Code is Law –Deterritorialisation and Reterritorialisation of Law, Law is Code – Cyberspace, Personalisation Algorithms and Human Cognition

Emmie Nordell

doi:10.16997/ahip.932

Abstract

This narrative is a theoretical exploration of the encounter between law and cyberspace. It is a conversation about what lines of de/reterritorialisation can do with that encounter. It is becoming in contact with Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s concepts: rhizome, assemblage, becoming, territorialisation, deterritorialisation, and reterritorialisation and with Lawrence Lessig’s theory code is law. Code may be law, but perhaps law can also become code. This paper thinks about democratic states in which there is a desire to let law proceed from the people, and about how the law and code seem to affect human behaviour in similar ways. As an example, I explore how code in personalising algorithms affects human cognition; how code that enables certain cognitive processes can disable certain others; and how code regulates human cognition. The paper thinks about how law is territorialised in the encounter with cyberspace, deterritorialised when code challenges legal sovereignty, and how it can reterritorialise through ‘code is law’ or through ‘law is code’. I am suggesting that, in this process, a need is emerging: a need to let code proceed from the people.

Highlights

This narrative is a theoretical exploration of the encounter between law and cyberspace
Reterritorialisation that can consist of code is law or law is code. It is a conversation about what these lines can do with law and legitimacy. It is a conversation about how algorithms that personalise information – architecture in cyberspace, code is law – regulate human behaviour; about what lines of de- or re-territorialisation can do with this encounter between code and human cognition; and about a need for becoming, a need to let ‘code/law is code’ proceed from the people
Thereafter, the narrative will proceed to think about the encounter between law and cyberspace through lines of territorialisation, deterritorialisation and reterritorialisation, and closing in on the encounter using the regulation of human cognition as an example

Summary

Introduction

This narrative is a theoretical exploration of the encounter between law and cyberspace. It is a conversation about how algorithms that personalise information – architecture in cyberspace, code is law – regulate human behaviour; about what lines of de- or re-territorialisation can do with this encounter between code and human cognition; and about a need for becoming, a need to let ‘code/law is code’ proceed from the people. Deleuze emphasised that writing is not an Nordell: Code is Law – Deterritorialisation and Reterritorialisation of Law, Law is Code – Cyberspace, Personalisation Algorithms and Human Cognition

Results

Conclusion