For Indonesia, the key to our next strategy depends on our values. Do we want firmer and stricter regulations or do we want a more liberal or moderate use of the internet?
he future of the internet was recently a hot topic at the United Nations. Experts and policymakers from all around the globe gathered in New York in June to seek ways to make the internet a safer and secure place for all mankind,
They attended the fourth and final session of the fifth United Nations Group of Governmental Experts on Developments in the Field of Information and Telecommunications in the Context of International Security.
Most importantly, they discussed whether principles of international law applied to digital space or whether there was a need to adopt new norms.
Some contentious issues remain unclear. Qualification of cyberattacks, protection of internet infrastructure, the internet domain, state responsibility, disarmament and demilitarization of cyberspace, dual-use nature of cyber-technology and many other crucial issues were raised.
These are the questions that Indonesia, as a nation of more than 132 million internet users, must also address.
Lawrence Lessig, a lawyer behind Creative Commons, a platform to share netizens’ work, has warned us on decisions on very important issues, based on society’s desire and appetite to move to digital technologies. He raises the need to identify values that are being affected and to determine how best to address them through the modalities of the law, norms, codes and the market.
First under the law, the reallaw approach treats the internet no differently from previous telecommunication technologies. Meanwhile, the cyber-law approach presumes that the internet introduces new types of social relationships in cyberspace. The real law approach is gaining predominance, leading to the application of a considerable part of existing legislation to the internet. Law is also an important tool to address misbehavior or threats to information security.
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