The Internet, in the Information Age, has stimulated a mass awakening of human possibilities. It bombards us with endless choices and places the power of information in our individual hands. Since there is no written "law of the Internet" many tend to behave in a more extreme fashion than in real life. As the Internet becomes increasingly popular and significant in our daily lives, more conflicts regarding the management of Internet arise.

The prominent debate is on how to govern the Internet. Since by design, the Internet is a decentralized network coordinated by a number of independent computers, do we each as individuals have the responsibility to civilize the Internet? Currently the Internet has social mechanisms between and within virtual communities that somewhat control behavior. However, is there a need or even a means for governmental regulations? This paper will explore the issues surrounding these questions.

Originally an outgrowth of a 1960s government experiment, the Internet is a booming social phenomenon. The purpose of the experiment was to develop a network that could manage itself and survive the most unreliable conditions, such as a nuclear attack. However, the Internet soon began facilitating newsgroups and email correspondence among researchers. As a new medium for communication, the Internet later began fostering the development of online communities, organizations and companies.

In reality, the Internet is simply a projection of existing aspects of our social behavior. It demonstrates the way in which we build and select communities and how their policies are proposed, challenged, and implemented. As Esther Dyson, a renowned N et visionary, explains "as the world seems to get more complex and more overwhelming, and public life ever more scary, people look to communities for fellowship and security" (p.44).

Cyberspace is a massive world of information where people can get "lost." Yet, the Internet serves as a classic model of self-reliance. Individuals online create and look to join virtual communities for support and security. As a panopticon individuals can "watch" each other to maintain a standard of order without one central authority. This can work within small communities and the Internet as a whole.

The Internet supports human interaction and allows communities to form relatively easily. Consequently many exist and prosper today. Virtual communities usually develop from common interests or goals. As in the physical world, most netizens live in several communities -"family, church or temple, soccer club, professional society, workplace" (Dyson, p.43). However, virtual communities attract many people because they overcome the barriers of time and geography. The openness of virtual communities al lows anyone with Internet access to join. Furthermore, individuals have greater freedom in selecting membership in virtual communities. They can conveniently opt to join or leave communities according to their changing values, interests, or different aspe cts of self.

The combination of the expressed values and preferences of individuals determine the common values for a community. A community may offer a secure environment enabling members to reveal personal information while others may only be a hobby discussion g roup. Some communities may have formal rules while others have invisible understandings. Regardless, some type of "netiquette," whether acknowledge or not, develops within communities. Social norms result as each community derives its values from the valu es of its members.

The virtual community exists and is governed by consensus. Each member is a contributor to the continued existence of the community and its set of norms. He or she can influence the "netiquette" of other members by actively participating in the communi ty or governing. Thus, democracy is the foundation of each virtual community whereby each member of the community has a voice. The community's norms, standards and official rules emerge from members' common interest to sustain the community. For example t he LambdaMOO greeting page from newcomers states:

LambdaMOO, like other MUDs, is a social community; it is populated by real people interacting through the computer network. Like members of other communities, the inhabitants of LambdaMOO have certain expectations about the behavior of members and visi tors. This article lays out a system of rules of courteous behavior, or "manners," which has been agreed upon by popular vote. First of all, any action that threatens the functional integrity of the MOO, or might cause legal trouble for the MOO's supporte rs well get the player responsible thrown off by the wizards.

By presenting this statement of rules upon entering the site, the members of LambdaMOO exhibit a sense of responsibility to socialize and civilize their community. Essentially, new visitors are told how rude they can be when presenting a disagreement. The limitations and expectations are declared and posted.

The members of LambdaMOO recognize that environments are a powerful influence on peoples' behaviors. If a person knows that the majority looks after the compliance of a rule, he or she is less likely to break it. When a person also has a say in the rul es, he or she is likely to respect them. I believe this is a greater deterrence than to only have one authority propose, implement, and enforce norms.

Socially constructed rules are powerful. Social norms, expectations and perceptions establish order online. As Barlow explains in A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, online identities have no bodies and therefore cannot obtain order by physical coercion (1996). Despite "sticks and stones," the Internet reveals the ability of words to drive online behavior. Social rejection and humiliation are powerful forces that most certainly exist in the Internet's open marketplace. Electronic sh unning is a growing method of expressing that a person was out of line. The psychology of negative reactions leads to the deterrence of "bad" behavior.

The invisible hand of the open marketplace of ideas seems to determine which behaviors within a community are regarded as improper. Successful standards are quickly adopted while unsuccessful ones are inevitably abandoned. In a 1993 Village Voice article, for example, Julian Dibbell describes the established and enforced repercussions for an incident of "cyber-rape" in the LambdaMOO community.

