Indeed, while I really want to like the proposal, democracy in the US doesn’t seem strong enough (and the judiciary don’t seem interested enough) for it to work

Indeed, while I really want to like the proposal, democracy in the US doesn’t seem strong enough (and the judiciary don’t seem interested enough) for it to work. It’s easy to imagine the Internet facing a different class of threats, from a united front of spooks, rights-holders-groups, and moralists. I can’t imagine the open uncensored web surviving long, unless it had some kind of mini constitution of its own. This said, the future under private companies doesn’t look great either. ISPs are uncompetitive, exploitative, and anti-consumer, and the corporations who act as censors (Google, Apple, Facebook) have increasing skin in the rights-holder-group game, and are happy to build censorship machines for lobbyists, spies, and other authoritarians. Maybe it’s worth thinking about what such a “Constitution for the Internet” might be now, before it completely disappears. (And perhaps while TBL and Vint Cerf have some fight left in them for a roadshow)!