When the late Christopher Hitchens was once asked to define a warlord, he replied “someone who controls a stretch of road.” If the internet is truly the “Information Super Highway,” it is reasonable to ask who gates, regulates, and patrols access to its turnpikes? As we approach another American presidential election it has become apparent that no one knows who to trust to regulate and police the highways on which we now all get our news and make sense of our world.
This spring CIGS INET assembled a small group of economists, legal scholars, and tech leaders to frame what may be one of the main technological issue of our time: how can we rebuild the lost societal trust on digital platforms necessary for the functioning of civil society? The questions motivating the conference included:
Are the scales being tipped?
If so, who is doing the tipping?
Is it for private, group, national or world interests?
Is it done openly or cryptically?
Is it done legally or illegally?
Is it done according to rights or power?
A few short years ago many of us believed that social media would be the engine of democracy. Whether it is the Arab Spring or the co-ordination of marginalized groups like Black Lives Matter, social media has been and continues to hold the potential to be a source of political mobilization and a way to bring marginalized populations into the political discourse.
The flip side of this is of course political polarization as we see people increasingly disappear into their filter bubbles, misinformation and disinformation campaigns, and the spread of hateful messages. A low point for many was the live streaming of the terrorist attack in Christchurch a few months ago.
Public frustration with social platforms is now at an all time high and there are growing calls for regulation. There is increasing political will and even an acknowledgement on the part of leaders of Social Media companies like Google and Facebook of a need for regulation. Yet, given the danger of unintended consequences with perverse incentives, it is essential that regulations correctly weigh the tradeoffs between fundamentals such as safety, freedom of speech and privacy as well as economic concerns. The meeting explored these issues with presentations from economic, legal and political science scholars, journalists, and leaders of the tech industry, revealing a classic case of the blind men and the elephant parable: if we do not coordinate the insights of these different sectors, the elephant in the room may be missed by all.
While we don’t think much about it in free societies, an open stretch of road is a difficult thing to maintain for public benefit. The CIGS conference was made a success by so many participants coming together with an interest in keeping the information super-highway free of warlords for the benefit of all.