The problems of monolithic government and internet censorship
Cyber Sovereignty is partly inspired by the woeful overreach of newly christened online safety laws designed to protect children.
Parents everywhere are aghast at the reality that the society that their children are growing up in is shaped by a totally unfiltered internet filled with increasingly horrific sexual exploitation video games, mass market pornography and violence. This has created political will towards a solution that is wide spread. However, in places like the UK, the government is being made the ultimate arbiter of what can and can't be accessed on the internet.
This has led to a new censored internet in the UK, which blocks essential information including:
Protests
Spotify music
Breaking news
People asking questions to do with sexual health
Gaza/Israel situation
Reddit forums including:
r/period
r/stopsmoking
r/stopdrinking
r/sexualassault
Censorship for all, not just children
Social media algorithms tend to amplify content which gets engagement. When a particular piece of content is age-restricted, whether it should be or not, its viral potential often dies. Each piece of content is like a forest fire and age restricting that content, even in a single nation, acts as a firebreak. Since the content is not getting engagement, it gets overtaken by other uncensored content which is getting more engagement. Each post is competing for engagement to get the right to be surfaced but the regional fire breaks kill the viral potential of that content before it can spread.
Whether intentionally or not, it makes the government the decider of what everyone in society sees, including adults.
Honest desire
Parents are tired of their children being exposed to increasingly horrific pornography, horror and violence online and that created an impetus for new laws to protect children from a totally uncensored internet. To be clear, it's not unusual to find sexual exploitation video games being advertised in freely downloadable seemingly kid-friendly apps and Youtube videos targeted at children that are horror-focused.
I never allow myself to have an opinion on anything that I don't know the other side's argument better than they do. - Charlie Munger
However, any legislative solution to this problem assumes that one set of values can be imposed on the entire internet.
LGBTQ+ content, sexual education or criticism of religion are examples of content that different people believe is appropriate for children and not.
To have the government decide for all of society what's appropriate for their children is to have one set of values imposed on everyone from the top down. Not only is such a system extremely vulnerable to abuse (Hitler Youth), but such as system, no matter which values it espouses, kills the freedom of society to choose it's own values at its inception.
What if Christians complain that atheistic content is not appropriate for children?
What if the LGBTQ+ plus community complains about certain Bible passages?
What about what Muslims consider blasphemy?
Is an article containing communism dangerous political indoctrination?
Is a video on safe needle use promoting drug use or potentially saving a kid's life?
Just because some people in a society agree that something is harmful, even if it's the vast majority, it doesn't give them the right to impose it on everyone else.
Cyber Sovereignty and a better way
Cyber sovereignty proposes that instead of imposing one set of values on all society, people can join systems of values and justice which reflect their ideals and create new laws accordingly. Freedom is secured by allowing people to change which community they're a part of and safety is secured by allowing people to apply the laws they desire since they only apply to those who agree with them and their children.
One group may decide that certain content is not age appropriate for their children, and may create systems which filter content to protect them. However, the idea that one monolithic system can be imposed on all society without stirring up descent is a recipe for conflict.