Internet Regulation vs. Responsibility

Why is that people seem to think that government holds the answers to everything? Rasmussen Reports recently published a poll that I thought was quite disturbing. A surprising number of Americans think that government should regulate the Internet:

Nearly half of Americans (49%) believe that the federal government should regulate the Internet the same way it does radio and television, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national survey. (See the article)

Apparently, the survey was conducted after Lori Drew, whose daughter had a “falling out” with a 13-year-old neighbor girl named Megan Meir, set up a fictitious account on MySpace. Drew made up a profile of a 16-year-old boy on the popular social networking site allegedly to harass young Megan. Eventually, this made-up boy viciously rejected Megan, who then committed suicide.

If the alleged crimes are true, there’s something quite twisted about a parent using MySpace to harass a teenager. Drew has pleaded not guilty to various charges made by federal prosecutors. I certainly don’t know all of the facts of the case, but I couldn’t help but wonder where Megan’s parents were in this situation. Couldn’t they see the signs of depression that eventually led to suicide?

Social networking online is big these days … very big. Services such as MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and so forth have millions of users. These services appeal to young people and savvy Internet marketers. If government steps in and starts regulating them, what will happen? And how will this regulation take place?

Perhaps taxpayer funded committees will come up with some solutions, such as:

• Social networking sites would be required to obtain and verify a person’s identity before an account can be created. Existing accounts will be deleted if compliance with regulations is not done within “x” amount of days or weeks.
• An Internet police force will monitor all web posts.
• People will need to be licensed in order to publish blogs, social networking profiles or web sites.

The “licensing” requirement is something that’s already being discussed. (Are You Too Stupid to Surf? - Wired/AP) Proponents say that if people need to have a license to drive a car, then they should also pass a basic test to have a license to surf the Net. This “license” would cover basic stuff, like using an anti-virus program.

If the government regulates the Internet, then I suppose all websites and online publications of any kind will fall under regulatory scrutiny. We’re dealing with the worldwide web, so presumably, those folks who want government regulation of the Internet envision some sort of global governmental regulation, perhaps from the United Nations.

And it’s a huge project.

It’s speculated that nine new blogs are created every minute and there are 2.3 content updates every second (Caslon Analytics has some great stats). NetCraft reports that as of June 2008, there are over 170 million web sites. And the amount of social networking accounts and sites? I don’t have a clue, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there are over 200 million of them. It is hard to imagine all of this being regulated and monitored. That’s insanity.

No matter which way you slice it, regulating the Internet will be expensive and a logistic nightmare. There’ll probably be some kind of a tax to fund all that regulation. And web-based businesses and networking services that are currently free to use might have to charge membership fees to cover all the potential liability and increased regulation.

In the meantime, why can’t parents monitor what their kids are doing on the Internet? Or talk to their teens, especially if they seem depressed or despondent? This seems like the cleanest, cheapest, fastest way to prevent tragedies such as Megan’s suicide. If parents cannot control their kids’ activities online, then they shouldn’t be giving their kids computers and Internet access in the first place.

It all boils down to responsibility. Rather than viewing government as the cure all, we need to empower ourselves by taking responsibility for ourselves and our children. It’s not right to refuse to take personal responsibility and as a result, force the rest of the community to be regulated and monitored.  If we expect government to be responsible for our lives, then we lose all freedom.

Related ...

• January 2, 2009 -- Internet Regulation Watch: A Look at Content Censorship and Filtering (4)
• December 15, 2008 -- Internet Regulation: A Look at Email Spam and How You Can Lose Everything You Own in Lawsuits. (0)
• December 8, 2008 -- Announcing Best Blurbs - Another Way to Get Link Juice. (2)
• November 9, 2008 -- We Love Our Taxes! But What About Internet Taxes? (0)
• November 1, 2008 -- Internet Regulation: The Government Knows What’s Best (7)
• October 31, 2008 -- Goodbye, BlogRush. Hello, Scoutle. (0)
• October 27, 2008 -- The Internet as a ‘Significant Other’ and Other Interesting Views (0)