Lawless: the secret rules that govern our digital lives (and why we need new digital constitutions that protect our rights) Submitted version. Forthcoming 2019 Cambridge University Press. Nicolas P. Suzor Table of Contents Part I: a lawless internet Chapter 1. The hidden rules of the internet ............................................................................................. 6 Process matters ....................................................................................................................................................... 12 Chapter 2. Who makes the rules?.......................................................................................................... 17 Whose values apply? ............................................................................................................................................... 22 The moderation process .......................................................................................................................................... 25 Bias and accountability ........................................................................................................................................... 28 Chapter 3. The internet’s abuse problem ............................................................................................... 41 Abuse reflects and reinforces systemic inequalities ................................................................................................ 50 Dealing with abuse needs the involvement of platforms ........................................................................................ 53 No immune system .................................................................................................................................................. 64 Chapter 4. Legal immunity .................................................................................................................... 68 Revenge porn and the cracks in CDA 230 ................................................................................................................ 72 Local laws and global norms ................................................................................................................................... 78 The right to be forgotten ......................................................................................................................................... 81 Ongoing international pressure .............................................................................................................................. 83 Speech trade-offs and the problem with litigation ................................................................................................. 88 Chapter 5. How copyright shaped the internet ...................................................................................... 92 The trouble with filesharing: suing users is expensive, slow, and often counterproductive ................................... 95 Decentralized technologies are resilient ................................................................................................................. 98 Notice and takedown ............................................................................................................................................ 101 Automated enforcement ....................................................................................................................................... 109 Infrastructure companies as judge, jury, and executioner .................................................................................... 115 Baking enforcement into the network................................................................................................................... 121 Chapter 6. Censorship......................................................................................................................... 123 Content filtering and jurisdictional over-reach ..................................................................................................... 129 Chapter 7. Lawless.............................................................................................................................. 137 Internet intermediaries govern the internet ......................................................................................................... 140 Intermediaries are at the center of many different struggles for control ............................................................. 142 The internet has problems, and regulation is coming ........................................................................................... 147 Recap: some lessons for regulating the internet ................................................................................................... 151 Part II: a new social contract – constitutionalizing internet governance Chapter 8. Constitutionalizing internet governance ............................................................................. 161 Lawless: intermediaries govern in zones of broad discretion ............................................................................... 163 Old theories of regulation...................................................................................................................................... 168 A new constitutionalism: a Magna Carta for the ’net ........................................................................................... 172 Chapter 9. Constitutionalizing intermediaries ...................................................................................... 176 Intermediaries govern in a way that affects our fundamental rights ................................................................... 178 Protecting rights through constitutionalization .................................................................................................... 181 Coordinating social pressure ................................................................................................................................. 184 The future role for human rights ........................................................................................................................... 192 Chapter 10. What should we expect of intermediaries? ......................................................................... 195 Monitoring impact ................................................................................................................................................. 201 Informing policies and rules .................................................................................................................................. 204 Greater transparency ............................................................................................................................................ 207 Mitigating harm through design ........................................................................................................................... 214 Scalable due process.............................................................................................................................................. 220 Voluntarily embedding human rights .................................................................................................................... 225 Chapter 11. The role of states and binding law ...................................................................................... 228 Avoiding bad laws ................................................................................................................................................. 229 Creating laws that encourage good governance .................................................................................................. 235 Addressing human rights violations ...................................................................................................................... 246 Digital constitutionalism: monitoring and improving governance ....................................................................... 251 Chapter 12. Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 256 Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................................... 262 Index 264 References 268 Part 1: A lawless internet The hidden rules of the internet 6 Chapter 1. The hidden rules of the internet In August 2017, several hundred white nationalists marched on the small university town of Charlottesville, Virginia. The rally turned tragic when one of the protesters rammed his car into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer. The Washington Post characterized the protesters as “a meticulously organized, well-coordinated and heavily armed company of white nationalists.”1 Heyer’s death was mourned across the United States, but to people on the Nazi website The Daily Stormer it was reason to celebrate. Stormer Editor Andrew Anglin wrote that Heyer was a “Fat, Childless 32-Year-Old Slut” and that ‘most people are glad she is dead’.2 On the site’s forums and in its private chat channels, participants spewed hateful memes and made plans to send armed Nazi agitators to Heyer’s funeral. Rampant abuse and hatred on digital networks is not new. The pressure to combat hate is strongest on such ubiquitous social media platforms as Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit. Governments and civil society organizations worldwide