Name:

Professor

Course

Institution

Technology and Existentialism

Technology has helped us expand how we communicate to each other and has also expanded our freedom of speech. Often we log on to social media where we can express on the views we have and you can get the backing from same people whom you share the same line of thought. The greatest challenge when it comes to controlling the freedom of speech is in the social media platform is the freedom of speech. Over the year’s social media has become the major platform where we express our views whether politics, social problems or economic problems. social media has also become a great platform where the leaders have had the opportunity to interacts with its citizen. Twitter specifically is one famous social media platform that is mostly used in engaging leaders and the citizen (Shao, pg. 96-104). The social media has provided a space where you can reach a large number of people and over the years it has even been used to campaign, explain manifestos or create a live session where individuals are able to engage with their leaders on matters pertaining their manifesto and their promises to the people.

Although social media has incredibly changed the way we convey our messages, it has also become problematic as there are no laws guiding freedom of speech in the internet (Byrd). Because of the web, it is presently conceivable to communicate all the more unreservedly and secretly on issues, be they political, social or monetary with almost no cost. However, concerns have been raised over the utilization of the web in methods for putting limits on what we say and post on the web. This has realized the subject of restriction on the substance we access or post however again it winds up almost impossible as it is viewed as a way of stepping on the freedom of expression. With occurrence of things such as cyberbullying, the debate on internet censorship has emerged.

The internet censorship is no longer a matter of legislation but now narrows down to moral questions. Even while James Madison was advocating for freedom of speech, he did not envision a situation we are in now, this may probably be because social media is a result of technology which was not there when the constitution was created. If the government tries to intervene on the censorship, the human activist will be on the road in a couple of hour accusing the government of infringing on the first amendment freedom of expression (Mailland, pg. 179). It is in the interest of the public to come up with laws that will restrict the freedom of speech on the social media sites. These sites have been used to propagate hate message, bully, troll innocent people as well as spread fake news. Spreading of fake news my result in a lot of panic in the country. Twitter is one social media site that is notorious for spreading of fake news or hatred. Just one tweet can be retweeted by a million of people in matter of hours. With the freedom of speech, you find individuals advocating against a certain race or even religion in these platforms. They cannot be arrested for this as they are protected by the 1st Amendment act. It is such loopholes in the bill of rights that have made some legislators to try and come up with legislations that will save such situations.

Jean-Paul Sartre a renowned philosopher who expounded on the theory of existentialism believed that “existence precedes essence. “I believe he would support the internet and it’s use. This is because he believed that as humans we were at a position to define ourselves including the use of internet despite all its disadvantages associated with it. However, Sartre is likely to advocate for the responsible use of the internet given the fact that as humans we ate in a position to make the best choices for us. Every single choice that one decides to take as human defines us and also gives a revelation on what we may think human being should be. In order to explore the internet and its negative impact that it has, then we must first use it. Denying the use of internet because we envision the internet to be in a certain way or used in a specific way by everyone is “living in bad faith” as Sartre said. Sartre was a philosopher who wanted the humans to break out of the shackles they had put on themselves. Those then who would love to use the internet as a form of entertainment or to entertain themselves should be left to do so (Mei, pg. 106).

Technology expands the human freedom in so many ways. Despite the part of the world one is, they can comfortably access any information or communicate to a person in any part of the world Everything g now is being used by the use of technology and now with the new field of Artificial Intelligence and data science, humanity is accomplishing so much even more than they could imagine. However, it has also diminished human freedom, the case of Cambridge Analytica is a perfect example. Through the use of the internet and people being able to share their data out their companies like Cambridge Analytica re using this information to influence people decision in certain ways and mostly election. Many have cited the concern of having free and fair election after there were news that highlighted how data science was being used to swing election. Despite the lows associated with the internet here and there the advantages outweigh the disadvantages depicting how technology and internet has expanded human freedom.

Works Cited

Mailland, Julien. “Freedom of speech, the internet, and the costs of control: The French example.” NYUJ Int’l L. & Pol. 33 (2000): 179.

Mei, W. A. N. “Being and Free Choice of Life——On Sartrean Existentialism in Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and Beloved [J].” Journal of Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (Social Sciences) 3 (2009).

Shao, C., Ciampaglia, G. L., Varol, O., Flammini, A., & Menczer, F. The spread of fake news by social bots. arXiv preprint arXiv:1707.07592. 2017. 96-104.