Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Table of legislation
- 1 States, firms and legitimacy of regulation: insoluble issues?
- 2 Internet co-regulation and constitutionalism
- 3 Self-organization and social networks
- 4 An empire entire of itself? Standards, domain names and government
- 5 Content regulation and the Internet
- 6 Private ISP censorship
- 7 Analyzing case studies
- 8 Internet co-regulation as part of the broader regulatory debate
- Bibliography
- Index
3 - Self-organization and social networks
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Table of legislation
- 1 States, firms and legitimacy of regulation: insoluble issues?
- 2 Internet co-regulation and constitutionalism
- 3 Self-organization and social networks
- 4 An empire entire of itself? Standards, domain names and government
- 5 Content regulation and the Internet
- 6 Private ISP censorship
- 7 Analyzing case studies
- 8 Internet co-regulation as part of the broader regulatory debate
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
This first substantive case study chapter begins with forms of self-organization that have not yet become self-regulation. Prior to self-regulation, there is a step that is essentially the relationships within a community, policed by that community. For instance, clubs elect executives and create constitutions (rules) for that club. With the increasing consumer-citizen use of the Internet, new services and new business models have been created for those users. There are many user-created environments in which bottom-up rules have claimed to be set, but I focus on three specific UGC case studies, which were in early 2007 the poster children of self-organization: virtual-world Second Life, copyright reforming Creative Commons and social network Bebo. The first has since declined in popularity and its co-founder has departed, the last has seen sale, decline relative to behemoth Facebook, and resale, but Creative Commons continues to support its functions and has been officially recognized by several governments as a type of copyright licensing system that can support open data sharing. I represent these early-stage organization schemes in the table below, acknowledging that their regulatory effect is voluntary and not supported or recognized by government, the closest approach being ‘acknowledgement’ that they exist, neither a vote of support nor a condemnation.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Internet Co-RegulationEuropean Law, Regulatory Governance and Legitimacy in Cyberspace, pp. 71 - 100Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011