet where deemed necessary. The preexisting media censorship and the proposed internet filtering laws in Australia are based on certain assumed ‘facts’ about the media. One major assumed ‘fact’ is that, while the government recognizes the existence of immorality in the Australian society, the media’s participation in this activity amplifies its effect on the people (Deibert 2008). The government according to the social contract theory has the authority to bring down such medial channels with the objective of protecting the masses.

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