Is freedom of access to information always desirable? Flashcards
Freedom of access leads to governments being transparent and made accountable
Many Singaporeans, for example, have asked Temasek Holdings to be more open about how the citizens’ Central Provident Fund (CPF) is being used for government investments.
Freedom of access to government activities make it less difficult for politicians to cover up their wrongdoings and this can safeguard against possible government abuse of power and corruption through the expose of scandals. For example, it was only after Edward Snowden revealed classified information on the National Security Agency eavesdropping on the phone data of millions of Americans that the public realised the extent to which their privacy has been invaded through mass government surveillance. This resulted in new legislation to be passed in the US and the UK to curtail such government intrusion into people’s privacy.
Another example is the publishing of the Panama Papers. A giant leak of more than 11.5 million financial and legal records exposed a system that enables crime, corruption and wrongdoing, hidden by secretive offshore companies. Files reveal the offshore holdings of 140 politicians and unlicensed officials from around the world, including current and former world leaders such as the former Prime Minister of Iceland and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
freedom of information conflicts with or compromises the interest of the nation or ironically undermines democracy
Freedom of information on all government activities and data may also cause real and unnecessary damage to the security of nations such as the Snowden expose which revealed the names of undercover intelligence officers compromising their safety
Information that can be freely or easily accessed can, unfortunately, be used to discredit politicians
and even manipulate the outcome of elections as in the case of the 2016 US elections which saw Trump elected to power and Hillary Clinton defeated after the release of the Clinton emails that showed her sending and receiving classified information on her private email server. The release of this information not only projected Clinton as untrustworthy and negligent but the timing of the release of the emails, allegedly orchestrated by Russia, aimed to do most damage to the Clinton campaign.
Freedom of information protects the interests of the public, including investors and consumers.
Starting with Enron, the subsequent scandals involving Worldcom, Tyco, Adelphia and Global Crossing prompted the US Congress to impose new information disclosure obligations on companies with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act 2002. Switzerland’s federal government also appears poised to crack down on money laundering in the wake of the revelation of the Panama Papers.
Access to information is now regarded as a basic consumer right, and preventive disclosure, i.e. the disclosure of information on threats to human lives, health and safety, is emphasized today. In the US, Food hygiene ratings for hundreds of thousands of restaurants, cafes and shops are now publicly available thanks to the Freedom of information Act. Food hygiene scores are now routinely disclosed and many outlets display their own ratings themselves. In the UK, Most of the information is easily available on the website of the Food Standards Agency.
Freedom of access allows for the exploitation of consumers and violates their privacy
In 2015, the personal data of approximately 87 million Facebook users were acquired via the 270,000 Facebook users who used a Facebook app called “This is Your Digital Life”. By giving this third-party app permission to acquire their data, this also gave the app access to information on the user’s friends network. This resulted in the data of about 87 million users - the majority of whom had not explicitly given Cambridge Analytica permission to access their data – being collected.
In a recent infosys global survey, 39 percent of the respondents said that they consider data mining invasive. And 72 per cent said they do not feel that the online promotions or emails they receive
speak to their personal interests and needs. The result is a high-tech Catch-22. On the one hand, consumers want to receive highly targeted and personalized products and services. On the other hand, they do not want to feel as if their personal data is up for commercial grabs.
Freedom of information leads to greater knowledge of options available, as a result people can make informed choices
The United Nations Commission on Transnational Corporations stipulates eight consumer rights, including “consumer access to adequate information to enable making informed choices according to individual wishes and needs”. People can then easily make comparisons between products and services available and opt for one that best suits their taste, budget and needs through sites like Trivago and HotelsCombined.
In terms of education, having freedom of access to virtual museums, virtual art galleries, documentaries, research papers and so on can be seen as desirable to educate the public on the vast knowledge available through the Internet.
Freedom of information allows people to access undesirable material as well as makes it easier for copyright violations
Today, an astounding array of extremist positions can be found on the internet. Easy access to the websites of hate groups such as Ku Klux Klan has made racists bolder in their actions. Easy access to ISIS jihadist websites has also led to the radicalization of many across geographical boundaries.
Easy access to online pornography, websites like ‘Thinspiration’ that encourage bulimia and anorexia, and Ashley Madison that encourages adultery, to name but a few, is certainly not desirable as they corrupt the morality of the impressionable and the vulnerable.
Unfiltered access to fake news not just threatens democracies but can destroy reputations and even lives as these go viral, resulting in vigilantism. For example, viral rumors about kidnappers, spread through Facebook and WhatsApp, have led to the lynching deaths of about 20 people in India in 2018, according to a tally from local media reports. Officials blamed WhatsApp for the “irresponsible and explosive messages” being shared by its 200 million Indian users - the company’s largest market.
Easy access also makes it easier for ideas to be plagiarized. Publication, movies and songs can be illegally downloaded, thereby undermining the livelihood of authors, producers and artistes.
