Update: Decentralized Autonomous Internet

https://safenetforum.org/t/update-june-2nd-2022/37114

Q. What are the responsibilities of the Safe Network Foundation related to the misuse of the Network for illegal content?

A: While intermediary liability regulations, on a whole, tend to shield the Foundation and its trustees from a general monitoring obligation over the content shared on the Network, many jurisdictions do have exemptions from intermediary liability provisions for terrorist and CSAM content.

Additionally, there are jurisdictions which are proposing or already have imposed senior management liability provisions, which are regulations which hold senior management and directors accountable for grievous misuses of their networks for illegal content. As the UK, where MaidSafe is located, is one of the countries proposing a senior management liability regime, we are closely monitoring the situation and any implications it might have for the company, its employees, the SN, and its trustees.

We’re also currently exploring the technical constraints, and possibilities, for dealing with those various forms of illegal and abhorrent content, should they be shared on the Safe Network. To do so, we are engaging with several national and international policy networks which have expertise in these fields. While tackling harmful content in decentralised environments is a novel area of research, and has challenges unlike those of traditional centralised systems, it has the potential to offer solutions that not only help uphold human rights, but do so in a way that is driven by global consensus, and that is resistant to subversion.

In addition, these solutions would also have the potential to lower the compliance burdens and barriers to entry for application and platform developers, none of whom want their work to be abused for the dissemination of abhorrent illegal content, and most of whom will, themselves, have legal compliance obligations they themselves must meet.

We take the view that MaidSafe, and the Safe Network Foundation, could become pioneers in the development of decentralised services which keep these kinds of content off the Network without violating the privacy of our users or breaking the encryption of the system, and we’re quite excited to see what role we can play.