Feb 10 - Feb 12, 1998

When we talk of leadership, let's not leave out the citizens. Indeed, the whole notion of 'citizens' (as opposed to 'subjects') is an artifact of a previous communication/information revolution -- Gutenberg's revolution. The Internet has the potential to radically redistribute the power to witness, inform, influence, and persuade. But will the monopolization of news media by transnational corporations permit many-to-many media to lead to a growing democratization of communication?

Communication technologies are political tools and political weapons, because the product of communications technologies are not physical goods or services, but human beliefs and perceptions. The very notion of democracy, that a population can govern itself, grew out of literacy. People who cannot read or write, who do not have the freedom to express their opinions, and who do not have access to books and pamphlets, cannot govern themselves. It takes all three elements of a public communication system if a democracy is to work: literacy, freedom, and access.

New communication technologies bring political changes. People that used to have power, no longer have it. People who never had power, suddenly gain it. Some of the rich get richer, some of the poor get rich. The most recent and most powerful shift was the emergence of mass-media: newspapers, radio, television. Those candidates who can afford to buy access to television in democratic countries seem to be those who are elected in democratic elections, and in undemocratic countries, the first target in a coup is a television broadcasting center. It was an accident of history that a new kind of communication medium was born when the telephone and the computer were first connected, in the ARPANET experiments. This is not a few-to-many medium like newspapers, radio, television. Computer networks are many-to-many media.

With the rapid spread of a worldwide telecommunication network of networks, and the rapid growth in computing power of desktop machines, every desktop is now a printing press, a radio station, a television broadcasting station, a place of assembly. With inexpensive computers and ordinary telephone lines, suddenly millions of citizens all around the world gained a power to broadcast their words and images to millions of others, without the mediation of a centralized broadcasting hierarchy. This technological convergence of two technologies, communications and computing, makes possible a new kind of medium, a medium where citizens gain a power we never had before. Just as citizens gained new power in the wake of the Gutenberg revolution.

The entertainment megacorporations now own the source of journalistic information in most of the world. Journalism, the heartblood of democracy, is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of entertainment. Citizens are now faced with the necessity for re-inventing journalism on a community level, and with a powerful tool that might help us accomplish that task. The tool alone isn't going to get the job done. The 'rhetoric of the technological sublime' is a dangerous narcotic if it is only a utopian ideal that people substitute for the real work of democracy. And the potential of many-to-many media will always remain utopian except in those places where people put this tool to work.

Dear colleagues, some participants have referred to the leading role of the private sector in electronic commerce. This leading role is somehow quite natural. Basically, electronic commerce is business, user-oriented global business, not any terra incognito or wild west. Old models and systems are of course modified by technological possibilities (sometimes quite strongly, even revolutionary). But we have some kind of existing framework for this all, a framework which can be used as a basis for further actions. We have consumer protection, copy rights, telecom regulation, pedofilia is a crime etc.

If we rush to create a totally new legislation and new norms for electronic commerce, and especially if this is done top-down, we will really create severe barriers for any beneficial developement. Better to take this pragmatically, see what's going on, analyse situation, and if some acts are needed then let's do it - here business sector experts are excellent, as e.g. creating user trust is crucial. Thus the dialog between the private and the public sector is thus very important, the old top-down management and strict protection doesn't fit here.

Perhaps these issues listed below can give some thoughts to you. They are based on different existing strategies or principles. Some words might have different meanings in different political environments (e.g. what is public interest):

• private sector leadership
• a relatively minimalist role for government: protecting the public interest and establishing a framework/environment for the private sector
• the need for international discussions/agreements to facilitate the expansion of e-c
• the borderless world of e-c which prevents much government control the competitive environment in which e-c has developed, as opposed to the regulatory telecom environment
• the iterativeness of the development, which means, at least two things
  * mistakes will be made as things develop and when made they will need to be corrected,
  * and that the greater the flexibility the greater the benefits

I think that this kind of a pragmatic and minimalistic approach has worked quite well e.g. in Finland when deregulating and liberalising the telecom markets. There is one slide which would explain this quite well, It's called a camel curve. It explains deregulation and liberalisation in a nutshell.

