The Role of Civil Society

Abstract

AbstractWe cannot, however, rely on government-imposed regulation to solve all the problems of the Internet. Regulation can and should set a better framework than what is currently the case, but by nature all regulation is general and framework-setting only, and nobody can expect it to solve all problems in detail. Malignant forces of many different kinds will continue to bypass, exploit and challenge even the best regulation. Therefore, actors within the public sphere and civil society must contribute to the preservation of freedom of expression on the Internet. The simplistic view of a dichotomy between state and private often seems to assume that society consists only of a number of companies and private individuals on the one hand, and on the other, a state. From that plain dichotomy, it follows that policy must then be determined by an ongoing arm-wrestle between the two. Such a polarized setup might give a rough picture of authoritarian societies. But painting the two in this oppositional way completely ignores the key role of civil society and the public sphere in modern democracies—in between the government sphere and the private sphere, so to speak. In this context, traditional media ought to adopt a leading role. It is well known that such media outlets are under pressure by tech giants, primarily because the crucial advertising income is migrating towards the tech giants and their attention economy. Print newspapers are shrinking, and people go online to find news. In this story of decay, many have been a bit too willing to see an overlapping shift, where new technology and new players replace old and outdated ones, just like cars replaced horse-drawn carriages and the drive-thru replaced roadside inns. This widely-held idea overlooks one fundamental fact: to a very large extent, the news content that people look for and find on the tech giants’ platforms is still largely produced by the old pre-Internet media outlets, newspapers, TV-networks, publishing companies, film production companies, etc. Tech giants have indeed become great marketers of news and content, but they themselves do not produce the content they deliver. This is one of the reasons that the categorization of the giants as media is wrong. Newspapers, media outlets and publishers embody free debate and Enlightenment principles in civil society—supplemented by public-private players such as universities and other research institutions, think tanks and philanthropic foundations. Here it is crucial that such media and institutions hold on to the elementary principles of free speech and do not resort to introducing community standards. Moreover, they must keep promoting freedom, which includes also points of view considered unpopular, provocative or grotesque by the ideas of the moment and the mainstream. One man’s “hate speech” is another man’s truth may not apply to every single case but should still count as a guiding motto.