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Adam Thierer & Berin Szoka


• To articulate the core principles of cyber-
libertarianism
• To provide the public and policymakers with a
better understanding of this alternative vision
for ordering the affairs of cyberspace
• Outline for a future book about “Real Internet
Freedom”
• To reclaim the term from those who have
bastardized it as a mandate for government
control of new media
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• Individuals—acting in whatever capacity they
choose (as citizens, consumers, companies, or
collectives)—should be at liberty to pursue their
own tastes and interests online
• Mottos: “Live & Let Live” & “Hands Off the
‘Net!”
• Seeks to minimize the scope of state coercion in
solving social and economic problems online
• Looks instead to voluntary solutions and
arrangements based on mutual agreement
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• Is not freedom for the State to reorder our affairs
• To supposedly benefit certain people or groups; or
• To improve some amorphous “public interest”
• It’s freedom from state action
• Is not about imposing a single utopian vision
• It’s about enabling a “Utopia of Utopias” (per
philosopher Robert Nozick): A framework within
which many different models of organizing
commerce and community can flourish
alongside, and in competition with, each other,
• This allows users to pursue their own values and
interests and create their own communities
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• Cyber-libertarians draw no distinction between social
and economic freedom when applying this vision:
o Social Freedom: Individuals should be granted liberty
of conscience, thought, opinion, speech, and
expression in online environments
o Economic Freedom: Individuals should be
granted liberty of contract, innovation, and exchange
in online environments
• It’s not enough to support liberty of action in one sphere
• Foreclosing freedom in one sphere will eventually affect
freedom in the other
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• The digital equivalent of so-called “market failures”
• We support voluntary, spontaneous, bottom-up,
marketplace responses
• We oppose coercive, top-down, governmental solutions
• Only market-driven approaches offer the rapidity and
nimbleness necessary to be effective because the
Internet is a uniquely dynamic medium
• Cyber-libertarians have a strong aversion to:
• The politicization of technology issues
• Efforts to replace market processes with bureaucratic processes

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• Includes monetary & non-monetary transactions
• Includes proprietary & non-proprietary modes of
production
• Collaborative, non-proprietary technologies & efforts
(e.g., Wikipedia and open source software) can also be
“markets”
• But the cyber-libertarian does reject the notion these
models are the only acceptable model or that they
should be imposed on us by law
• We support techno-agnosticism: Lawmakers and courts
should not be tilting the balance in one direction or the
other towards on the “open vs. closed” spectrum
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• Natural Rights philosophers – John Locke, Ayn Rand, The
Founders
• Utilitarian philosophers – John Stuart Mill (On Liberty),
Herbert Spencer
• “Austrian School” of Economics – Ludwig von Mises, F.A.
Hayek, Murray Rothbard
• Milton Freidman (Free to Choose)
• Robert Nozick – argued for a minimalist state as a
“utopia of utopias”
• Thomas Sowell – critiqued The Vision of the Anointed
• Richard Epstein – (Simple Rules for a Complex World)

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• Ithiel de Sola Pool (Technologies of Freedom)
• Alvin Toffler (The Third Wave, Future Shock)
• George Gilder (Microcosm, Telecosm)
• Peter Huber (Law & Disorder in Cyberspace)
• Tom W. Bell
• Eugene Volokh
• Jonathan Emord (Freedom, Technology & the
First Amendment)
• Technology Liberation Front – the cyber-
libertarian group blog since 2004
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• Nicholas Negroponte (Being Digital)
• John Perry Barlow (“Declaration of the
Independence of Cyberspace”)
• David Post
• Eric Goldman
• H. Brian Holland

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• The opposite of cyber-libertarianism: cyber-choices should be
guided by the State or an elite according to some amorphous
“general will” or “public interest”
• Distant influences of Plato, Rousseau & Marx
• Cyber-collectivism comes in many flavors, however:
• “Left”: focused on economic fairness, “neutrality,” and equality of
outcomes
• “Right”: controlling the Internet’s impact on culture or security
• Not as philosophically coherent as cyber-libertarianism—
which also comes in many flavors but shares a larger core of
common agreement

