Ill Effects of Information

Information Age and Society's Safety The information age is the third era that human race has entered. It is referred to as an age as it has affected every society on the globe and has turned out to be global phenomena. Information Age flows the preceding the agricultural and industrial Age. By the term information age we generally refer to the easy means of sharing information through the internet and other modern communication means. One often confuses information with information society.

Information society is limited to certain societies in the world while information age is a global phenomenon (Kizza). It is also a fact that information is power. Initially it could be difficult to understand how information can be considered as power. But if we consider how everyday life is influenced by information, especially those that are derived from the internet, it would help understand the power that information possess. Hence it is critical that the information is utilized in a proper manner.

As with any other form of power, be it financial or political, power derived from internet information can be misused and used for unethical purposes that can also be potential harmful. This is where modern information age presents certain disadvantages and potentially dangerous aspects consequences for individuals in particular and human race in general. This paper would deal with three aspects of the potential harmful effects of the information age and argue against proliferation and possible measures and checks to prevent such incidents.

Thesis Statements 1) There is no guarantee of privacy of the personal information stored on the internet and the devices connected to the internet and hence the information age can be considered to put human dignity at risk. 2) The information that is present on the internet cannot be vouched to be accurate at all times and decision taken on the basis of such information can be disastrous.

3) The use of technology has presented an opportunity to the societal threats to clandestinely communicate with each other and hatch plots to cause harm and damage to individuals, groups or a race. Information Age and Privacy and Human Dignity Though there is no established and single definition of human dignity, the human-rights theorists describe human dignity as the inherent worth of every human which forms the basis for of all rights of a human being. Such descriptions are noted in documents like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

In their article titled 'Human dignity: a guide to policy making in the biotechnology era?', authors Timothy Caulfield and Roger Brownsword stresses on the argument that since all humans have dignity, they have the right to self-determination. The authors cite the debates on human dignity with respect to controversial biotechnologies that includes bio-banks, human gene patents, stem cell research and human cloning, all of which are a result of technological and informational advancement in the information age.

For example, article 53(a) of the European Patent Convention that a patent on a human gene sequence has stressed on the violation of human dignity when a copy of a human gene sequence is made and stress on the fact that this should not be allowed as it degrades human dignity (Caulfield and Brownsword). The threat to privacy and private information getting public or being accessed by people not intended to have hands on information is also considered a violation of human dignity.

These are often sensitive personal information which the individual does not want others to see. But the information age also has loopholes that are utilized by corrupt individuals to snoop upon and gather personal information for various benefits. Thus it can be said that the information age has put to threat basic human dignity. This corruption happens due to the increased value of information in decision-making. Information is power and hence any form of information can be transformed into either political or financial power.

The context is made more threatening by the fact that most invasions of privacy are not this dramatic but creep up on us slowly. The opportunity of an individual to form certain professional and personal relationships is deprived when information is reveal about the individual's intimate details. Hence it can safely be argued that the information age has come to threaten the privacy and thereby the dignity of humans (Caulfield and Brownsword).

Information Age and Accuracy Lack of accurate information has the potential of disrupting lives and projects more so when the person possessing the inaccurate information has the scope to influence others through power and authority. Misinformation can be critical for people who depend on certain information and make decisions depending on the information. Decisions taken on the basis of misinformation or wrong information can sometimes lead to catastrophic consequences (Binkley).

For example, fishermen venturing into the sea depend completely on weather reports prepared in the basis of information gathered by the met office or privately from weather satellites. In case there is a misinterpretation of the available information from the satellite source it can lead to inaccurate information and prove to be potentially very harmful to the fishermen.

Dwelling on this subject, Peter Binkley, in his article 'Wikipedia Grows Up', talks about how Wikipedia information can be potentially harmful for people, especially students who use information from that website for their academics. This is so because the website allows anyone and everyone to edit the information present there and the edited information cannot be always vouched to be true (Binkley).

Critics of the information age argue that in case of damage to individuals form decisions taken on the basis of misinformation, there can be no ways that individuals can be repaid for the harm done to them and to their dignity. Information Age and Society's Safety In the information age, people with malicious intentions of causing harm to the society have easy and clandestine means of communicating with each other and hatching plots to cause harm.

While dealing with this aspect of the information age, Weimann Gabriel in his article 'terror an Facebook, Twitter and Youtube', cites an example where a Hamas supporter openly shares information on the internet about how to convert a homemade explosive into a deadly roadside bomb. The incident shows that the information shared was not concealed but.