Regulating The Internet: Whos In Charge :: essays research papers

Regulating The Internet Whos In ChargeThe internet was started by the military in the belated forties, and has sincegrown to an incredibly large and complex web, which will no doubt effect all ofus in the years to come. The press has latterly interpreted it upon themselves toeducate the public to the dark side of this web, a network which should beveiwed as a tremendous resource of development and entertainment. Instead, dueto this negative image, to a greater extent and more people are shying away from the internet,afraid of what they may find there. We must find a way to regulate what is there,protect ourselves from what is unregulatable, and educate the universal populaceon how to use this tremendous tool."The reality exists that governance of global networks offers majorchallenges to the user, providers, and policy makers to define their boundariesand their system of govenment" (Harassim, p84)The intemet is a group of networks, linked together, which is commensurate oftransmitting vast amounts of information from one network to another. Theinternet knows no boundaries and is not located in any single country. Thepotential the internet has of geological formation our world in the future is inconceivable.But with all its potential the internet is surrounded by questions of its usage.The intemet was named the global village by McLuhan and Fiore in 1968, butrecently the internet has been more properly renamed the global metropolis.Robert Fortner defines the internet as a place where people from all differentcultures and backgrounds come together to share ideas and information." converse in a metropolis also reflects the ethnic, racial, and sexualinequalities that exist generally in the society. (Fortner, p25)When a person enters into a global metropolis to engage in communicationthey do not know who they will interact with nor do they know what informationthat they may come across. Which brings an important question to mind. If thisis a comm unity, a global metropolis, should it not be governed to protect themembers of the community? But more importantly, evict a community that knows noboundaries and belongs to no country, be regulated? And who can or shouldregulate it?With the vast amounts of information transmitted through network to network,with some information remaining at sites temporarily or disappearing at bottomseconds, how can one regulate it? In a meeting of the Senate Select Committee onCommunity Standards in Australia, iiNet, an Australian intemet provider,presented facts on how much information passes through their server daily."Our own network sees over 200,000 items of email between individuals every