Being part of a cyberculture means adhering to social norms or working to change them through conventional means or disobedience. Tyranny of the majority is not feared within the virtual world since the Internet empowers individuals with social and pol itical leverage (Rheingold). Individuals can choose which communities to join and thus, which rules or norms to abide by. Those who are in the minority in a specific community are not bound by geographical or physical ties to remain part of this community . Rather, alienated minorities have the liberty to create or join a new community. Individuals can also act as their own media to change norms. With little cost, individuals have the ability to bring attention to any negative or positive issue and influen ce others. Thus voluntary governance emerges in cyberspace from our collective "ethics, enlightened self-interest, and the commonwealth" (Barlow, 1996).

The Internet can be thought of as a large virtual community. It functions in the same manner as the virtual communities it supports. Multilateral agreements among virtual bodies are in the process of establishing Internet standards and policies as anticipated by the Framework for Global Electronic Commerce (Dyson, p.127). Since the Internet is global, no single power can gain control over it. The very decentralized nature of the Internet and necessity has in fact created a number of these "bodies" that I will refer to as cyber-governments.

Public outcry to establish more order and to ensure security in cyberspace has led to the emergence of these cyber-governments. Due to differences in values, financial transactions, personal information, children online, and the growing number on new n etizens, the Internet and its governance has come under close scrutiny. The cybergovernments I refer to exist today due to the need to civilize the Internet. They have derived their "authority from their members' need to be perceived as regulated, and fro m the acceptance by the public….They create a web of trust with no center; ideally they will weave a strong fabric with few holes" (Dyson, p.153).

Cybergovernments have already progressed in light of the fact that virtual behavior translates into the real world. Virtual companies and communities such as Ebay, "your personal trading community," have become members of TRUSTe in order to encourage n ew users and assure them that their practices are safe for e-commerce. TRUSTe is an online non-profit organization that serves to instill and preserve security on the Internet. It monitors the actions of its web site participants based on the fair informa tion principles of the Federal Trade Commission and U.S. Department of Commerce and it's "watchdog" complaint system. A posted "trustmark" signifies that a site successfully met the TRUSTe guidelines and is bound by their "real" license agreement. TRUSTe' s participants currently consist of health information, children, business, and news Web sites (just to name a few).

Other cybergovernments have also emerged such as Critical Path, Bright Light Technologies, and the Better Business Bureau Commission Online (BBCOnline). They build trust by informing netizens of their choices from the likes of filter software to risky business. They compete to attain and retain support and as result give netizens the best ability to make good digital choices.

Consequently, outside of our communities individuals are still their own representatives. Individually we continue to determine what rules are for our own good on the Internet. As long as there is equal opportunity for all, mutual responsibility and ci vic empowerment we, as adults are all capable of making our own "digital living" decisions and protecting our families and ourselves. "Real" governments cannot master the decentralized nature of the Internet. The Internet provides everyone online with the same information. It creates an enabling environment where netizens and virtual communities or cyber-governments can fashion their own responses to solve local problems. As Barlow addresses "real" governments, "You do not know our culture, our ethics, or the unwritten codes that already provide our society more order than could be obtained by any of your impositions" (1996). We have created a system of virtual TRUSTe cybergovernments that act like our real governmental trustees but better.

Discounting the need for paternalism from our "real" government only seems right since cyber-governments offer all the protection and solutions we need. One central authority with their set of rules cannot possibly suit all or even the majority of the digital world's netizens. The Internet's decentralized, open and libertarian fashion encourages variety and rightfully so. Different lifestyles are appropriate for different people. As John Stuart Mill noted years ago, given liberty, people can experiment with different lifestyles that lead to new discoveries.

We do not need any politician telling us what is right. Regardless of what is preached today, everyone develops their own set of values and perceptions of right and wrong from experience. Since the Internet fosters human interaction, we can quickly "ex perience" what others consider wrong and arrive at a conclusion ourselves. We have the option and power to only seek agreeable material and ignore intolerable things or attempt to initiate change.

There is much debate over whether the Internet should be controlled by "real" government(s) or by cyber-governments, virtual communities, and netizens. The type of "experimentation" on the Internet raises though questions for our "real" society. Wh at affect will virtual living have on real people and the real world?

Virtual curiosities and behaviors can very likely cause harm to others in both worlds. Many people disassociate from humanity when they go online. The reservations that they have in real life disappear, and if triggered can be damaging. The intentional development and transfer viruses or worms can destroy "real" companies (Seabrook, p.100). "Hate email, " and "cyber-rape" can cause real life emotional scars. Perhaps virtual impersonations, living online fantasies and displaying bomb-making instructions produce real world harm as well.

