
The fight to keep the internet free and open for everyone - mikece
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191025-the-fight-to-keep-the-internet-free-and-open-for-everyone
======
K0SM0S
> this “network of networks”, the free and open online world envisioned by
> early pioneers is under attack

This is a dire topic. But I think we have it backwards when we consider the
"network of networks" as a high-level construct (social, economic, etc.) like
for instance we refer to "factories" or "catering delivery".

I think we need to take a big step back to first principles and build up our
model piece by piece based on the simplest facts.

The "network of networks", be it neutral, is a 'dumb medium', like air. It
just _is_ , _does_ , period. It does not filter, think, it just transmits
whatever. Like air conveys sound, like we breathe it, air is air and does what
air does. You do not restrict the medium, it makes no sense (object does not
implement that method!), rather you confine it, you limit its flow.

This is even before "the public thing", a Respublica, for we have no choice
but to share the same air on this planet. For now, at least.

Enter the other component, physically a ground or "territory", in network
terms "zones", for lack of a better term — a set of rule-defined network
spaces, a 'country' in networkland.

Enter segregated spaces and filtering (in/out, gates and windows, gatekeeping,
restricted areas, walls, etc). Essentially "buildings" from a physical
standpoint. These things are 'private', removed from the 'public' space.

This is my LAN, this is Facebook, this is every "network" in the "network of
_networkS_ ". When you 'enter' that private space, you are bound to the rules
of the tenant. Just like you would at a friend's place, at Disneyland, at work
and in the streets of your country. Rules, everywhere, that you are bound to
follow if you roam the space they define. Cross some border — property, city,
country — and other rules define another space.

Now we have arrived at the "high level" view of internet, from a solid model
based on first principles. As we hit www.something.com or rather www.
_someone_.com, we leave the neutral medium of air, we leave the public space
of whatever country/city we're in, and we join a new space with _someone 's_
rules.

Now think about it: why do people go to Disneyland with their children? why do
they watch Netflix Kids with them? Because they _like_ the rules in those
places, they embrace the values of whoever rules over there, _enough_ to spend
time and money —the only two resources at the end of the day.

And there is exactly where the debate about "what should platform X do" should
take place: as we would regulate private spaces opened to the public.

A complex aspect of "social media" and the policing of speech online comes
from the fact that most platforms are now serving two entirely different
sectors in one: physically, we had the press — but that's one way,
paper/radio/TV— and we had communication — landline or mobile phones, post
letters, fax; but in the virtual world, we are now consuming information from
the press (and countless other types) and communicating mostly in the same
place. Thus you can't regulate Facebook exclusively as either the
communication sector or the media/press sector; you need to consider it from
_both angles_. It's a complex topic, likely to require dismantling old
agencies and creating new ones more adequate, more fitting the problem space.

