Abstract
This chapter develops a framework for evaluating how individuals and society respond to technological risks and then discusses why some “risk response strategies” will work better than others as it pertains to online safety risks. Four generic risk response strategies are identified—prohibition, anticipatory regulation, resiliency, and adaptation—and the trade-offs associated with each option are discussed. It will be argued that resiliency-based strategies present the optimal risk response strategy to address most online safety risks. Specifically, education and empowerment-based initiatives offer society the greatest return on investment by ensuring that (a) parents and guardians are equipped with the tools and methods needed to guide the mentoring process, and (b) children are better prepared for the inevitable surprises the future will always throw at them.
Adam Thierer is Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, Arlington, Virginia, USA. Portions of this chapter are based on: Adam Thierer, ‘Technopanics, Threat Inflation, and the Danger of an Information Technology Precautionary Principle’, 14(1) Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology, Winter 2013, http://purl.umn.edu.
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Notes
- 1.
Thierer 2007c.
- 2.
- 3.
Zolli and Healy 2012, p. 7.
- 4.
Zolli and Healy 2012, p. 211. (“This capacity cannot simply be imposed from above – instead it must be nurtured in the social structures and relationships that govern people’s everyday lives.”)
- 5.
This framework is based on Williams and Ellig 2011, http://mercatus.org/publication/regulatory-oversight.
- 6.
Singleton 1998, www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-295.html.
- 7.
- 8.
- 9.
- 10.
- 11.
Gardner 2009, p. 83. (“[R]egulations can also impose costs on economic activity and since wealthier is healthier, economic costs can, if they are very large, put more lives at risk than they keep safe.”)
- 12.
Gardner 2009, p. 286. (“To ensure money is doing the greatest good possible, cost-benefit analysis is essential.”)
- 13.
Abdukadirov and Yazigi 2012, http://mercatus.org/publication/inflated-benefits-agencies-economic-analysis.
- 14.
Gardner 2009, p. 83.
- 15.
Thierer 2009b, www.pff.org/parentalcontrols.
- 16.
- 17.
- 18.
- 19.
Ferguson 2008, pp. 25–37, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jip.76/abstract.
- 20.
Cohen 1972, p. 9.
- 21.
- 22.
Corn-Revere 2011.
- 23.
Goode and Ben-Yehuda 1994, p. 82.
- 24.
Kaufmann 2004, pp. 5–48, http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/kaufmann.pdf.
- 25.
Cramer and Trevor Thrall 2009, p. 1.
- 26.
- 27.
H.R. 5319, “The Deleting Online Predators Act”, 109th Cong., (2006). See also Thierer 2006, http://articles.philly.com/2006-05-31/news/25400396_1_web-sites-social-networking-block-access.
- 28.
- 29.
S.B. 59, 149th Gen. Assem., Reg. Sess. (GA, 2007).
- 30.
S.B. 1682, 95th Gen. Assem. (Ill. 2007).
- 31.
S.B. 132, 2007 Gen. Assem., Reg. Sess. (N.C. 2007).
- 32.
- 33.
Internet Safety Technical Task Force to the Multi-State Working Group on Social Networking of State Attorneys General of the United States 2008, p. 10, http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/pubrelease/isttf; and Thierer 2007b, www.pff.org/issues-pubs/pops/pop14.5ageverification.pdf, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=976936.
- 34.
boyd 2008, p. 266, www.danah.org/papers/TakenOutOfContext.pdf.
- 35.
boyd 2008.
- 36.
Sedlak et al. 2002, p. 7, www.missingkids.com/en_US/documents/nismart2_overview.pdf.
- 37.
A 2005 study of cases about missing children in Ohio revealed a similar trend. Of the 11,074 documented missing child cases in 2005, only five involved abduction by strangers compared with 146 abductions by family members. Ohio Missing Children Clearinghouse 2005, p. 4, www.ag.state.oh.us/victim/pubs/2005ann_rept_mcc.pdf.
- 38.
Skenazy 2009, p. 16.
- 39.
US Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs 2010, https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/229933.pdf.
- 40.
Kelly 2011, pp. 247–248.
- 41.
Sunstein 2002–2003, p. 34, www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv25n4/v25n4-9.pdf. “The most serious problem with the Precautionary Principle is that it offers no guidance – not that it is wrong, but that it forbids all courses of action, including inaction”, Sunstein says. “The problem is that the Precautionary Principle, as applied, is a crude and sometimes perverse method of promoting various goals, not least because it might be, and has been, urged in situations in which the principle threatens to injure future generations and harm rather than help those who are most disadvantaged. A rational system of risk regulation certainly takes precautions. But it does not adopt the Precautionary Principle.” Sunstein 2002–2003, pp. 33, 37.
- 42.