No one is quite sure of the impact virtual living will have on real people. As Rheingold notes:

"In terms of the way the whole system is propagating and evolving, think of cyberspace as a social petri dish, the Net as the agar medium, and virtual communities, in all their diversity as the colonies of microorganisms that grow in petri dishes. Each of the small colonies of microorganisms--the communities on the Net--is a social experiment that nobody planned but that is happening nevertheless" (1993).

However, there is the popular notion that the Internet will spawn human enlightenment. As people learn and influence each other through open communication, the consciousness of the entire planet could potentially be raised. And in so doing, it could ch allenge just about every traditional belief or rule along the way. Cracking down on this freeing mode of communication through centralized regulation will only hinder much-needed enlightenment.

So, how should we manage the Internet? Through collective individualism, we will guide our cybergovernments in civilizing areas of the Internet without big government's imposing authority. Good policies will result from human adversity and the chal lenges of values. Recurring and needless wronging will in time be prevented and avoided due to open communication and enlightened self-interest. It could be a long, difficult experience, but definitely worthwhile.

Individuals will discover "virtual responsibility." They will realize their obligation to take care of their virtual communities or they will simply cease to exist. Participation and contribution are necessary for them to obtain their community's sough t after benefits. Consequently, individuals will also, as mention with the LambdaMOO example, strive for the collective good of the community. To ensure prosperity and gain more users several additional virtual organizations will adopt responsible policie s and become participants of cyber-governments, such as TRUSTe. Cybergovernments will continue to form in this bottom-up manner or "bottom out" if they lose the trust of netizens and their members. In essence we will all teach ourselves the valuable lesso n of responsibility.

Through the interaction with others, individuals will learn of respect. As long as individuals stand up for what they believe is right and point out wrongdoing, people will discover that certain matters are going to anger, offend, and/or irritate other s. Negative reactions and shunning will show them the bounds to free digital behavior. The fact is that since the Internet fosters one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many communication "digital" behavior, it affects an endless range of people. Regardles s of intentions, an individual may be faced with messages from several, perhaps millions of people expressing that his or her message was socially unacceptable. What you may have sent to one person could very likely be forwarded to millions of people. Tak e for example the University of Michigan student who sent a collection of "NIGGER JOKES" to some acquaintances as noted in Deeper, by John Seabrook. His email was spammed, meaning it was passed along to many different newsgroups and individuals, an d he now found himself being "flamed hairless" in a newsgroup. I could only imagine, as did Seabrook, what this student’s email must have been like (p.112).

It is difficult to predict how many people will read your posted message or view your site. Your audience may consist of children, adults, and/or the elderly with diverse backgrounds. Therefore it is even harder to foresee how your messages will be per ceived. It is a matter of trial and error if limits are not explicit. Nonetheless, if you exceed them it will be obvious by the response of the community. In regards to group online practices, be it business or communities individuals are empowered to fil e "watchdog" complaints and to broadcast wrongdoings.

It is important to remember that there are and will be others who will need to "experience" the Internet by testing or abusing its freedoms. As in real life, there will always be people who test the rules and who need to learn the hard way. Yet the Int ernet enables us to all act as "teachers" of our beliefs and knowledge. They will learn and so will we, where the truth and limits to our freedoms lie. "It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself" (Barlow 1996).

As we move towards the future, millions of more people will start their "digital life" and cyber-governments will gain civil support to balance and coordinate the individual "authorities" of the Internet. Cyberspace will consist of communities with the ir own laws and subculture. Ultimately we will each have a choice regarding what rules to "digitally" live by but we will also be constrained by the social web we create or select. What is most important is that we must take care that we do not fall into the well of "safe" virtual communities that let us hear and understand only what we want to hear and understand. Instead, I hope that the sea of human possibilities and struggles will increase our consciousness and motivate us to further civilize the Inte rnet. For now, we must realize that we are the primary individual components that facilitate the Internet's mechanism of self-government. It is time we all started thinking about the impact digital living will have on our real and digital world so that co llectively we can make the little decisions that need to be made (Barlow 1995).

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Available at: http://www.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html

http://www.ebay.com

Gillett, Sharon and Mitchell Kapor. The Self-governing Internet: Coordination by Design. Available at: http://ccs.mit.edu/ccswp197.html

Rheingold, (1993.) The Virtual Community. Available at: http://www.rheingold.com/vc/book

http://www.truste.org