The Internet will become the auction yard for a digitally networked labor pool that transcends any regulatory and cultural barriers. Ultimately, we are removing the social safety nets for those people who can’t find reemployment.
Many of us are justifiably concerned about the accessibility of obscene and indecent materials online and the ability of parents to monitor and control the materials to which their children are exposed. But government regulation of the content of all computer and telephone communications, even private communications, in violation of the First Amendment is not the answer … Heavy-handed efforts by the government to regulate obscenity on interactive information services will only stifle the free flow of information, discourage the robust development of new information services, and make users avoid using the system
Government regulation will stifle this new industry. The Internet has been growing at an exponential rate and new uses for it are devised daily. Overly restrictive bans against indecency on the Internet will prove not only unconstitutional but will also hamper the growth of this new communications medium.
The Internet and other computer networks hold enormous promise for enhancing our lives in ways that would have been unthinkable only a brief decade ago. But the growth of this network will no doubt be chilled if users fear that they risk criminal liability by using particular words that might, in some jurisdictions, be considered “indecent.” Or, if service providers simply refuse to provide Internet access to children under 18 years of age, due to the risk of criminal liability.
We know that the emergence of the computer networks forming the backbone of the national information infrastructure in this country and the global information infrastructure worldwide, hold enormous promise for our nation’s continued economic health and growth … We have to legislate in ways to promote the continued growth of the Internet while providing a fair allocation of responsibility.
Gore wants to see universal, perhaps free, access to the networks by the end of the decade for public bodies such as schools, hospitals and libraries. Leading the expected money-makers is super-TV: thousands of channels of interactive, high-definition, Video-U-Like. Rheingold sees it otherwise. “That’s like saying, when they were getting ready to build the Interstate highways, that the roads were great news for the asphalt business. I mean, they were, but there are far more important effects … It’s a Trojan horse, with the nodes of the network growing in intelligence, like crystals growing in a supersaturated solution.” He expects consumers to use these digital feeds to make their own links, to talk to each other without the interference of a corporate agent, to establish their own virtual communities. But he recognizes the opposite might happen.
TCI could have tens of millions of television set-top boxes within a few years. [Microsoft] Windows 95 is going to have the Microsoft Network bundled into it, potentially reaching tens of millions of more users. Because of those huge numbers, either company could wipe out Net culture and give itself tremendous economic and cultural control … [Biggest threat:] It’s ripe for demagoguery and attempts at censorship. That’s the other side of our happy little utopian dream. There are people who would destroy it, but so far they’ve either been looking the other way or haven’t succeeded yet in gaining leverage.
Virtual communities could help citizens revitalize democracy, or they could be luring us into an attractively packaged substitute for democratic discourse.
A lot of these [communications technology-inspired corporate mergers and alliances] aren’t going to hold; the companies are just scrambling to file papers before the deadline of the upcoming wireless licensing auction.
We are heading out there toward convergence but nobody has a clue what it’s converging into … But everybody realizes they’ve got to get off their duff … People are looking for the best position.