8
The Modalities of Regulation: Technological and Societal Constraints on Internet Use
In evaluating the argument for why the Internet constitutes an inherently liberal sphere in
authoritarian regimes, it is useful to consider the means by which authorities might seek to exert
control over use of the medium. In addressing this question, Lawrence Lessig (1999) has
identified four constraints on human behavior—law, social norms, the market, and architecture.
The effects of the first three constraints are straightforward—laws threaten punishment for
prohibited behavior, violators of social norms may incur ostracism, and the market can
encourage or discourage particular activities based on their cost. In the case of the Internet, the
architectural constraint consists of the technological characteristics that make certain types of
Internet use easier, more difficult, or impossible. Some public libraries in the United States, for
instance, use filtering software on their computers, exerting an architectural constraint on access
to pornography from this particular venue.
If Internet use is to be considered an inherently liberal form of communication, this
control-frustrating characteristic must derive from one or more of the four constraints on Internet
use. As societal constructs, each of the non-technological constraints is capable of change over
time. Laws are challenged and overturned; social norms evolve; markets fluctuate, and the
degree to which any individual is constrained by them varies with wealth. The law, norms, and
market conditions associated with yesterday’s Internet may have made use of the technology a
more liberal experience, but the flexibility of these constraints allows for the possibility of
greater control over Internet use in the future.
In contrast to the non-technological constraints on Internet use, the technological
architecture of the Internet is not as obviously capable of significant evolution. The Internet is a
Convention