geert lovink on Thu, 8 Jan 2004 06:14:10 +0100 (CET) |
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<nettime> esther dyson: "let the people rule" (aspen vs. geneva) |
http://www.edventure.com/conversation/article.cfm?Counter=367986 The Accountable Net by Esther Dyson Talk of Internet governance is in the air. The recent United Nations-sponsored World Summit on the Information Society, held in Geneva, issued a statement saying that "authority for Internet-related public policy issues is the sovereign right of States." It concludes by calling for a study that will make recommendations -- at the end of 2005. For some of us, that's a rather long time. And government authority is the wrong conclusion. Taking place at the same time as the WSIS was a smaller and more productive meeting of the Internet-policy working group at the Aspen Institute, a nonprofit leadership organization. Through the miracles of modern transportation (and despite a couple of snowstorms), I managed to take part in both. A CIVIL SOLUTION In Aspen, our small group of government, business and nonprofit folks started with a more practical and urgent approach, considering three big Internet problems (eschewing domain names, for once): spam, privacy and overall security against viruses and other intrusions. The approach we came up with is "the accountable Net" -- an Internet of people, companies and services that are accountable to one another rather than to some omniscient central authority. Many of the states contemplated by the WSIS document are not completely democratic. And even if governments were all as benign as we could wish, they cannot provide the kind of flexible, responsive feedback to foster good behavior that we can provide for ourselves. The idea is simple: People on the Internet should be accountable to one another, and they are free to decide whom to interact with. The goal is not a free-for-all, anarchic Net, but one where good behavior is fostered effectively -- and locally. In the real world, good behavior is fostered by a combination of government regulations and society standards. But the Internet is no longer the community it once was. It has become too large for people to really know one another. The solution is not necessarily more government, but rather more visibility of the kind we used to have: People need to know one another, and they need to be able to decide whom they want to know. (The new social networking tools are one manifestation of this desire, but we also need to be able to communicate safely with people we may not consider friends or business partners, but whom we wouldn't shy away from on the street.) The default anonymity of the Internet makes it easy for individuals to do bad things -- send spam, invade people's privacy and send data around the Net, launch viruses and other attacks. And that same anonymity makes it hard to enforce laws against those actions, even as it preserves our freedom. But the Internet's technology also makes it easier for individuals to protect themselves: They can take their safety and privacy into their own hands with tools such as firewalls and spam blockers. And, of course, on the Internet, it's easier for people to get up and move to a virtual neighborhood that they like better. LET THE PEOPLE RULE Sounds great, but how does it really work? What I'm proposing is not a rule-free society, but one in which rules come from the bottom up: generally enforced by peers, with governments in the background. Nor is this a world of individuals only. There are other players: Internet service providers, for example, who collect money from their customers, then vouch for their behavior and deal with the more technical aspects of Internet security and spam deterrence. Vendors of software also play a role. They need to make their products more secure from such threats as viruses and spam. The basic rule is transparency: You need to know whom you are dealing with, or be able to take proper measures to protect yourself. The accountable Net is a complex system of interacting parts, where users answer not just to some central authority, but to the people and organizations whom they affect. That keeps each person's Internet small enough to allow for individual choice, but at the same time part of a whole large enough to sustain regimes for various tastes. To the extent that one community's actions affect another, each community can decide whether to interact. To make this work, we need government at the back end, ready to prosecute extreme cases of fraud and misrepresentation (as well as crimes such as identity theft, antitrust violations and other traditionally offline crimes). We also need a robust technical architecture, with effective means for authentication of users where necessary, strong security for keeping data and communications safe and effective systems for keeping track of what's going on. Note that the right to anonymity and freedom of speech can and must be preserved, along with other people's freedom to ignore those speakers (and the government's obligation to go after criminals). The default is to keep out anyone or anything that might not be worthy of your trust -- but to accept parties rated positively by the people you do trust. As in real life, that amounts to a pretty broad circle. We live in a complicated world, and there are no simple solutions. But there is a simple approach: Keep control local to the extent possible, so that people can take care of themselves. Give them powerful tools. Understand the roles of government (central authority) and of the market (individual choice), and that the strongest force lies between the two: society, where people interact with one another. Most people, given the choice, do want to interact constructively with other people they trust. Let's create a world of accountability on a human level. Online or offline, that's a worthy goal. # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net