Global Metaverse III: Of Equality, Rights and Divides - Policy

I'm behind on a writing deadline, so I haven't had a chance to follow up on Global Metaverse: Taking Stock of Technology and Global Metaverse II: The Policy Problem; Patents, Copyrights and Trademarks until today. As luck would have it, a brilliant example of how policy is affecting the global metaverse has stayed in the news and continues. While centered around copyright, the issue of internet radio stations almost being put out of business coalesced into SaveNetRadio.org.

And all the lobbying is being done in one country. The United States. If you are not an American but you enjoy internet radio - you're pretty much out of luck in supporting SaveNetRadio. This isn't an isolated case; issues related to Network Neutrality have spawned SaveTheInternet.com - something which could be important for saving lives in emergencies. While there is much discussion of this in the context of the United States, few people ponder the global impacts. The people on the planet basically have one country's policy dictating global policy - the same country which advocates democracy to the detriment of dictators¹. Do as I say, not as I do?

Consider that a global petition was mounted to Keep The Core of the Internet Neutral: An ICANN working group wanted to give some the ability to censor others. Aside from this isolated case, ICANN has found itself the unwitting whipping boy of a burgeoning internet user group where those outside the United States outnumber those within the United States. To their credit, and having spoken with their CTO in Guyana, I know that at ICANN's core they simply want to deal with the technology - and yet, policy continues to attempt to invade the spaces.

Where is the equality?

These are all examples of why internet governance is important on a global scale. While even within the United States there are groups and areas which do not have de facto equality of access, international telecommunications corporations hold sway over policy through lobbying in the United States. The rest of the planet has no recourse except through trade agreements, which aren't as well liked as the WTO would like the world to believe. Where is the equality? Where is the democracy?

The WSIS has evolved into a party floating over a planet, as Douglas Adams wrote about - a never ending party with no resolution. It has not done anything of worth, but it certainly has made a dent in the Amazon's rain forests.

Applied to a metaverse - where there is talk of connecting virtual worlds not only to each other but also to our real lives - are we saying that some people have more rights than others to object or support policies that affect the entire world? It would seem so; the 'experts' have consistently ignored these aspects of the metaverse. Perhaps it is ignorance, but that ignorance - be it real or feigned - propagates the same level of ignorance to those who accredit the experts.

Democracy. Governance. Some write of democracy and governance within the metaverse, as if it is a separate issue from the democracy and governance of the world we live in. Books have been written on whether things in virtual worlds or not, but we intuitively know that these virtual items are quite real. While selling books is all well and good (we all have to eat), the horizon is clouded by these issues because people try to draw parallels instead of connecting the two. They are not parallel. They are one and the same, and the failures of the present systems of policy continue to be highlighted and magnified. And still they are ignored, as if there is an insane hope that the problems will go away on their own.

The world is connected. We all know it; it is becoming increasingly connected through technology - but it is becoming increasingly disconnected through policies which not only do not keep pace with technology but hamper it's use globally.

Perhaps the time has not come yet for these issues to be dealt with. Perhaps the right people aren't talking, or perhaps the wrong people are talking. Whatever the reason, there is a disconnect. There is a divide. There is a Metaverse policy divide which is being propagated through apparent ignorance, and it is unconscionable for those given authority to continue to fail to acknowledge it. In the end, there will be change - there will have to be change. How will it happen? I have no idea. But it will start with people actually crawling out of their Socratic caves and discussing the problems meaningfully.