Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace

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John Perry Barlow. Lecture on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the declaration of independence of cyberspace. Davos / Switzerland, 2006

A Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace (English title: A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace ) was one of today's most influential articles on the feasibility and legitimacy of state control and hegemony on the fast-growing Internet . It was written by John Perry Barlow , a co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation , andpublished onlinefrom Davos on February 8, 1996. The occasion on which it was written was the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 in the United States . Barlow was vehemently against the possibility of censorship on the Internet, among other things.

content

The explanation begins as follows:

“Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather. "

“Governments of the industrial world, you tired giants of flesh and steel, I come from cyberspace , the new home of the spirit. As representatives of the future, I ask you from the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we assemble. "

- John Perry Barlow

In sixteen short paragraphs, Barlow's declaration rejects the idea that the Internet can be governed by outside forces, in particular by the federal government of the USA. He stated that the governments do not have the consent of the governed to apply laws to the Internet and stressed that the Internet is outside the borders of any state, since it is a space outside the physical and material world.

Cyberspace consists of transactions, relationships and thoughts, which, according to Barlow, " are arranged like a standing wave in the network of our communication".

The article rejected the applicability of concepts such as property , expression, identity, movement and context as they were based on matter. But there is no matter in cyberspace. Instead, the text, the Internet its own social contracts will (in terms of a partnership agreement to develop) and thus determine how problems could be solved based on an ethics of the Golden Rule .

The Declaration does so in a language reminiscent of the United States' Declaration of Independence and indirectly quotes it in its final paragraphs. Aside from mentioning the US Telecommunications Act, the statement also accuses China , Germany , France , Russia , Singapore and Italy of hindering the free development of the Internet.

background

By the time the statement was written, Barlow had already published extensive articles on the Internet and its social and legal phenomena, and had also co-founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation . The work he had previously become best known for was "The Economy of Ideas". It was published in Wired in March 1994 and also mentioned Thomas Jefferson and some of the ideas of the Declaration of Independence. Barlow is considered to be a representative of a techno-libertarian movement that shaped many Internet pioneers and also representatives of the open source culture, such as Eric Raymond and Tim Berners-Lee , and which is also reflected in the highly decentralized implementation of many technological aspects of the Internet and such Projects like the Open Root Server Network were reflected. A more recent expression of this debate is the discussion about net neutrality , which also involves the establishment of technical restrictions on Internet traffic.

reception

Because of the scope of the declaration, Barlow's text quickly became popular and widely used on the Internet. An estimated 5,000 websites maintained copies of the statement within three months. After nine months, the number was estimated at 40,000 copies. To move closer to Barlow's vision of a self-governing Internet, a virtual council was set up at the Cyberspace Law Institute , now part of the Chicago-Kent College of Law . Council members should be appointed by the Institute and other groups to resolve online conflicts.

Outside of the internet, the response was less positive. Larry Irving, assistant secretary of commerce , said that a lack of safeguards would slow the growth of a development that is beneficial to consumers and businesses. In the online magazine Hotwired, the document was simply described as "nonsense" by a commentator.

In 2002, the number of websites showing copies of the declaration was estimated at only 20,000. In 2004 Barlow said, looking back on his articles from the 1990s, particularly his optimism, "We're all getting older and smarter." In an interview with Wired in 2016, Barlow said that he “did not move away from his statement at all” and that “the central thesis remains” that the Internet is a “separate, global space” “without the physical boundaries that Define states and give them their power ”.

Several very similar documents on the Internet seem to have preceded the declaration. Although Barlow did not deny that his own manifesto borrowed both style and content from other texts, he denied a copy. It is not known who borrowed from whom, and to what extent, but no one accused Barlow of plagiarism .

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ John Perry Barlow : A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace. Electronic Frontier Foundation , February 8, 1996, accessed February 12, 2016 .
  2. ^ Works by John Perry Barlow. Search results. In: DPLP Computer Science Bibliography . University of Trier, accessed on November 2, 2019 (English).
  3. ^ John Perry Barlow Library. In: The Barlow Library . Electronic Frontier Foundation , accessed November 2, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Catherine Yang: Law Creeps Onto the Lawless Net . In: Business Week . Issue 3474, May 6, 1996, p. 58–64 (English, archive.org [accessed November 2, 2019]).
  5. ^ Bill Frezza: Can Public Network Computing Save Democracy . In: Network Computing . November 1, 1996, p. 35 .
  6. ↑ Robin Cembalest: The Featherman File . In: Forward . Volume C, September 20, 1996, pp. 2 .
  7. ^ Judgment by John Perry Barlow ( Memento from November 15, 2004 in the Internet Archive )
  8. ^ Brian Doherty: John Perry Barlow 2.0: The Thomas Jefferson of cyberspace reinvents his body - and his politics . In: Reason magazine . August / September 2004 (English, reason.com [accessed November 2, 2019]): “We all get older and smarter.”
  9. ^ Andrew Greenberg: It's Been 20 Years Since This Man Declared Cyberspace Independence . In: Wired . August 2, 2016 (English, wired.com [accessed November 2, 2019]).
  10. ↑ Archived copy of a forerunner ( Memento from December 14, 2010 in the Internet Archive )