A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace

John Perry Barlow was a pioneer of the Internet who died .in 2018. He issued a Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, in Davos, Switzerland on February 8, 1996. He wrote and said a lot of important things about the Internet, but this document might have been the most important.

The Internet offers a potted summary: The declaration laid out an optimistic vision for an egalitarian internet that would allow anyone to express their beliefs “without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity” and without government regulation.

Comments

[Robert E. Malchman]

I'm sorry, but this is utter nonsense. Consider just this bit from the Declaration: "We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.
Your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement, and context do not apply to us."

So the internet is a consequence-free environment. We've seen what that has spawned: hate speech, bullying, harmful disinformation. The worst among us feel free to spew their garbage and themselves coerce others into silence through abuses such as conformity. It is quite obvious that the internet cannot regulate itself. No legal concepts apply? Then you have an utterly lawless society, a Hobbesian State of Nature.

The remedy is much, much more regulation and enforcement. Repeal section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Make social media transnational giants liable for harmful lies that they knowingly or recklessly allow to spread. Defamation law provides a framework for private redress. Fraud and incitement to violence provide a framework for criminal enforcement. If you agree that no one should falsely shout "fire" in a crowded theater, then they likewise should suffer the consequences for falsely shouting "hydroxychloroquine" in a crowded website.

[Paul Schindler]

You are right. I will stop re-posting it.