The New 3 R's: Risk, Regulation, Resilience

I’m excited about the ideas shared at the 2019 Niejelow Rodin Global Digital Futures Policy Forum #SIPADigitalFutures. The discussion led with if and how we could deweaponize social media for speech. With Facebook continuing to argue that it cannot know what its users are doing, and its opaque algorithmic decision making processes, is regulation of Facebook and all social media platforms the right solution or, as Chris Hughes argues, should the behemoths be broken up because their power is too concentrated? If not, do we trust that government will regulate correctly? We can justifiably worry about how companies --both large and small-- would fare under a new regulatory landscape.

And the risks are not only coming from our social media platforms. The stakes are getting higher as exponential advances in communication technology will make it ever easier to spread misinformation and manipulate voter behavior, while advances in AI will challenge human decision making in many spheres, and violations to our personal privacy will grow exponentially when 5G brings the Internet of Things into every aspect of where and how we live.

We need to build a more resilient capacity to prevent and bounce back from these cyber risks that threaten our fundamental democratic, finance, health and energy systems. The time to act is now. Build resilience today.