Rights, Users & Curators

I am a firm believer that with rights comes responsibility. Let me give you an example. In America you are not just at Liberty to own a gun. It is your Constitutional Right to do so. It is my belief, however, that tied up with your rights to hold said firearm, are your responsibilities to ensure that ownership and use is managed in a responsible way.

The current centrepiece of legal debates in the western world these days is the internet. It is a great purveyor of community and free information. The problem is that it is also a bureaucratic nightmare.

The internet appears to me as an intricate mess, one that looks likely to collapse under its own weight. I think many who fight for the classic Internet freedoms are missing a key issue. The classic Internet freedoms do not appear to be that profitable.

Sooner or later the companies that are making losses will quit the business. Or go bust. Or be taken over by major corporations that care about their profits and not the free sharing of information. As the independent owners of websites, forums & the other niche personalities are priced out of the internet market, their dark corners will go with them.

It is not an impossible situation to overcome though. But the process must contain compromises to encourage continued investment by companies. It is a market world we live in, so market arguments must be considered. A process something like the following is what I could see in the future of the internet, if it is to survive:

First of all there would set up a primary hub. This hub will contain the highest traffic and most important information access points, for example:

Primary:   News Networks; Facebook; YouTube; Digital Radio; Government, School & College Areas etc.

This area would be fully monitored, fully regulated & fully accountable to the law. A basic, safe package for all internet users, at a cheap basic rate of lets say £10/month, or some affordable equivalent. This area would be covered with advertising, which would have a chance at being a sound investment because of the amount of traffic the centrally monitored hubs would process.

Shopping and other profit making organisations however would exist in one of several secondary hub areas. This would act to separate the basic access needs areas (i.e. education, news, networking etc) from the leisure areas. It would also mean a steady if small return for an investment for advertisers and online shops from the extra fee for secondary access. These secondary forms would look like such:

Shopping:  Amazon; Play; iTunes; Online Stores; Subscribed Online Gaming etc.

Community: Home Pages; Blogs; Wikipedia; Journals; Secondary Networking etc

These secondary areas would cost an additional fee, lets say £5/month in addition to the basic package. This area would be far less monitored, to allow for a continuation of free intellectual and commercial enterprise on the internet. They'd still be subject to certain in practice regulations designed for those areas however, for instance the consumer rights laws of the country they are selling to.

A tertiary set of hubs would include niche markets. These would be the smaller sites with less traffic, or at least less consistently high traffic. These would cost more to gain access to because of their higher running costs. However packages could be created to sell access to these small niche areas that are regularly used by specific users.

This is only a very rough sketch. But I think ISPs and the Telecom giants will find them increasingly necessary steps to make the process more efficient. If we are to continue to enjoy the benefits we must be part of the discussions and be active in coming up with the best compromise solutions.

As I see it, acceptance of your rights is also an acceptance of the responsibilities that come with them. A responsible citizen that accepts their rights there-in becomes a defender of them also. As for the internet, by claiming their right to the freedom of access, a user becomes a curator of the internet, responsible for the maintenance & protection of their rights.

We must give consideration to these issues:

+ Firstly as responsible users we must present solutions ourselves to a serious logistical problem with our collective information sharing network.

+ Secondly that things that I have mentioned above need to be discussed in open forum to find the most appropriate and safe solution to a problem that is only getting worse with each new internet page.

In all I believe that as responsible users of the internet, it is our duty, not that of any government or other body, to ensure the Internet's fragile freedoms. If the internet is to be prevented from being just another finance driven market place, as its curators we must act now to find safeguards for its future.

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References:
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+ Amy Shatz & Shayndi Rice's 'Internet gets new rules of the road'; December 2010;

+ Adam Carolla's 'Adam Carolla on Net Neutrality'; February 2011;