Twenty years after Electronic Frontier Foundation founder and Grateful Dead songwriter John Perry Barlow penned “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace” at the World Economic Forum in Davos, The Economist asks him to look back upon his work. “I will stand by much of the document as written,” he said of his 844-word manifesto. “I believe that it is still true that the governments of the physical world have found it very difficult to impose their will on cyberspace.” In retrospect, however, Barlow said he would have called for the creation of “social contracts to deal with bad behavior online. The fact remains there is not much one can do about bad behavior online except to take faith that the vast majority of what goes on there is not bad behavior.” Data & Society’s danah boyd also wrote a blog post revisiting Barlow’s declaration while attending the latest WEF in Davos.
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