Do we need a Magna Carta for Digital Life?

The Digital Week | Digital Human Rights

The most commonly told lie?
“I have read and accepted the terms and conditions.”

With the average Australian spending 10+ hours a day on an Internet connected device, it begs the question, do we need a Magna Carta for digital life?

This is the question of Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the world-wide-web and the topic for this week’s discussion on The Digital Week podcast.

Associate Professor Nicolas Suzor explains “we need a new way of thinking about how we regulate power, how we protect human rights online”.

While Nicolas suggests changes to legislation could hold social platforms more accountable, he encourages users to understand what they are signing up for, especially when using free services. “At the moment if you’re not the customer of a platform, you’re the product” explains Nicolas.

Global companies, including Facebook, Google, and Airbnb, have come under fire for the lack of transparency within their privacy settings. Websites such as tosdr.org are trying to education citizens about the rights they are giving up when they hit the “agree” button.

Professor Marek Kowalkiewicz, head of the PwC Chair in Digital Economy, blames a lack of options for consumers — “Terms of service are very binary… you either accept or not”. Marek would like to see a sliding scale, where the terms of service are more flexible and individuals can personalise what information they are willing to share.

The need for rights online goes further than just individuals signing up to social platforms. An ever-growing number of people are making careers from publishing their content online. Top content creators on YouTube make as much as $15 million. Yet professional creators seem to have little control when their content is removed or demonetised. Nicolas explains:

“If this happens in the real world, the physical world, you can go to court, you can challenge these types of decisions. Because these types of decisions are made under the terms of service — that nobody reads. They are made by very opaque decision makers within these platforms. We have no idea how these decisions are made or even how to appeal them.”

However, it isn’t all doom and gloom. Much like many social issues when a problem arises, opportunity appears. The Digital Week wraps up each episode with “jobs of the future”. What job opportunities will appear as a result society spending so much time, and money, online?

Listen to the full podcast to find out!