Giving Compass' Take:

• Mark Zuckerberg recently argued for more regulations for internet use in four areas: harmful content, election integrity, privacy, and data portability.

• What are the challenges of implementing internet regulations? How can donors support campaigns that encourage ethical digital citizenship? 

• Read more about why the digital age needs ethical and legal guidelines. 

In a recent commentary, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg argues for new internet regulation starting in four areas: harmful content, election integrity, privacy, and data portability.

He also advocates that government and regulators “need a more active role” in this process. This call to action should be welcome news as the importance of the internet to nearly all aspects of people's daily lives seems indisputable. However, Zuckerberg's new rules could be expanded, as part of the follow-on discussion he calls for, to include several other necessary areas: security-by-design, net worthiness and updated internet business models.

Security-by-design should be an equal priority with functionality for network connected devices, systems and services which comprise the Internet of Things (PDF) (IoT). One estimate suggests that the number of connected devices will reach 125 billion by 2030, and will increase 50% annually in the next 15 years. Each component on the IoT represents a possible insecurity and point of entry into the system.

Ensuring net worthiness—that is, that our internet systems meet appropriate and up to date standards—seems another essential issue, one that might be addressed under Zuckerberg's call for enhanced privacy. Today's internet is a hodge-podge of different generations of digital equipment, unclear standards for what constitutes internet privacy and growing awareness of the likely scenarios that could threaten networks and user's personal information.

As the future of the internet unfolds, it might be worth considering what people would be willing to pay for access to traffic cameras to aid commutes, social media information concerning friends or upcoming events, streaming video entertainment and unlimited data on demand.

Finally, Zuckerberg's call for government and regulators to have a more active role is imperative, but likely will continue to be a challenge. As seen in attempts at regulating technologies such as transportation safety, offshore oil drilling and drones, such regulation is necessary, but normally occurs only once potential for harm becomes apparent. The recent accidents involving the Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft could be seen as one example of the importance of such government regulation and oversight.

Read the full article about new rules for the internet by Daniel M. Gerstein at RAND.