World Wide Web Government
The internet is worldwide and without borders, but the United States government has taken upon itself to regulate and control the internet. The world has the United Nations to help govern each nation, and to help during disputes between countries. The internet needs a governing body similar to the United Nations to prevent one country from taking too much control. ICANN which regulates domain names is based on New York, but is a worldwide organization. The united States government has taken down hundreds of websites because they violated united states law, though websites are worldwide. Right now the web is the wild west: without law and rampant with people taking the law into their own hand.
The internet is a creation of the United States army, however its become something that everyone uses for almost everything. Brazil, which has been up in arms over the NSA spying on its citizens over the internet, has talked about creating its own internet for its people to be safe on. If the Brazilian government would fork the internet, then more nations could take a similar path. Then we would have an world that is no longer connected and fractured our greatest communication tool. We need to set up a governing body that every country can have a representative to vote on regulations on the internet. This would hopefully appease nations that are uneasy about the United States having more control than them.
This internet government needs a name and for the sake of it we will call it WWIG (World Wide Internet Government). The WWIG would be able to create a way to stop copyright, or a least a way to punish it. The body would also be able to draft a uniform privacy law so one country does not have strict law while others have lient laws, much like it is today . Germany is know for their strict privacy laws that internet companies have to comply with if they want to do business in the country. While not far away is Italy which has yet to pass any privacy laws about the internet. This causes a company like Google, to have different sets of privacy policies for different countries. This can also cause a company to stay out of that country because they don’t want to comply with those laws.
Then there’s the European Union which has a lot of laws and regulations over the internet. They have a lot of regulations that force companies like Microsoft to give users an option of which browser to install . In America and the rest of the world this browser select is none existent. The internet is being fracture by the borders of countries, not even a different language can stop communication over the internet. The European Union has a different set of copyrights, which makes it hard for sites like YouTube to comply all the time. There have been cases when copyrighted material was blocked because of human error thinking that it could not be view in that country. If a governing body came into play copyright could be placed through them so in theory you could have a universal copyright system. On Top of the copyright system the body could place regulations for the internet and not just for a certain country.
On top of regulations and copyright and other important necessities, a government for the internet could help stop censorship from countries like China. The government over the internet could put encryption, force regulations, and other things to stop censorship. This could also mean that ‘freedom’ fighters in Syria or Egypt could use the internet without risking their lives every second. It would also stop governments from trying to take control much like the United States or the European Union has continued to do. Everyone would have an equal say, and the internet would become a safer, better place for everyone.
Now the internet is tangled into our daily lives in some shape or form, and we have to find a way to protect our rights. The internet has been called a human right recently, which means everyone should have access. The government of the internet could work with countries to break up monopolies that internet providers have created. They could help lower prices, and help bring the internet to everyone in the world. This would bring more people on the internet and would allow people to claim that the internet is a human right.
Now a government for the internet would have to work faster than our normal governments, because the internet is always changing. If they put a regulation in place, tomorrow that regulation could be out of date and need to be revised. They could also stop people from committing crimes by putting a internet user account. We could assign people usernames/numbers to identify them so when something illegal occurs we could track who committed the crime down. This would mean less crime, hacking, and a better way to track people’s movements on the internet.
It could be used for the wrong reasons, but with every country in the world taking part it would be hard for them to abuse it. Now we also have to worry about protecting every countries electrical, gas, and water systems because they are now hooked up to the internet. Now I know it seems like the world would become one big surveillance state, but there would safeguards to ensure no one could watch your habits, steal your data, or steal your identity.
We need some government or structure that everyone can participate in and not just one country have power. It would be a difficult task, and something that would come with a lot of opposition. It could be something that everyone benefited from, and stopped America from spying on anyone they pleased. It could expand our knowledge even more, let alone make the world a little safer.