The main curve - telecom regulation - is like a hump of a camel. The x-axis is freedom of operations (monopol - competition), the y-axis is amount or area of regulation. At a monopolistic situation the amount of regulation can be quite modest but when the markets are opened it normally means more regulation. Then when the liberalisation process continues towards competition the amount of regulation starts to diminish. This is some kind of a convergence process. Under the main curve we'll see another curve starting to grow quite slowy. It is 'competition legislation', all kind of normal business legislation (copy rights, consumer rights etc) can be included there. Thus, liberalisation and deregulation means that telecom business is treated like normal business in a competitive environment. - I try to draw this camel curve here. (I avoid sending the existing PowerPoint file to a public Intenet webpage.)

Amount or area of
regulation
        
        |
        |
        |
        |
        |           * *       Telecom law
        |        *      *
        |      *          * 
        |    *              *
        |   *                  *   
        |**                             *     *
        |                    ___ --------------- Competition law

        |_________________--____________________

     Monopoly                                 Competition

This curve was designed by a friend of mine from the Finnish Ministry of Transport and Communications.

In Finland we have quite nicely passed the hump. We have our historical milestones of the regulatory development. Most countries are still appr. on the top of the curve. One detail should be mentioned: if the tail of the telecom regulation curve of a country is well above the x-axis it propably means that the government of this country is making business by licensing. Which is perhaps not so fair, normally customers have to pay the bill.

Perhaps with the electronic commerce we could design a curve based on a bit similar thoughts. I just hope that we won't get a very complicated regulatory environment for electronic commerce, just because people and governments want to emphasise its new and unique features and possible dangers. We have an existing framework which (together with e.g. self regulation) - gives a good basis to take pragmatic steps, based on solid information, analysis and understanding of the situation and its development.

In this process we need global cooperation between business and private sectors and different international bodies.

Responding to post by Howard Rheingold

:1. Lack of any systemic thinking about the psychological, social, political effects on humans and human civilization of the accelerating evolution of global technological society.

I wondered what you felt would be the kind of systemic thinking that would be helpful?

A while ago I read a talk given during the early days of the ARPANET where the speaker explained that those who were able to get online would have a technological advantage over those who came online later and that it was very important to make online access available broadly to minimize the harmful effects on those who didn't have the access.

I find that I am continually amazed by how slow the spread of access to certain sectors of the population in the U.S. seems to be.

For example, I am currently involved in a public school situation. In September and October there was lots of talk about how the availability of special telecommunications rates to the schools would lead to lots more access in school.

But where I am located it has had no effect at all. Instead new computers were put in the computer lab and kids are being piled into the lab to use a reading program -- i.e. CAI (computer aided instruction) -- tying it up the lab and leaving Internet access as a distant dream at the school.

From what I have seen thus far around New York City in the public schools is that there is very little or almost no Internet access available and very little initiative by the schools to make such available, even though I have encountered a great hunger and interest in the Internet among the kids in school.

I wonder what others see happening and how they feel the claims of government or others that access would be spread are in actuality having an effect.

:2. The potential of the Internet as a many-to-many communication medium and the question of whether (or not) the ability of wider populations to publish and discuss issues has the potential to revitalize the public sphere and civil society.

My research work about early Usenet has showed that there has already been an important new creation of a public sphere.

However, to have this new online public sphere continue to grow and flourish, it would be good to see lessons drawn from how the U.S. government supported the ARPANET and universities supported early Usenet. Those areas of support helped to make it possible for people to be active developing the online public sphere that the early Net made possible.

Some of the recent research I have done documenting the role of the Net in creating a new public sphere is online at http://www.umcc.umich.edu/~ronda/usenet.hist/

I wonder what others feel about whather there has already been a revitalization of the public sphere?

:3. Is it possible for one company or government, or cartel, to control access to the means of distribution of information through the Internet and its successors? What would monopoly mean? What can anyone do about it?

Is the question whether it is possible? Or is it whether it is important to try to prevent such from happening?

The early support by the U.S. government for the ARPANET and then Internet was it seemed to me helpful, not harmful, but I would be interested in others views as well.

The early AUP (Acceptible Use Policy) of the ARPA with regard to the Internet as late as 1993 showed that government support with an acceptible use policy can be something helpful, rather than harmful. The policy encouraged communication and exchange among those in different countries as long as those countries also supported the free exchange via the Net.

However, to have some company dominate the Internet would seem to be harmful as that domination would give that company power over users that users would have a hard time challenging.

It would seem in the interests of people and governments that there be steps taken to prevent domination by any one company. One of the chapters in our book 'Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet' discusses the helpful role of the U.S. government Acceptible Use Policy. That is chapter 12 'Imminent Death of the Net Predicted'.

A draft version of the book is online at http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/