The Time Has Come: The Internet Needs to be Regulated.

“It’s all shits and giggles, until someone giggles and shits.”

Pardon my french, but I once saw this slogan on a coffee mug and found it hilarious, and now I find it appropriate for this situation. There needs to be laws and regulations put in place by governments to clearly define and outline the playing field of the internet to protect their citizens. Yes, the internet has brought us tremendous joy and advancements. But as with anything in life, with the good comes the bad and we need to prepare for both.

Is it really progress vs. safety?

The beginnings of any upcoming industry bring a lot of expectations for its positive outcomes and the people behind these developments often dream of the many wonderful ramifications of their product or service. However, the wrong uses and abuses of these cannot always be managed by their advocates, so it is the government's duty to create and enforce regulations as problems arise.

The article by Deloitte Insights “The Future of Regulation” explains these issues clearly:

The preeminent issue is how to protect citizens and ensure fair markets while letting innovation and businesses flourish. (…) In the wake of these developments, regulatory leaders are faced with a key challenge: how to best protect citizens, ensure fair markets, and enforce regulations, while allowing these new technologies and businesses to flourish?

There has been much talk about the regulation topic, especially around privacy and some actions taken in individual states such as California, which passed a “digital privacy law granting consumers more control over and insight into the spread of their personal information online.” But the fact that these are “one of the most significant regulations overseeing the data-collection practices of technology companies in the United States”- is actually worrying. This is not enough. We need action over many more issues and at the federal level.

Learn from experience and that of others…

Now, the GDPR imposed in Europe is a good example to follow and it definitely made big tech companies like Google, Facebook and YouTube rethink and refine their actions and liabilities. But their historic attitudes towards privacy are quite different from the feeling and attitudes in the USA, where there is more lax attitude and acceptance of transactional behaviors, where if I get something in return it is okay to let go of some privacy. So the GDPR is a good example, but the US government need to outline their own set of guidelines and regulations in accordance to US society.

I am not here to pretend that I have a faint idea of the how, but I am confident in the fact that it needs to be done. I no longer feel safe. I no longer feel totally free. I have come to feel like my free will and future depend on the will of someone else. Someone in power of information and software capable of shifting elections, manipulating public perceptions, overthrow governments and much more.The rabbit-hole of Orwellian theories is scary.

I do not believe it is too late. Technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, big data analytics, and the Internet of Things (IoT) are all still in their infancy and will only continue to grow and dictate our future. Hence, need regulations in place for their predecessors to be able to build upon for these upcoming ones.

Being a bad leader

Is there such a thing as too much Internet regulation? Maybe. But all I know is that right now there is practically NO regulation and that is worst. In my C-Suite class we often say that the worst quality a leader can have is indecisiveness. Even a bad decision is better than no decision at all. It is here and now, that we need decisive leaders, leaders who will take a stance, protect their constituents and regulate the Internet.

What do you believe?

- Diana