Shaping the Internet

Internet Governance Regulatory Challenges in Shaping the Internet

Ernestina Lamiorkor Tawiah

Internet Society – Ghana Chapter

tawiah.ernestina.L@gmail.com

June 1, 2020

Abstract

What is Internet governance? And why should ordinary people care about it? Comparing the internet to an ecosystem, it has become the planet’s nervous system, the global society heavily depends on it, because so many modern services rely on Internet connectivity. However, the Internet isn’t a “single issue” that must be regulated. In the sense that, the Internet, as it is, has advanced over a period of time, infiltrates all areas of political, economic, cultural, and social life. To a high degree, the Internet governance ecosystem is the 21st century’s virtual environment. Life without the Internet is unthinkable for today’s youth, who will be tomorrow’s decision makers. In this era of the COVID19 pandemic, the internet has duly proven to be the most important need of the human. From virtual meetings to virtual conferences, e-learning, and so on.

Introduction

How the Internet is governed has been a question of extensive debate since its earliest days. Truly, ways by which diverse sets of stakeholders join forces to manage this important global resource has an effect on the nature of the Internet as a reliable global platform for innovation, creativity, and freedom of expression. The Internet is a distributed system of networks and those who depend on it help to define its policies.

The internet has no single “inventor.” Instead, it has evolved over time. The internet got its start in the United States more than 50 years ago as a government weapon in the Cold War. For years, scientists and researchers used it to communicate and share data with one another. Today, we use the internet for almost everything, and for many people it would be impossible to imagine life without it. While the Internet evolved from a number of government-funded research projects, individuals from universities and private-sector organizations led most of its early development. Since these early beginnings, management of the Internet and global Internet resources (e.g., the Domain Name System) has relied heavily upon bottom-up coordination and direct participation by those interested in and impacted by related decisions.

Over the years, this distributed and community-driven management approach has supported the incredible growth and innovation that has defined Internet’s success and mirrors the early design choices of the technical community in the approval and implementation of Internet standards. By 2005, what had traditionally been referred to as private, bottom-up coordination evolved into the “multi-stakeholder” model of Internet governance that exists today.

Decentralization of the Internet

Decentralization of the Internet means that no solitary, federal authority governs Internet management. Alternatively, the Internet is governed in a decentralized, collaborative approach that makes sure that issues can be resolved at the level closest to their derivation. In this context, the Internet’s system of decentralized decision-making is similar to the principle of subsidiarity, in which issues are best handled at the level consistent with where the solution is applied. The internet is constantly under surveillance and regulation, and is fully or partially controlled by the government, a central authority, or a few big corporate players.

Challenges

Internet governance is categorized by a variety of actors, issues, and processes that work together and overlap across prerogatives. Effective collaboration in this context needs to overcome a number of challenges.

1. Piloting decentralized processes

The decentralized structure of the Internet governance ecosystem implies that different issues are addressed in different places and are better resolved at a level closest to their origin.

A challenge of the decentralized approach is the fact that the wide range of international, regional, and local forums in which issues are deliberated needs time and resources to monitor and participate. In addition to these frontal meetings, the multi-stakeholder deliberations between meetings and events are often full-bodied and require time and effort to follow through for significant contributions.

Numerous stakeholder clutches address this challenge by way of bringing together their input in forums and initiatives. Also, some initiatives and forums adopt open-information policies and propose possible ways for distant participation. The exposed convenience of resources and online discussions plus the possibility of distant participation aids in addressing the challenges brought forward by the decentralized processes.

• The role of governments

A significant discussion surrounding the diverse, decentralized environment is about the role of governments. Governments have important public interest responsibilities, set policies that influence the overall Internet environment. This brings essential considerations into discussions. The involvement of governments in Internet governance dialogues is vital.

An example is the Tunis Agenda. This agenda recognizes that governments play an important role in the building of a people-centered, inclusive, and development-oriented information society. Likewise, the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) identified a set of roles and responsibilities for governments ranging from lapses to fostering capacity-building and policy promoting the research and development of technologies and standards.

Two key challenges regarding the role of governments are debated in the Tunis Agenda: the need for governments to adapt to the diversity and multiplicity of voices under the multi-stakeholder model and the understanding of a concept of governance; that is not only limited to governments, but it extends to a broad range of stakeholders, including non-state actors.

However, some governmental bodies have embraced the multi-stakeholder model of Internet governance as way to develop effective, collaborative solutions to both global and local Internet challenges. Others remain less comfortable with the multi-stakeholder approach.

