I come from an Austrian School perspective, specifically inspired by the more deontological anti-utilitarian pro-apriori reasoning thinkers like Hans Herman Hoppe and Eric Von Kuenheldt-Leddihn. I also take cues from W.D Ross’ Prima Facie duty ethical framework after the two main principles established by Hoppe are upheld.

For me, technological and informational progress is only “good” if it upholds and enhances what I consider the two primary principles of non-agression and self ownership, followed by prima facie duties of fidelity, reparation, non-maleficence, justice, beneficence, self-improvement, and nurturance. What is important here is that non-maleficance and self-improvement here imply higher principles of respecting oneself and not dehumanizing onself for the sake of technology.

Because of that, I believe society, well specifically the government, should be making laws that directly and indirectly uphold these principles. This is two-fold: of course the government should make sure justice is upheld and virtue possible, but more importantly social and cultural behaviors are downstream from legislation. Regulationism is not as much needed if the original legislation didn’t pressure people into higher time preference and desiring instant gratification. A lot of unethical behaviors and practices in the technological sector comes from decades of legislation that incentivized utilitarian and high time preference behavior in the first place.

Get rid of that legislation and go back to a duty focused low time preference government, and it will trickle down to the culture becoming less ignorant or uncaring about the progress of information technology and networking too. In the short term, maybe some stopgap regulation that upholds privacy and human dignity will be needed. However I would avoid any regulation that attacks or degrades consumers’ abilities to impact how technology progresses.