an interesting video embedded here, the presenter, A.C. Markkula, Jr., a co-foun

Question

an interesting video embedded here, the presenter, A.C. Markkula, Jr., a co-founder of Apple, takes the position that access to the internet is a privilege and not a right. To curb some of the abuses and harmful effects Markkula suggests (perhaps tongue in cheek or perhaps seriously?) a drivers’ license approach to the internet. In essence to obtain and maintain your ability to use the internet you would have to go through a process similar to obtaining and retaining your drivers’ license. What do you think of Markkula’s idea and why in your opinion would this work or not work? What are some of the ethical implications of such an approach? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-waD_EeJBo

Explanation / Answer

Answer – Internet access as per drivers license approach

Mr. Markkula suggests the idea of obtaining internet access license as per the process of driver’s license.

Driver’s license process calls the person to understand the driving rule and practice the vehicle for driving. Once the person got the knowledge and expertise of driving, then he needs to go through the test. Once the person passes/clears the driving test then he achieves the driving license. This process ensures that before vehicle driving, the person have the knowledge and expertise of driving process. The benefit of this process is to avoid accidents due to improper knowledge or lack of expertise.

Internet access as per the driver’s license means the user will get the knowledge and expertise on internet. Then he will undergo test. Once he clears / passes the internet usage test, then the license will be provided to user for internet usage. This process will helps the person/user to obtain the knowledge and expertise on internet and provide the internet access.

The benefit of this process will be to provide adequate information and expertise to the user before use of internet to ensure that he will not have/undergo internet harmful effects.

This suggested idea looks very ideal, which claims that a person with basic understanding on internet and upon test passes, he will not do any harmful activity with internet usage. This idea does not have the running control on the process. Internet usage is a process in which, the user person can do the harmful activities during its usage. So for controlling these harmful activities, the running control is needed for this process. This idea looks good for knowledge gaining and expertise development point of view. But this idea does not looks good from the harmful control point of views, as the harmful activities are basically behavior based activities and not improper knowledge based activities.

Ethical implications of this idea : -

1.     No surety of person to use the internet ethically – Based on this idea, one can not be sure that the user or person will not do unethical usage of internet. The user/person can use the internet as per his/her wish, which may be ethical or unethical.

2.     No ethical change due to this idea – This idea do not suggest driving any ethical behavior in the user/person. It only gives the certification for internet usage.

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