World governments have no clue where we’re going when it comes to technology. Especially when it comes to government legislature.

This is a huge problem, not just in the United States, but globally. World leaders do not have a full grasp on the way the tech world works and the underlying backend that goes into its operations and capitalisation. This is evident around the world, from arguments about Net neutrality, to Ukraine attempting to issue legislature to ’ban’ all Russian websites (which is unfeasible), China cutting off its population from YouTube and Google and outlawing the use of VPN’s, to Russia enacting a law that forces all mobile operators to store call data and asking for ‘encryption keys’ of Telegram and Congress being absolutely clueless up until now as to how Facebook was monetising its userbase. The list of examples goes on an on.

Finally it’s becoming evident to the lawmakers that technology, and social media in particular, is a force to be reckoned with. If 100,000$ dollars worth of ads managed to influence the minds of the electorate and as a result — an election, imagine what a billion could do. Lawmakers now finally realize the power of the web. On a side note, I find it rather amusing that the US political elite rallied against Facebook after being briefed about how it was used as a tool to influence US elections, but were oblivious when it was public knowledge that Facebook was used to widely agitate the Middle East during the Arab Spring.

This begs the questions, what should lawmakers do? Should there be an institution that governs the behavior of such companies?

Zuckerberg’s recent Congressional hearing rhetoric talks about trust, integrity and responsibility, alluding to the fact that these companies should govern themselves. This is a priori impractical. When has self-regulation ever worked?

Congress is finding scapegoats, and Facebooks Cambridge Analytica scandal is a great catalyst. Chastising company CEO’s and enacting sanctions will only force tech players to hide the ways collected data — their most precious asset — is used, effectively creating a race to find loopholes that legislation will not be able to keep up with.

Among the tech industry it is no secret that privacy has virtually become nonexistant. And I’m not talking about the CIA using SmartTV’s to eavesedrop on private conversations, but about private companies hoarding immense amounts of data which users choose to share without understanding the underlying terms.

The argument that using online services is a ‘choice’ is ludicrous. You will be online and what you post, say, watch, click etc. is essentially public knowledge. The internet has become as vital to human existence as electricity and access to it should be a fundamental human right. Along with the internet, privacy should be a fundamental human right and no institutions or individuals may infringe upon it.

I have heard arguments from people that ‘they have nothing to hide’, which is a dangerous slippery slope. Sooner or later, your online presence will be as indicative of you as your social security number. Take a look at China, with its upcoming ‘social rating’ policy which can stop you from traveling if you jaywalk or read opposition articles, or Israel where border control can deny you entry if you refuse to disclose your Facebook password. Imagine having someone ask for your Reddit login when getting a background check for renting an apartment. Yeah, unless something is done this might be the future.

The problem, in my opinion, is not just in the fact that this data might be ‘leaked’, like in the case of Cambridge Analytica. The real problem is that this data is vital to the survival to the industry that is ‘too big to fail’. The whole tech industry is so heavily dependant on your data that attempting to limit them will be met with immense opposition and its proponents viewed as luddites. Sure, I would agree that relevant ads are much better than irrelevant ads, but I would rather see ads for diapers as an unmarried guy than know that my personal life might be exposed by third parties.

The EU has taken a massive step in data protection by enacting the GDPR. It’s a forward thinking initiative that has motivated tech companies to at least create an illusion of data security, but the problems will still remain. Enforcing these rules will be a huge headache from a financial standpoint, to a practical one. Unless heavily enforced, no one is going to bother. Tech giants like Google and Facebook aside, does anyone really expect to audit every single tech startup?

It is definitely a step in the correct direction, but not enough to make a real impact.

With the internet being the main driving force of globalisation, any sort of legislative movements must be made on a global scale and in the fundamental business model of social media corporations. This is not a Congressional issue, this is an issue that should be discussed in the United Nations. Laws should be in place describing the amount of data a company can collect and hoard. Laws should regulate channels of data collection. Laws should be in place that govern data brokerage. These understandings should be global.

We need to make tech giants accountable for Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The problem is that our lawmakers are absolutely clueless, and I fear that it’s too late to retrospectively change that. I fear that technology has surpassed the ability of lawmakers to enact protection to its constituents.