Jay's Expose

Looking at the role of governance when talking about the Internet is an interesting question looking into the future. The Internet started off in the hands of the government, but became a public commodity. But the question is, what would it look like if certain up and coming technology that uses the Internet to function had the government running their agenda? Our guest speaker and Harvard professor, Jonathan Zittrain, gave us an idea of what this could look like. One example he used had to do with automatic cars. Zittrain urged us to think about what it would look like if the cars could drive you quickly to the hospital in an emergency, like an ambulance would. Or if the police were after you and the doors locked and drove you automatically to the closest police station. These are a few ideas that show the crossroads between the Internet and how the jurisdiction and governance of it is important in forming the limitations of the government and what it can and can’t do.

Some other implications to consider when thinking about the jurisdiction and governance of the Internet is the fact that there is so much going on all the time that it would be nearly impossible to realistically govern certain things online. Also, with the ever changing nature of the internet and how fast people figure out ways around barriers, it’d be a constant tug of war between the government trying to take control and people trying to figure out ways out of it. As we move towards more control out of the hands of the people, it will be interesting to see how far the government jurisdiction will go.