Regulating the Internet, do not cut everyone under one comb

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This year, apparently, is the year when governments around the world have seriously taken up the regulation of the World Wide Web.

Much has been said about the EU with its Copyright Directive, and now also the Terrorism Content Regulation. And about Australia with its laws on the prohibition of encryption of information and "odious content." India has already passed several Internet restriction laws and new ones are being discussed. There is also the United Kingdom, Germany, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Cameroon and others, and more. And, of course, some very bad ideas are also under consideration in the United States.

If we consider the “problem” that all these laws are trying to solve, then it can be reduced to the following: “people do bad things on the Internet, so the Internet needs to be regulated.” Unfortunately, it is precisely this regulatory theory (also stupidly applied) that is behind most of the proposals for Internet regulation today. This is problematic for a number of reasons, in part because laws regulate the wrong side. Ideally, we should pursue people who do bad things, not the tools or services that they use (or tools and services that simply inform about bad things).

Well, there is a second theory that underlies many regulatory approaches: “Google and Facebook are big and bad, so everything that punishes them is good regulation.” For me, this approach has even less sense than the first, but it certainly makes people think, at least in the EU (and, possibly, in the USA).

Combine these two theories of Internet regulation, and you get a complete mess. They are more likely to hit a sizable part of the global network with a sledgehammer than to seek targeted approaches. In addition, now so much attention is paid to Google and Facebook that many of the regulatory laws are written exclusively with an eye on these two platforms, and do not take into account the impact that laws can have on other Internet companies, many of which work for completely other basics. Earlier, I expressed my thoughts about which regulatory approach would really “hit” the technology giants while maintaining the open Internet, but this approach will require a very big change in thinking (I still hope that it happens).

In his article, The Legal Framework for the Internet, Ben Thompson offers a much more practical regulatory approach. He, like me, is skeptical of most regulatory attempts, but recognizing that this will happen no matter how skeptical we are, Ben offers such a basis for thinking about Internet regulation that (I hope) can minimize the most negative ones. consequences of the approaches used today.

You should read his entire article to understand the train of thought, the background and the essence of the proposed approach, but the key point of Thompson’s idea is the recognition that there are different types of Internet companies, and this is absolutely true not only for companies, but also for the services they provide . Ben hopes that regulatory approaches can be more finely tuned and specialized. In this case, we would have much less collateral damage when trying to conduct square regulation through round Internet services.

Thompson's next idea is to revise the generally accepted concepts of “free as in beer” and “free as in speech” that are familiar to every Internet user. Ben talks about the third fairly well-known and long-debated concept called free as in puppy, which implies that you get something for free, but you will have to pay for it in the future.

Most people in the West agree, at least theoretically, with the idea that the Internet should preserve free content. China, however, is a warning story about how technology can be used in the opposite direction. However, the question is, should we keep free along with free content?

In particular, Facebook and YouTube offer both free and free content at the same time: content can be created and distributed for free without any responsibility. Could it be better if the content that the society considers problematic would have “free responsibility”, that is, would imply expenses for the user, correlated with possible moral costs for the society?

Theoretically, this allows countries that believe that certain problems exist on the Internet to more narrowly focus their regulation without harming the entire Internet:

A clear classification is critical to developing a regulation that actually solves problems without adverse side effects. In Australia, for example, there is no need to worry about shared hosting sites; rather, Facebook and YouTube are worried about it. Similarly, Europe wants to curb technology giants without too much trouble for small online companies. And from a theoretical point of view, it is necessary to regulate exactly the place where the failure occurs, but to limit regulation to this place alone is a rather difficult task.

I admit that I am not completely convinced of Ben Thompson's model, but she gave me reason to think. At least in the regulation of advertising-supported platforms, some problems are solved. Regulation will focus on the application level and on the specific type of service. This approach can potentially push us to the world of “protocols, not platforms” (a more regulated world of platforms with support for advertising can push companies to explore business models that are not based on advertising).

I still have a lot of doubts, however, despite all the complaints about what Google and Facebook have done with the ad-supported model, we must agree that this model created some incredibly powerful services that really did amazing things for many, many people. Everyone is focused on the flaws, but we should not forget how much good we got thanks to the Internet, built on advertising. Can this be improved? Absolutely. But do not consider all online advertising a problem. If a regulatory approach should exist, it should be aimed not only at the nature of the platform, but also at the specific and clearly articulated harm that the regulation is trying to eliminate. Then we can weigh the potential harm and benefits, and then evaluate how effective the regulatory approach is.

I am still skeptical that most laws governing the Internet will function very well and eliminate real harm (and also do so without prohibiting many good things), but since we will have a lot of discussion on this subject in the coming weeks , months and years, we could also begin to discuss the laws of Internet regulation themselves.

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