Two sides of the Internet: December 15, 1997 issue of New Thinking

December 15, 1997 New Thinking:
Two sides of the Internet

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December 15, 1997

Two sides of the Internet

By Gerry McGovern

Baebhen Schutte is alive because of the Internet. At just five days old, she is the youngest ever recipient of a transplanted organ. Her parents found the information that led them to the King’s College Hospital in London on the Internet. Her parents live in Dublin.

The day after I read about Baebhen I heard a radio report, which stated that French police had, arrested 49 people in connection with an Internet-based pedophile ring.

Two sides of the Internet.

Can the Internet self-regulate itself? Yes, in so much that any society self regulates itself. Laws will govern the Internet; the same type of laws that we are all governed by.

Some people seem to think that the Internet is a different place to society. Some people seem to think that there is such a thing as a 'netizen,' as opposed to a citizen. Well, maybe in the very small confines of Silicon Valley and other middle and upper-class neighborhoods, there are social types of that sort.

Netizens tend to make the mistake that many Americans make. They think that they are the world, that what’s good for them is good for everyone else. Sorry to tell you, but you are not the world, and I very much doubt that you represent the views of the vast majority of the people who inhabit it.

I have children – crime of crimes! I want a safer Internet – away, ludditte! I want laws and regulation on the Internet – heathen, burn him! The quicker those laws – well thought out and appropriate – are brought in, the quicker the Internet will become a truly mass medium and marketplace – damn him, he’s the devil incarnate!

In some places, law has a bad name. But think about it, law is one of the corner stones of our civilization. Citizen by citizen, we measure freedom by the laws that define and protect our freedom. In a connected world, where my space is close to your space, we need to agree to define the boundaries. In a networked world, we may not physically rub up against each other, but in many other ways we do.

Today, it is absolutely counter-productive to demand special rights of freedom for netizens. Today, it is absolutely essential to begin the great debate of what the laws and constitutions of cyberspace should be.

However, this debate is a universal debate. Universal in its physical scope and reach, as its traverses continents. Equally universal in its necessary embrace of all our citizens.

This debate and the laws and constitutions that arise out of it, must not be fashioned only for the self-centered needs of the elite few. It must have a capacity to protect and empower rich and poor, young and old. It must plan for those not on the Internet today, for those who will not be on it for another ten or twenty years.

We need a cyberspace which facilitates children like Baebhen being saved because of access to communication and information, while at the same time protecting other children from the darker side of that power to communicate and access information.

A monumental task with in all probability an imperfect outcome. But a task that must be undertaken nonetheless.

Gerry McGovern

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Today, it is absolutely essential to begin the great debate of what the laws and constitutions of cyberspace should be.