On February 8, 1996, John Perry Barlow, songwriter of the Grateful Dead and founder of the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF), sent an email to a hundred strange friends. The message, titled “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace”, argued that the Internet should not be subject to the laws and regulations of the real world. He was concerned that the US government was enforcing real-world rules on cyberspace. its growth. “On behalf of the future,” he begged, “I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.”
Barlow’s message tapped the zeitgeist of the time, framed in the context of Internet exceptionalism—a notion that would affect the way the Internet was regulated around the world. Cyberspace, he argued, was a separate and sovereign realm that everyone could enter – where beliefs could be expressed without fear of being silenced or conforming. In his concept, the Internet represented a new frontier that would host a “civilization of the mind in cyberspace”.
His letter was an immediate response to the Telecommunications Reform Act, 1996, a law that had just been enacted to curb the uncontrolled proliferation of online spaces with a particular focus on Internet porn. Barlow believed that this effort to regulate online content was a sign of things to come that, unless stopped, would result in the Internet as it existed then and was lost forever. Was.
“You claim,” he roared, “there are problems between us that you need to solve. You use this claim as an excuse to invade our premises. Many of these problems do not exist. Where there are real conflicts, where there are wrongs, we will recognize them and address them through our medium. We are creating our social contract. This regime will arise according to the conditions of our world, not yours. Our world is different is. “
The belief – that the Internet should be governed by its own rules – was widely held by the pioneers of the Internet. Most of them were hackers, who were basically opposed to any form of intellectual conservatism. Because of his liberal values, he prioritized free speech above all else, making it his mission to protect online communities from all forms of narrow-minded censorship. And their first step towards infusing the social contract, which Barlow mentioned, was to reflect these objectives in the terms of service of their websites.
This, by accident or design, was a masterstroke.
A website’s Terms of Service is a contract between users of a service and the site providing it. In a contract, the parties may agree to be bound to higher standards than what the law demands. Internet companies use this feature to specify the limits of what users can and cannot say on their platforms, appropriate behavior. Most importantly, he explained the consequences of failing to comply – which was, in most cases, expulsion from the platform.
Since all the early pioneers of the Internet were connected by their own thinking, the terms of service of most websites were clearly liberal. As the Internet expanded globally beyond the US, websites were inclined to hold their entire user base to the same standard of conduct, regardless of where their users were physically located. This is why users around the world today are largely bound by the same terms and conditions, regardless of the socio-political undercurrents of the country they live in.
This wasn’t such a big problem when the Internet was just a collection of small, diverse websites. However, access to the Internet has become increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few major platforms that, for all intents and purposes, operate as the gatekeepers of our online interactions. Today, the decisions these entities make to enforce their Terms of Service can and have serious consequences around the world.
Over the years, ideological tensions have risen between liberal tech platforms and various right-wing public figures who depend on them for access to their audiences. Things came to a head when Twitter permanently suspended former US President Donald Trump, applying its terms of service in the most extreme way against the leader of the country in which it was incorporated. The action was swiftly followed by similar steps taken by nearly all other tech platforms, showing that no one—not even the President of the United States—violated the Internet platform’s terms of service. was free from consequences.
One could argue that John Perry Barlow’s wishes have come true. Cyberspace is still largely a law in itself. Its governance is in the hands of the platforms that control it, and their interpretation of what is or is not determines whether users can continue to enjoy its benefits. And while the world’s governments have repeatedly tried to take control of the Internet – as they did in 1996 and provoked Barlow’s vehement protests – they have little to show for their efforts.
John Perry Barlow argued that if left alone, the Internet would lead to a civilization of the mind “more humane and fairer than the world your governments had before.” Looking at what has become of the Internet nearly a quarter century later, I can’t help but think he may have been a little over-optimistic.
Rahul Mathan is a participant in Trilegal and also a podcast called Ex Machina. His twitter handle @matthan . is