BUMANLAG, LEIDA MAE L.

TECHNOLOGY AND THE LAW

ATTY. ROMULO DE GRANO JR.
THURSDAY 5:30 7:3PM


CRITIQUE PAPER ON LAWRENCE LESSIG LECTURE ON REGULATION OF
CYBERSPACE

The lecture of Professor Lessig primarily discussed the regulation on cyberspace and
how it is being implemented. He provided that the world is regulated by the four sorts of
constraints, and that law is just one of those four. The other three are social norms, market
and architecture.
Social norms are group-held beliefs about how members should behave in a given
context. Social norms dictates what people to wear, what they shall believe, what clothes to
wear and what is the impact of an act of a particular person to the society which he belongs.
In other words, norms guide behaviour and in that sense in create great impact in regulating
peoples behaviour. The second constraint is the market. Market is concerned with the
creation and management of different types of exchange. And as a trend now, people
experience various trades and exchanges through the web or in the internet. The marketing in
that sense expands to its normal flow of trade. It can avail of an upgraded interaction from its
customers and subsequently caters them of what the time, changes, developments and
technology demands. And lastly, the last constraint is the architecture. According to Professor
Lessig, the architecture is what he called the code like the architecture in the real world.
This code means the set of protocols, the set of rules, implemented or codified in the software
of cyberspace itself, that determine how people interact or exist in the space. He said that this
code like the architecture in the real space sets the terms upon which one enters, or exist in
the cyberspace. Thusly, regulation means the interaction of the four constraints and if only
one of this four would be missing then it will be ineffective regulation.
Admittedly, cyberspace has created a new world for everyone. It has made many lives
easy and instant. It has caused for various transactions to work fast, for communication to be
better and the like. However, there are always downsides in everything that brings
convenience. The chaos of having this liberated and unrestricted world brings in the questions
and fear of the danger voluminous freedom. Thusly, the four constraints come in. There are
laws now in cyberspace that regulates it like the copyright law and the intellectual property
law; all these came in to restrict the movements of people on the cyberspace.
In the Philippines, the government had already begun moving and making its rules
and regulations in a very stringent manner so as to prevent the possible chaotic scenario that
cyberspace may cause. The Republic Act No. 10175 or commonly known as Cyber Crime
Prevention Act of 2012 has been one of those laws that have been passed. Though, this law
invited different reactions and opinions as anticipated. Some may think that it is an
infringement to the private rights of individuals and some may say it is just the right time to
do the restrictions given the cybercrimes that are happening and crimes that might be
developed in due time. The law has been highly criticized on the matter of penalizing libel
committed on via internet which according to some is just a thorough practice of freedom of
speech. It is expected, however, that laws which is a possible instrument in infringing the
private lives of people invite great criticism from the latter therefore a law, though it is good
in all on its intentions and purposes, may be connoted as bad law, when the people and their
very own protected private acts are being restrained.