Monday, 8 August 2011
An internet anarchy?
'A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace' led me to think about the organisation of the Internet, and exactly how it is a separate society from the rest of the world.
It is near most impossible to govern the Internet, and while countries around the world can attempt to introduce legislation in relation to restricting content on the Internet, it can never be truly policed. For example, it is against the law in Australia to menace and harass through a carriage service (i.e. the Internet), however, this can not be policed if it is being carried out by a person based in the US, further, they may even get away with it for it may be based on a server in England.
Barlow writes 'We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth'. This demonstrates that the Internet is essentially a free world in its own. But to counter this quote, as laws do not apply (well they do, but they are hard to enforce) people can judge others through the Internet so they do enter with privilege and prejudice. For example, the language barrier may apply, if someone chooses to reveal themselves, their cultural backgrounds and anything like that, it may lead others to pass judgement and demonstrate prejudice. Barlow further writes: 'Your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement, and context do not apply to us'. However, I do not completely agree with this statement. While these things may not 'legally' exist, the concepts do. In regards to my blog last week, there is a sense of property in some multiplayer games, people do have online identities and people do have a freedom of expression.
From 'New Rules for the New Economy' one could say that the Internet is a pseudo-anarchy. Rules do somehow apply, and they can be enforced on a domestic level, however, on a global level, no rules apply and everyone is free to do whatever they want (providing their ISP does not intervene I guess). But the Internet is not anonymous, and things can be traced back to who created the content, so how can it be a complete anarchy? But then again, rules hardly apply, and are difficult to police, so I leave the question in the air, is the Internet an anarchist society?
Here's one guys view that I found on YouTube.
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You raise an interesting point, Ben, when it comes to the difficulty of governing Internet usage. The reading alludes to the fact that there isn’t, and there shouldn’t be, any rules or regulations that control the Internet, and that users should conduct themselves according to their “ethics, enlightened self-interest, and the commonweal.”
ReplyDeleteVirtual and second worlds have proved to us that Barlow’s idealistic statement which you mentioned, is clearly not true. Here is an interesting article about the inevitability of real-world litigation cropping up in virtual worlds: http://news.cnet.com/Virtual-world-litigation-for-real/2010-1047_3-6190583.html. From this we can see that (1) legalities will always lag behind technology, and (2) that the Internet is clearly not a fully anarchic society as rules and regulations do exist, the difficulty lies within the enforceability of these rules. One definition of anarchy is: a Utopian society of individuals who enjoy complete freedom without government. Can we fit the internet under this umbrella?
Your right that the regulation of the internet in some countries cant be policed. We all know how strict Chinas internet censorship rules are and recently I found an interesting article on Swimming star Michael Phelps managing to access Twitter in the censored countries internet (http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8276624&mch=snlink&cmp=art_8276624)
ReplyDeleteIt just goes to show how difficult it would be for the internet to be governed. However if it was I wonder who would govern it? Hmmmm
Ben, I don't believe that the internet is in a state of anarchy for two main reasons: the existance of TCP/IP protocols and the self imposed 'netiquette' that has become a hegemonic notion within internet use. Wikipedia defines TCP/IP protocols as "reliable, ordered delivery of a stream of bytes from a program on one computer to another program on another computer" and "the method by which information is sent between any two computers on the Internet". These definitions form the basis of the internet and i believe they can be seen as 'rules' - ruling out anarchy.
ReplyDelete'Netiquette' - a set of social conventions within the use of the internet, has become an increasingly large part of the way we use the internet. Evidence of this is that it has been written into school curricula, and even within our own subject outline at uni. Although there is no way to enforce 'netiquette' it is like manners within society - something you just do, and in return take for granted.
Interesting point about governing internet usage. It was only last week I had to write an essay in another class about whether or not the government should implement ISP filters.
ReplyDeleteThrough research I found that the leading ISPs took the initiative and installed filters before legislation was passed in Australia. However funnily enough the material that was to be filtered out was only what other countries who already had ISP filters, had filtered out or what the Australian public complained about. I argued that your average Joe, is not going to miraculously come across child pornography when surfing the internet on a Sunday afternoon and complain about it. You have to be seriously looking for that sort of material and then why will you turn yourself in?!? I honestly question the effectiveness of ISP filters and will they actually help govern the internet?