How the net neutrality idea is wrecking our rights

Net neutrality has been used as the underlying reason for treating Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram as "mere intermediaries". Social media is presented as the space for others' virtual interactions with this category. I believe public policy must shift towards users' protection: social media platforms need to be accountable for creating the space, profiting from users' data, and filtering and curating the content shown on their feeds. There is a colossal lie behind the idea of social media "empowering" users. The apparent voice users receive by creating an account is subject to the platform's terms and conditions, policies, and algorithms. Therefore, it is a voice subject to the directives social media pursue as private companies. Rules and limits that apply to those who collect and disseminate information and data should apply to platforms.

The policy rooted in privacy recently implemented in the EU is a wake-up call to act but fails to address the root issue. This UE "Policy" resembles the idea that EU must protect the internet, and in that direction, promulgates "limited liability" for online platforms. How are we supposed to protect users' rights if the platforms are not accountable? Within this tangle of efforts to do something, the EU Courts have created pompous rights as the right to be forgotten, which, as the "limited liability," doesn't protect anyone.

The need for liability relies in the fact that platforms enable mass participation, engage in mass data collection and surveillance, and deploy their means for manipulating their user's behavior. Once the algorithm connects with the nervous system of the account owner, the platforms acquirees control of their behavior, it subjects the individual to their limits –named by the corporation "Community Standards" –, and deploy the human from the freedom to decide, think, or choose; deploy them from the human nature, and subject them to the category of a "mere" user.

The EU policy avoids the internet's policing and boasts of protecting net neutrality. The internet can be free and individuals who use it as well. These two freedoms don't oppose each other. Nonetheless, privacy and limited liability are not the pillars to grant them. Public policy should make liable those who aim to control and profit, hiding in the concepts of "net neutrality" and "mere intermediary".

People who use social media become so vulnerable that the platforms that create and nurture digital dependence must be liable somehow. I adhere to Balkin's thesis: platforms acquire special duties concerning the information they obtain in the course of their relationship; as they collect and process information from their users, they should be treated as information fiduciaries[1]. By treating social media as a kind of fiduciary, they are subject to good faith, confidentiality, and trustworthiness in the "collection, collaboration, use, and distribution of personal information.This category of "information fiduciaries" is a concept introduced by Jack Balkin.

With a liability regime where free internet and user rights are promoted, platforms' digital curation and collection can be changed. Fiduciaries rely on relationships that are (1) asymmetric, (2) based on trust, and therefore, require (3) responsibility towards the principal that trusted the fiduciary. In this sense, a fiduciary owes his principal a high duty, analyzed with strict accountability, of good faith, fair dealing, and honest performance. These duties involve other duties to disclose, access information, and to transparency. Judges see the set of duties as the minimum requirements the Fiduciary should conduct to respect (1) the asymmetry (of information, knowledge and control over the content) and (2) the trust relationship between the principal and the fiduciary. With the fiduciary approach we recognize the vulnerability of being "users" and not beings. And by that acceptance, we try to revert the vulnerable condition we face as users.

Free internet is, without a doubt, something we must protect. Nonetheless, the idea of "freedom" that's penetrating through the conjunction of net neutrality and mere intermediaries doesn't rely on free access, nor the possibility of choosing, and not in the protection on the individual's will. Once the platforms are held accountable, the "free" services in exchange for our data will be over. Those who run the platforms don't act in good faith and loyalty towards the people they made vulnerable, with a simple liability regime. The people responsible for dictating and implementing our public policy on free internet must act. Beyond responsibility, they must grant education on creating, operating software, storage, and services. With accountability, the centralized knowledge of the platfroms can, and would, be spread. They are not doing rocket science, they collect, manipulate and profit from that, its on our hands to pursue a change.