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Introduction
Mediation In The Internet
Jenny Shearer
HyperMedia Unit & Political Studies Department, University of Auckland, New Zealand.
jshearer@cs.auckland.ac.nz
Abstract: This paper offers a framework for mediation amoung oppositional policy positions
based on a concept of the Internet as a self-regulating environment. It employs the structure
of organisations which have a mandate to serve the interests of the Internet community.
Organisations such as the Web Society (http://info.websoc.org) could mediate amoung
oppositional policy positions which threaten the future of the Internet. National and
commercial interests are developing policies which are seen as damaging by the Internet
community, and equally, national, cultural, and commercial interests see some activities
carried out on the Net as damaging to them. It is postulated that an international Internet
mediation committee could make findings based on assessments of problems referred to it,
using a set of principles based on freedom of use and development of the Web. The paper
presents cases of interventions already taking place on an ad hoc basis within the Internet,
and attempts to formalise the process.
The current role of existing organisations (eg WebSoc, which sees itself as an "automobile association" of the
Web) may be readily extended to provide a "mediation" service which could work towards finding solutions to
a number of major problems which pose a significant threat to the future development of the Internet. This
initiative could enhance progress towards creating a stable and free environment for development of; a
politically unfettered electronic news media, comprehensive content bases, and rapid technical progress in the
Internet. The " mediation" concept would assume a common identification by Web users with their supranational
community, and solutions could be established using a set of principles established on a global, rather
than a national basis. The ethical problems raised by such an attempt may be, to a point, bypassed by an
essentially pragmatic approach already adopted by organisations like WebSoc - that the important issue to be
addressed is to make the Web workable for its community. Several important areas of conflict have been
chosen as examples for the purpose of this paper, which is an attempt to set up a framework for Internet
mediation. They are cryptography regulation, an area where Governments may move to gain access to private
communications, pornography, a social issue in which consensus cannot be gained, either within countries or
between countries, and the legal/technical problems raised by software patents and copyright litigation.
In order for it to progress, principles of freedom of use and development of the Internet must be developed.
Step two is to justify when these principles may be subject to intervention - for example, when the harm done
by complete freedom in some instance outweighs the importance of upholding the principle. Step three is to
establish how the interventions may be carried out, and by whom. This paper "puts up" a set of principles and
the perameters of interventions which may be considered acceptable to the Internet community, on the basis
that these interventions may be viewed as self-regulation which will protect the community against solutions
imposed by powerful national interests. An international committee could mediate individual cases or
problems, and interventions carried out by the Internet community.
Interventions by community members acting either individually, or in groups, already occurr on an ad hoc
basis. A valuable lesson to be learned from these "self-regulating" activities within the Net is that they
frequently involve exposure of the problem, identification of the person creating the problem, and education of
the wider community about the issues. Solutions and active interventions developing from a mediation
committee's findings would be largely Net specific: that is, would employ techniques such as exposure of
issues, identification of users involved in covert "illegal" activities, education of the Internet community about
the issues, and social pressure on perceived "offenders". This focuses on the key issue of accountability, which
so far has not been addressed by the Internet community. However, solutions could include international
lobbying and co-operation with international policing agencies. The mechanism would be voluntary - if there
was significant dissent with the Committee's findings amoung its community, the findings would not be
actioned.