Lessig was arguing, back in 2006[0], that privatized ownership of code would effectively create privatized legislation - i.e. corporations could write their own

Lessig was arguing, back in 2006[0], that privatized ownership of code would effectively create privatized legislation - i.e. corporations could write their own laws by just making the machines not do certain things they don't want done. Since code still has to exist, we can't exactly remove this mechanism of control. And capitalist ownership and the corporate form it loves so much is a brutal dictatorship bounded only by the fact that some people can leave if they have the money to do so. So the mere existence of software and corporations equals little kings running around extending their freedom to swing their arm directly into your solar plexus. Since Code was published, the government has largely not regulated the tech sector at all, and the end result is that the tech sector wrote its own laws to benefit itself. This is where we get tech companies that operate more like religions[1] whose commandments include "thou shalt have no third-party app distributor before me". In this way Lessig is prophetic. >It sounds like what Lessig is proposing is whole cloth oversight of the Internet, presumably by some government entity up to and including monitoring speech and the way the actual internet is built and used. "To protect freedom on the Net." Lessig is arguing that if we don't subject Apple and Google to constitutional oversight, they'll just write their own constitution and use the existing one as toilet paper. I don't understand how you go from that to sardonic scarequotes. [0] Code was published earlier than this, largely as a reaction to DMCA 1201, the linked article is for the 2006 update [1] Dictators love state religions because it lets them use control over the law to control social regulations. It's one thing to ban something you don't like and another to convince people they will go to hell if they evade the ban.