Six Internet Conundrums
Six Internet Conundrums
Conundrums, all too often, only have a conjectural answer. But if they are not addressed and sorted out, the underlying problems may well get worse (and cost a lot more to fix).
Here are my top Internet conundrums — all highly contentious!
1 Should the Internet
be regulated
to reduce misuse, disinformation and criminal activity, and if so how and by whom?
2 Should big tech
be broken up
to increase competition and encourage innovation, if so, how?
3 How should society weigh the benefits of anonymity
and encryption
against the social, economic and political costs?
4 Should netizens
have rights, including the right to own their data and have protection from prying eyes and surveillance capitalism?
5 Should access to the Internet be a basic human right, and if so, how might this be achieved?
I've explored these conundrums in this short paper.
Amongst other things, the paper draws together some of the main developments since 2016 when the Global Commission on Internet Governance
produced a wide-ranging report
which argued that “Internet governance is one of the most pressing global public policy issues of our time”.
Whither the Internet?
Internet Guru, John Naughton, is working on a set of 95 theses about technology.[1] The 26th is entitled: ‘The Internet could become a new kind of failed state.’ In it, Naughton summarises the conclusions of a study by the Atlantic Council
which came up with five possible scenarios:
1 Status quo: a continuation of what we now have. “Cyberspace is generally a safe place in which to do business and to communicate with others, even though criminals continue to engage in multimillion-dollar heists and steal millions of people’s personal details; national foreign intelligence agencies poke and prod for military and industrial secrets.”
2
Conflict domain: essentially an extrapolation of the militarisation of cyberspace that we are already seeing — a world in which cyberwarfare becomes common.
3 Balkanisation: cyberspace has broken into national fiefdoms: there is no single internet, just a collection of national internets.
4 Paradise: cyberspace becomes an overwhelmingly secure place where espionage, warfare and crime are rare.
5 Cybergeddon: cyberspace degenerates into a virtual failed state with all that that implies. Think modern-day Mogadishu.
“Since the future is unknowable," writes Naughton, "any guess about the probability of each is just that — a guess. But for what it’s worth, I rank them 3, 2, 1, 5 and 4." He continues: "We’re already seeing Balkanisation with the growth and dominance of the Chinese Internet. And the idea of cyberspace as ‘paradise’ seems, well, delusional.”
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Notes
1
John Naughton is a Senior Research Fellow at Cambridge University’s Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences & Humanities
(CRASSH), where he works on two major projects, 'Conspiracy & Democracy' and 'Technology & Democracy'. With respect to his work on the 95 Theses About Technology, he explains that “a thesis is not a conclusion, or a conviction, but an assertion that’s designed to get people talking. It may be right or wrong. In fact sometimes wrong theses are the most productive.” This work is a kind of hommage to Martin Luther who, according to legend, pinned '95 Theses on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences' on the church door in Wittenberg in 1517, as a direct challenge to the Pope.
5 ?
