ACN Volume 6 No 2-3 Winter 1994 What is a Netizen? In conducting research online to determine people's uses for the global computer communications network (i.e., the Net(1)) I became aware that there was a new social institution developing and I grew excited at the prospects of this new social institution. In response to the excitement I discovered from those who wrote me (and which I also experienced), I felt that the people I was writing about were citizens of the Net. Sometimes people on the Net would call users of the Net, a net.citizen (read net citizen). This idea I transformed into Net Citizen, which in shortened form is Netizen. Netizens are Net Citizens who utilize the Net from their home, workplace, school, library, or other locations. These people are among those who populate the Net and make it a human resource. These Netizens participate to help make the Net both an intellectual and a social resource. The Netizens' community highlights the importance of using the current state (circa 1994) of the Internet/NSFnet /Usenet/etc. as a model for the upcoming NII(2). In order to do this, it is necessary to be aware of the history of the Net. Various texts for this exist. E.g., _The Netizens and the Wonderful World of the Net: An Anthology_ (i.e. the netbook) contains the historical perspective and social context needed to understand the advance represented by the global telecommunications network. The netbook is for those who want to contribute to the care and nurture of the Net.(3) The NSFnet Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) has been a valuable regulation which helped to define the NSFnet (the backbone of the U.S. portion of the global Internet) as a resource based on sharing via an educational orientation. This orientation exists on the Net rather than the more tradition commercial profit-oriented model. This regulation has helped the Net to grow. More information about Netizens is available in "The Net and the Netizens: The Impact the Net has on People's Lives" which appears in this issue. The paper is also available elsewhere online in several forms.(4) [Editor's Note: In September 1993, the U.S. government set up an advisory committee under the U.S. Department of Commerce to advise it on the future of the U.S. segment of the Internet. This work was done under what was called the NII (the National Infor- mation Infrastructure). As part of classwork in a college course several students were asked to propose the policy concerning the NII that would represent the interests of different strata of U.S. society. What follows is one student's proposal for principles rep- resenting the Netizens' interests for the future development of the Net. For the class the following areas of concern were listed, and the interests of various strata (such as the business community, the education community, and so on were described). The areas to be discussed were privacy, equity, intellectual property, implemen- tation strategy, vision, and additional thoughts.] A Netizen Position on Privacy The Net is a tool to help people communicate openly. As such, concerns about privacy and security should be secondary to keeping the principle of openness active and feasible. So the Clipper Chip should be opposed, but emphasis should be given to the govern- mental protection of freedom of speech and equal opportunity to connect to open areas, and towards the guidance of Net citizens to contribute to the whole. In opposition to the Clipper Chip, the government should be told what it should be doing rather than what it shouldn't be doing. A Netizen Position on Equity/Access Access should be made available in public locations: libraries, community centers, schools, etc. Local phone numbers should be available for home users to connect to the network using modems. A Netizen Position on Intellectual Property Netizens should be encouraged to submit creative works and ideas into the public domain, rather than attempt to gain profit from these ideas. Protection should be enforced so that others don't make a profit off of these ideas. As a whole, ideas are most often built upon ideas of others. As such, it is hard to properly credit the origin of works or ideas to a single individual. The culture of sharing best promotes the free creation and building of ideas upon other ideas. The new capability to cooperate and contribute made possible by the Net should be fully realized. A Netizen Position on Functionality and Standard Operating Ability Equal ability to access is more important than high bandwidth for high intensity applications (such as graphics). It is much more important to connect the people of the world via text (and ftp/http for limited graphics, etc.) than to have a few connected with high graphics content. Standards should be set so almost any personal computer type can connect in for basic text exchange. A Netizen Position on Implementation Strategy Global community networks should be installed or extended and operated as a public service to community members. They could be operated by local government, or a collaboration between local government, public universities and other public entities. The federal government should continue to fund the interconnecting lines. People should be able to log into a terminal from a public library or community center or be able to call a local phone number from their home to connect to the community network. The community networks should enable people to use global network resources such as Usenet News, e-mail, telnet, ftp, www, gopher. Another possible model is to make network access points from which to connect to the world, and community uses formed around them.(5) A Netizen Vision Global Community Networks would allow citizens of a community to connect to the Global Computer Communications Network. This enables community members to communicate with others in their community and with the world. In addition, community networks often facilitate communications and distribution of information between citizens about their local and national governments. In democratic countries, this might facilitate a greater role for citizens in the governmental process. Global community network access should be only available for those who are acting as representatives of themselves and their ideas toward a cooperative goal such as education or research that will serve the whole network. Those in the private sector who are only interested in advancing their own profit should have to gain access to the Network via other avenues. The public sector should not be asked to subsidize the private sector's profit making purposes. The concept of global community networking will enable people around the world to connect to the Net, and in the process connect to other Netizens from around the world. This in turn would help further the growth of the Net by connecting a diversity of people who have various opinions, specialities and interests. This worldwide connection of people and other information resources of different sorts will help the world move forward in solving different societal problems. The Vision Behind the Concept of Global Community Networking A Net which will grow to encompass all possible resources in order to facilitate the free flow of information sharing. -------------- Notes: (1) The Net equals Internet/Usenet/Bitnet/Fidonet/etc. (2) The NII is the U.S. government's proposal for a National Information Infrastructure. (3) _The Netizens and the Wonderful World of the Net -- An Anthology_ is available on the Net and is abbreviated as the "netbook". (4) The Netizens material is available at the following sites: gopher://gopher.cic.net/1/e-serials/archive/alphabetic/a/ amateur-computerist/netbook ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/doc/misc/acn/netbook/ch.7_Netizen http://scrg.cs.tcd.ie/scrg/u/rcwoods/netbook/contents.html Other helpful texts include: "The Origins of RFCs" by Stephen D. Crocker in RFC 1000 gopher://ds2.internic.net/00/rfc/rfc1000.txt The Usenet History Archives is accessible via anonymous ftp at weber.ucsd.edu in the directory /pub/usenet.hist Netnews newsgroups of interest: alt.amateur-comp Discussion of amateur and grassroots use of computers and computer networking for those who want to see such access spread. alt.culture.internet The culture of the Internet alt.culture.usenet The Usenet community alt.current-events.net-abuse Discussion of what constitutes "net abuse" alt.folklore.computers Stories and anecdotes about computers, historical discussion etc. alt.internet.media-coverage Discussion of media coverage of the Internet alt.uu.future Teaching and learning in the Usenet University comp.infosystems.interpedia The Internet Encyclopedia comp.society The impact of technology on society (moderated) comp.society.cu-digest The Computer Underground Digest (moderated) comp.society.development Computer technology in developing countries comp.society.folklore Computer folklore & culture (moderated) comp.society.futures Events in technology affecting future computing comp.society.privacy Effects of technology on privacy (moderated) news.admin.policy Policy issues of Usenet news.future The future technology of network news systems news.misc Discussion of Usenet itself (5) The National Public Telecomputing Network (NPTN) has a good introduction to this idea. =========================================================