Constraining the digital world

The ability of law to govern the internet continues to be doubted by many activists. Yet there are still calls from many to sanction actors believed to be construing the freedom of the internet. One popular call has been for net neutrality, aiming to stop Internet Service Providers from customizing traffic for different services. But is legal action the only tool we have to regulate a thing? Lawrence Lessig’s New Chicago School model enables us to structure a problem of regulation by identifying four modalities of regulation that act upon an issue. By looking at how law, markets, norms and architecture affect an issue, we can gain more insight into the intricacies of regulation. In this thesis the author uses the New Chicago School model to analyse and structure the problem of net neutrality regulation. The author constructs an analytical tool that identifies regulations according to agency or self-execution, objectivity or subjectivity, direct or indirect approach, and also how the modalities may counteract each other. The results show that the model is indeed helpful for structuring problems, and that there are many constraints at play, even though there are problems with proper operationalization of the model.