Complications of regulatory issues

Internet concerns can cross a lot of boundaries; geographic, sectorial, and technological. Cybersecurity and network neutrality for instance have economic, legal, social, and technical aspects, and includes actors from several jurisdictions. To effectively address these concerns, shareholders must have a wide range of skills and knowledge which includes the capability to work together with industry professionals, be they legislators, technologists, businessmen, or civil servants.

Even though technology advances rapidly, formal policies and legal procedures can move slowly. In addition, traditional decision-making models, such as voting, may result in decisions that are less suited to the broader set of legitimate and reasonable concerns, particularly those raised by minority interests. The pursuit of consensus ensures that all interested parties are involved in making the kind of decisions that produce effective outcomes.

Self-Regulation

Each entity, industry, and regulator are forced to conduct a thorough and painstaking search for an appropriate solution due to the gap between community aspiration and the perceived limits on government capacity. The determination to resolve this problem obliges the invention of regulatory policies for the Internet. Without flexibility and responsiveness, traditional law and regulation cannot adequately address the transnational, intangible, and ever-changing Internet space.  Attempts at Internet regulation generally has moved away from direct legal control and toward more flexible variations of what can be termed self-regulation.

Below are a few issues of Self-Regulation:

• the problem of enforcement if there is no statutory backing
• unless participation is obligatory, regulatory measures affect only those disinclined to flout the rules
• the regulated “self” may not be accountable to any independent body
• procedures can fall short of standards that would be set by courts (for example, for civil liberties)
• the burden of the costs of regulation may discourage participants and thus fall on the consumer
• inconsistencies between groups are possible
• levels of intent may vary
• failure to secure acceptance due to inadequate consumer involvement
• procedures can be used to harm competitors and create barriers to entry into markets

The major disadvantage is enforcement. There needs to be incentives to monitor and enforce standards, and self-regulatory regimes without statutory backing are, in general, weak. Traditionally, the lack of enforcement and redress are weaknesses in self-regulation. It is possible that with the internet, some of the traditional weaknesses may be minimized. For example, information flows faster on the internet and so can bring the offender into disrepute. Even informal sanctions can be enough to spur cooperation and thereby deter offenders. Nevertheless, it should be recognized that the problem of enforcement is a part of any self-regulatory mechanism. This weakness needs to be taken seriously because without adequate sanctions, the self-regulatory effort will fail.

Another disadvantage is that self-regulation is perceived as never going against the interests of the self-regulator. Fletcher’s economic analysis argues that the rational self-regulator will not rule against itself. This is debatable but the trick lies in the definition of “rational.” It is possible for the self-regulator to vote against itself if the long-term benefits of being regulated by the code outweigh the short-term loss.

Conclusion

Effective self-regulation requires active consumer and citizen consultation based upon shared responsibility at all stages of development and implementation. Without user involvement, a self-regulatory mechanism will not accurately reflect user needs, will not be effective in delivering the standards it promotes, and will fail to create confidence. Moreover, the effectiveness of self-regulation and its enforcement will depend largely on the full collaboration and commitment among all industry players. Self-regulation can then yield a responsive, acceptable and systematic solution to current concerns.

Codes of conduct should be adopted to ensure that Internet content and service providers act in accord with principles of social responsibility. These codes should meet community concerns and industry needs and operate as an accountability system that guarantees a high level of credibility and quality.  To be effective, these codes of conducts should be the product of and enforced by the self-regulatory industry entities themselves, though often in collaboration with government.  Because of the transnational nature of Internet communications, coordinated activity among these agencies is an essential element of self-regulation. There should be comprehensive use of rating and filtering technology and a mobilization of content producers worldwide to empower users of the Internet to make more effective choices about program content.  Such technology is especially necessary for content directed to children or content that might, in the absence of mechanisms, enter homes without the capacity of guardians to exercise their judgment.  Such a comprehensive system requires citizen content response and complaints systems, such as Hotlines, that add to credibility.

References

1. Ernst Fehr and Simon Gächter, “Cooperation and Punishment in Public Goods Experiments,” American Economic Review 90(4) (2000): 980-94.Fletcher, “Theories of Self-Regulation.”
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3. Few Regulatory Obstacles Seen for AOL Time Warner, COMM. DAILY, Jan. I1, 2000, available at 2000 WL 4694269
4. Joseph Farrell, Creating Local Competition, 49 FED. COMM. L.J. 201, 210 (1996) (“Just as we would not want to reduce the life of a patent from seventeen years to seventeen minutes, since that would reduce innovative effort, so also it would be unwise policy to make all developers of network externalities share them in all circumstances.”).
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