The Internet: A Case of Industrial & Societal Regulation

The Internet serves as a perfect case study of how industrial and societal regulation can play out in the same medium.

Industrial regulation, essentially meaning to treat the media as a commodity or good, is seen in various domestic and international regulations that have already been set into place. Such an area is copyright or other issues of intellectual property, where ideas, art, products, etc are given exclusive ownership by their creator or patent holder. There are regulations in place that if anyone attempted to replicate or use another's copyrighted material it is punishable by law and the creator is owed damages. Examples of how this can be seen on the Internet are music, movies, photos, scripts or other products that are available for others to view but not utilize as their own.

However, this type of industrial regulation does have its fair share of circumvention. Many use various Internet tools to illegally copy these materials for their own use, and without a highly sophisticated method of immediately tracking down perpetrators, the laws surrounding the piracy of these materials online can be weak.

Not only are government bodies and private industries attempting to alter the seemingly "wild west" characteristics of the Internet, but the general citizenry do so as well.

Think of the many online social platforms we have available to us (Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube etc). Nearly all of these platforms have a built in social regulator - the ability to flag any content that is deemed inappropriate or unsuitable. Oftentimes we are the ones to catch and blow the whistle on those who are posting unsavory items online when the social platforms themselves would not have the capability to do so as efficiently. This doesn't have to be limited to social networks either. Any article or forum that has interactive elements and allows commentary can be subject to socially unacceptable statements, which, in many cases, will face a wave of moral backlash from other users.

I personally am fond of a post by Natania Barron for Wired Magazine in which she details the outright vulnerability of having an online persona and the possibility for social regulation.

Barron writes, "Both my husband and I have run into conflict in the last few months as more and more people we know join Facebook. I’ve been scolded for being snarky; my husband has been called out for being too political. And it occurred to me: our audience has changed drastically. We can no longer pick and choose—our audiences are now related to us, people in our daily interactions. That puts a whole new spin on social networking: obligation. It’s societal regulation all over again!"

In this sense, we are protecting our normative social atmosphere, enforcing what our society has collectively determined as appropriate and inappropriate. The social platforms have instituted flagging as a way to make it extremely easy for us to use social regulation online, but this 'flagging' would continue in some fashion even if an official system didn't exist.

With both industrial and societal regulation taking place in regard to the Internet at the same time, it is critically changing how we perceive it as an information communication technology. With more stakeholders entering into the discussion on how to regulate the Internet, especially across international borders, it is getting to be a hot button issue for nation-states all over the world. The only way to regulate, it would seem, would be to consult international bodies and groups, but at the same time nation-states want their individual authority. It is a tender situation, and I don't believe a clear answer will come in the near future.

Governing the World One Map at a Time

It’s no longer a question whether or not governance will move beyond the state, because it already has. Governance was once almost solely at the discretion of individual countries and their leaders. Now the state shares that responsibility with industry, the media, civil society and even technology.

The aspect that I find the most interesting is technology that plays a role in governance, particularly in developing areas where you wouldn’t expect technology to play such a large role. Usually technology is a tool wielded by NGOs.

Livingstone brings up the great example of Ushahidi. Ushahidi is a free and open source software that began in the wake of Kenya’s 2007 political unrest that collects data about ongoing violence that is submitted through e-mail, social networking sites and text messages Then the information is all compiled to essentially digitally map the area and keep people informed about what’s going on where. And even though Ushahidi started in Kenya, it’s now been used worldwide in 128 countries, in all kinds of conflict zones and natural disasters. From earthquakes in Japan and Haiti to violence in the Congo, and even right here in DC during the blizzard in 2010, Ushahidi was used as a tool. 

In this case, it is a combination of technology, an NGO and regular citizens that act as the players in governance. Without the people who send in information, Ushahidi would not work. It’s fueled by crowd sourcing. The one player Ushahidi does not need to function is the state.

So we’ve established that Ushahidi takes the state out of the equation, but what makes it governance? Livingstone uses this definition of governance: “complex of formal and informal institutions, mechanisms, relationships, and processes between and among states, markets, citizens and organizations, both inter- and non-governmental, through which collective interests on the global plane are articulated, rights and obligations are established, and differences are mediated. (Weiss and Thakur, 2010).” Ushahidi fits this definition perfectly. It is a mix of formal and informal institutions, relationships and processes between citizens and organizations, in this case non-governmental. Collective interests are articulated and differences are mediated, in addition to public safety being provided for. Ushahidi and other technological tools like it are great examples of a new form of governance.