Internet Co-Founder Vinton Cerf: What is Online Equivalent of Shouting ‘Fire!’ in Crowded Theater?

Internet co-founder Vinton Cerf, a Computer Society author and Google’s chief Internet evangelist, writes about how society faces a dilemma between a free Internet and those who use it for malware and fake news.

“While we have yet to determine what, exactly, is the online moral equivalent of shouting ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater, it seems clear that societies that are significant users of online resources need a way to cope with a wide range of harms that malevolent users might visit upon others,” he says in an article entitled “What Hath We Wrought?” in IEEE Internet Computing magazine.

“Finding mutually supportive legal agreements between nations to sanction harmful online behaviors will be a challenge worth exploring,” he adds.