Henry Jenkins, founder and director of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program and author of Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, defines convergence as “the flow of content across multiple media platforms, the cooperation between multiple media industries, and the migratory behavior of media audiences who will go almost anywhere in search of the kinds of entertainment experiences they want”. Jenkins 2006, p. 2.
- 43.
Mueller 2010, p. 4.
- 44.
“[S]hort of unplugging the Internet, it is difficult to control its networking capabilities because they can always be redirected to a backbone somewhere else on the planet. True, it is possible to block access to some designated sites, but not the trillions of e-mail messages and the millions of web sites in constant process of renewal…. [T]he best governments can do to enforce their legislation is to prosecute a few unfortunate culprits who are caught in the act, while millions of others enjoy their merry ride over the web.… [W]hile a few of the messengers are punished, the messages go on, most of them surfing the ocean of global, seamless, communication.” Castells 2009, p. 113.
- 45.
“The bits are everywhere; there is simply no locking them down, and no one really wants to do that anymore.” Abelson et al. 2008, p. 68.
- 46.
Pager and Candeub 2012, p. 3, [“the Internet has revolutionized scale.”].
- 47.
Downes 2009, p. 69.
- 48.
Mueller 2010, p. 4.
- 49.
Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, National Research Council 2002, p 187.
- 50.
Gantz and Reinsel 2010, http://idcdocserv.com/925.
- 51.
Hilbert and Lopez 2011, http://annenberg.usc.edu/News%20and%20Events/News/110210Hilbert.aspx.
- 52.
“The material requirements for effective information production and communication are now owned by numbers of individuals several orders of magnitude larger than the number of owners of the basic means of information production and exchange a mere two decades ago,” notes Yochai Benkler. “Individuals can reach and inform or edify millions around the world. Such a reach was simply unavailable to diversely motivated individuals before”, he says. Benkler 2006, p. 4.
- 53.
- 54.
Hilbert and Lopez 2011.
- 55.
“Young people are turning to mobile devices in droves. They use them to post more information about themselves and their friends into the ether.” Palfrey and Gasser 2008, p. 62.
- 56.
Friedman 2008, p. 62.
- 57.
The MacArthur Foundation 2008, p. 2, http://digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu/files/report/digitalyouth-WhitePaper.pdf.
- 58.
- 59.
In May 2008, Rep. Linda Sánchez (DCA) introduced the “Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act”, a bill that would create a new federal felony that stated “Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior”, could be prosecuted under federal law. The measure did not pass into law, however.
- 60.
Newton and Monks 2011, www.gamersdailynews.com/articlenav-2984-page-1.html.
- 61.
Willard 2008, www.cyberbully.org/PDFs/yrocomprehensiveapproach.pdf; Collier 2009b, www.netfamilynews.org/2009/11/from-users-to-citizen-how-to-make.html; Magid 2010, www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-magid/we-need-to-rethink-online_b_433421.html; Collier and Magid 2009, www.connectsafely.org/Commentaries-Staff/online-safety-30-empowering-and-protecting-youth.html; and Hancock et al. 2009.
- 62.
Collier 2009a, www.netfamilynews.org/2009/09/definition-of-digital-literacy.html. Also see Collier 2012, www.netfamilynews.org/?p=31427.
- 63.
Common Sense Media 2009, p. 1, www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/CSM_digital_policy.pdf.
- 64.
Willard 2008, pp. 1–2.
- 65.
- 66.
- 67.
Collier 2011, www.netfamilynews.org/?p=30376.
- 68.
Thierer 2009b, pp. 25–43, www.pff.org/parentalcontrols.
- 69.
- 70.
- 71.
- 72.
- 73.
Importantly, just as most families leave the vast majority of parental control technologies untapped, many households will never take advantage of these privacy-enhancing empowerment tools. That fact does not serve as proof of “market failure” or the need for government regulation, however. What matters is that the tools exist for those who wish to use them, not the actual usage rates of those tools. Thierer 2009c, www.pff.org/issues-pubs/pops/2009/pop16.5parentalcontrolsmarket.pdf.
- 74.
Julia Angwin of the Wall Street Journal argues: “For most parents, it seems that our best bet is to treat the Internet like an unsupervised playground in a sketchy neighborhood: You shouldn't drop your kids off there and walk away. You are obligated to stick around and make sure some kid doesn't beat up your kid – even if you're just watching from a bench on the sidelines.” Angwin 2009, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123238632055894993.html.
- 75.
Thierer 2009b, www.pff.org/parentalcontrols, pp. 57–113.
- 76.
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Thierer, A. (2014). A Framework for Responding to Online Safety Risks. In: van der Hof, S., van den Berg, B., Schermer, B. (eds) Minding Minors Wandering the Web: Regulating Online Child Safety. Information Technology and Law Series, vol 24. T.M.C. Asser Press, The Hague. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6265-005-3_3
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