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• Leftist cyber-collectivists & the “information commons”
or “digital commons” movement share belief that digital
resources should be shared or commonly owned
• We don’t object to commons, only to mandating them
• Cyber-collectivists
• Are generally not Marxists; few of them call for state
ownership of the information means of production
• Might better be thought of a “cyber-social Democrats”
(European) or “Digital New Dealers” (American)
• Advocate a generous role for law and regulation in many
online matters, but do not typically resort to full-blown
nationalization 15
• Lawrence Lessig (Code)
• Tim Wu (Who Controls the Internet?)
• Yochai Benkler (The Wealth of Networks)
• Jonathan Zittrain (The Future of the Internet & How to Stop It)
• David Bollier (Viral Spiral)
• Harvard’s Berkman Center*
• New America Foundation*
• Public Knowledge*

(*We are, of course, generalizing a bit here. Not everyone in


these institutions is a cyber-collectivist and, again, there are
many flavors of cyber-collectivism, just as there are many
flavors of cyber-libertarianism.)
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• The First Amendment is of paramount
importance and should apply equally to all
speakers and media platforms
• We favor parental empowerment and
education, and industry self-regulation over
censorship
• “Household standards” should trump
“community standards” & “public interest”
regulatory mandates
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• The real “Big Brother” problem is state
surveillance, not private data collection
• Privacy is a profoundly subjective condition
• Regulations to “protect privacy” could have
serious unintended consequences for
freedom of speech and the growth of online
content and commerce
• User empowerment & industry self-regulation
represent the superior way to address privacy
concerns
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• “Open access” regulation is nothing more than
infrastructure socialism
• Network operators should be free to own,
operate and price their systems & services as
they see fit, subject only to enforcement of
their terms of service & other contracts with
their users
• New entry & innovation work better than
regulating yesterday’s networks & technologies
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• “Market power” & “code failures” are best dealt
with by spontaneous evolution of markets & new
entry, not bureaucratic micro-management of old
technologies or market structures
• Cyber-markets are evolutionary & dynamic
• Disruptive innovation usually unseats
incumbents
• Regulation often creates, or tends to foster, most
monopolies
• Antitrust is often used as weapon by disgruntled
marketplace competitors to hobble rivals

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• No special taxes should be imposed on online
services or Internet access
• If the Net disrupts traditional tax bases, that
should be seen as an opportunity to reform
those tax systems
• States shouldn’t be regulating the uniquely
global medium of the Internet or imposing
barriers to interstate commerce

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• People should be free to do as they please
with their money
• We shouldn’t protect state-run lotteries and
casinos
• Internet gambling is likely impossible to shut
down entirely anyway, given the uniquely
global nature of the Internet

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• Cyber-libertarians are deeply divided over IP
issues (esp. copyright), reflecting a long-standing
division among libertarians on these issues
• Some believe IP rights are a natural extension of
traditional property rights and/or a sensible way
to incentivize scientific and artistic creativity
• Others believe no one has a right to
“property-tize” intangible creations or that
copyright is simply industrial protectionism
• There are many views in between

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Please visit The Technology Liberation Front
www.techliberation.com

• The cyber-libertarian group public policy blog


• 21 contributors
• 4,500+ posts since 2004
• 16,000 unique monthly viewers

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Adam Thierer is a Senior Fellow at The Progress & Freedom
Foundation (PFF) & Director of PFF’s Center for Digital Media
Freedom (CDMF). Thierer analyzes public policy
developments that impact the economic and social aspects
of the media industry, including related First Amendment
issues. Prior to joining PFF in 2005, he was Director of
Telecommunications Studies at the Cato Institute and a
Fellow in Economic Policy at the Heritage Foundation.

Berin Szoka is a PFF Senior Fellow & Director of PFF’s Center


for Internet Freedom (CIF). Szoka studies the laws and
regulations that govern cyberspace. Previously, he was an
Associate in the Communications Practice Group at Latham
and Watkins LLP, where he advised clients on regulations
affecting the Internet and telecommunications industries.

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