The Internet: Today’s Wild Wild West - Part 1

There is still much we don’t understand about the digital world, and that has many consequences

We use the internet for almost everything these days, especially during 2020 when everyone went on lockdown. People order all sorts of goods and services online. We use it to conduct business, research, communicate, and share. Many of today’s products that are created come in the form of online services or digital products.

Furthermore, cell phones have become a lifeline. We can make emergency calls, contact friends, do online banking, store important information, play games, etc. It has arguably become an extension of our limbs and consequently, a trap in many ways (have you watched The Social Dilemma yet?). Many of us even have two cellular phones nowadays, one for personal use and one for work. It is getting a bit out of hand, in my opinion.

When it comes to the internet, many people only care to understand it for its surface-level functionality, a means to an end, such as how they can use it to build an online business, communicate with people near and far, or store data for convenient access. However, I would wager that the majority of us don’t understand how to use the internet from a more critical standpoint (e.g. how one action I take on the internet can cause a reaction – positive or negative – down the line) as well as how the internet gets used.

Sure, most Americans know how to open an internet browser or download an app, hop on over to Google, search for something, check their email, etc., but what exactly is the digital world?

Let’s look at Facebook for example. Your Facebook account is not a product you can turn around and sell for a higher value, especially since you didn’t pay anything for it in the first place. Yet Facebook is one of the most valuable companies in the world, and it’s so valuable because of our personal information. Many of us know that the social media conglomerate sells our personal information to advertisers and other third-party businesses. But how many people actually care that their personal information is being sold? Let’s look at another example, and this one is for gamers! In a video game, you can buy a skin for your character. However, can you then turn around and sell that skin? Can you store it somewhere outside of the game? If the game were discontinued, do you lose that skin forever?

With these examples and many other scenarios, I question, when we are accessing the internet, do we really know what is happening physically? Do we even care?

In the physical world, when you go outside of your house, you can look around and see tangible objects and spaces that come with learned, common rules that help you understand your life. Your house is your house. It is a private space. The sidewalk is where your property ends and the public space begins. Anyone—barring a legal order preventing them—is allowed to walk on that sidewalk. Next to that is a road. Only those possessing a vehicle, a registration, etc. are allowed to use the road. You may only walk on it in designated areas. Then you go down the street to visit a store. It is a public business that serves the public. Only under certain circumstances can they refuse you their services. Across the street is a private club, who may decide not to sell to you you because you do not meet the specific requirements of their private business. Down the road is the public university where people are free to go, gather, and protest. Across the street from that is the city capital building where your government leaders meet. At every point, you know the laws, rules, regulations, dos, and don’ts (or it’s easy enough to look up!).

When it comes to the internet, there is so little we actually know. Sure, we know that we can’t steal someone else’s content, and we understand that we cannot harass other people. There are many laws that govern the physical world that bleed into the digital world; however, we have a much vaguer idea of what the structure of the digital world is. You don’t need a passport to be in a foreign computer or pulling data from another country. You have no boundaries and only mild rules, rules that not everyone bothers to follow. Digital piracy is a huge ordeal in this day and age.

The reason we don’t know more about the internet (on that deeper critical level) is because no one has sat down and drawn out a digital sphere of how it would work.

Firstly, the internet has become so embedded into the American way of life that it should be, in my opinion, considered a utility, a fundamental necessity of the people. Everyone should have access to it, especially if the United States has any hope of creating a digital currency. The fact that it isn’t considered a utility isn’t going to fly for very long.

Secondly, the government needs to create an architecture for how the digital sphere should work. Imagine this with me. Your computer, or digital device, is your home. What protections should it have? What is the equivalence of a door handle and a lock? What would be the equivalency of a security company like ADT, a fence, or a guard dog (which is a form of security that you solely regulate)?

Next, you leave your “house” via a hard wire or a wireless connection. Should those be treated the same? Who should be able to monitor you? It takes a lot more effort to pay a policeman to sit and watch you and track you everywhere you go than it does to create a computer program to track your every movement, keystroke, letter typed, etc.

Should the connections be monetized? What if everyone is guaranteed a hardline connection via a utility, and then people can decide if they want to pay for wireless connection or faster internet? It’s similar to the difference between a highway and a toll road.

What would the governing body and subsequent law enforcement look like on these “roads”? Is there an active system sorting through the data being transmitted back and forth? What should they be allowed to look at? What should the criteria be to merit a warrant in order to look at the private data? Think of this as the equivalency of a police car pulling you over for doing something bad on a suspicion.

When it comes to the internet, what is considered private business or public platform? This is the biggest area affecting us right now. There are institutes that have becomes too large in the digital world that one could argue that they are fully under the public sphere. Is Facebook or Twitter the equivalent of a public space? In the physical world, public space allows for (peaceful) protests.

The reason this is such an obscure area is because the only way to connect with other people is through a network service such as Facebook, which is a private business. There is no digital public space to which you can go to simply “sit”, people-watch, and strike up a conversation, certainly not one that is uncensored.

In the physical world you can get up out of your house, go over to your friend’s house, have a conversation, and know that the conversation stayed between you two. It wasn’t tracked or recorded. Only under certain circumstances is the speech prohibited. It is technically illegal to talk about hurting someone, especially people in powerful positions. However, if that conversation did take place in the private setting between two people, no one would ever know that the conversation took place unless one of the individuals shared it.

Frankly, while words are powerful, sometimes we say things just to vent, and we often vent to others versus stewing in our issues alone. “Man, I wish this person (or concept) would just die already!” Although most people would never physically try to hurt someone, it’s likely that almost every person has said something similar to that effect out loud because they needed to get it off their chest and blow off some steam. Oftentimes, the thing or person we were complaining about wasn’t actually what was making us mad. Maybe we were just tired. Or hungry. The fact of the matter is, the situation – especially one that can be viewed as aggressive – needs context. And within most contexts, our words don’t lead to people getting hurt. If it did then our physical world would not exist (we would have destroyed ourselves long ago!).

Now, even if you and a friend went to a public space, there is still a reasonable expectation of privacy, or at least the perception of it. Everyone would be highly uncomfortable if when you sat down at a table the people at the table next to you started relentlessly staring at you and recording every little thing you did and word you spoke. That would be highly unreasonable and would not be tolerated.

What Facebook and Twitter (and others) have done is essentially created public squares. They codify people coming in and out of their space. This is a giant undertaking.

Now, they hold the keys to anyone wanting to enter the space. What have they done with their power?

They can sit next to you, see everything you do, and record it. They own all data entering their space. They can prevent people from entering their space. They can censor what you post or say. They can stand next to you and say, “Nope that’s not right.” Could you imagine walking around with someone next to you saying that whatever comes out of your mouth is wrong and that people shouldn’t listen to you?

But the reason you can’t object is because you have no alternative. You have no comparison. You have no “public space” where that behavior is prohibitive. Additionally, you don’t really have any rules.

The government needs to create a public space. The government needs to create a blueprint that establishes a digital representation of the digital world where there is defined private and public spaces where the rules are clear and absolute. This is when order will come to the digital world. This is when we will reach clarity. Until then the internet – the current wild wild west – which is having disastrous consequences in the physical world, will continue running through blurred lines and create anarchy.

Solutions will come in Part 2 to follow.