Ethics in web3

Web3 - Freedom or Anarchy?

What is web3?

To look at web3, we should first address the two versions that came before it, web1 and web2. 

Web 1.0 refers to the first stage of the World Wide Web evolution, which consisted of pages for readers to access information and content, which led to web 2.0 where users could create content of their own rather than simply access it.

Web3 is the next step along, it allows users greater autonomy to access information, participate and create the web. 

Web3 (a.k.a. third generation internet) sees the ability of computers not only to store data but to understand it. See, for example, WolframAlpha, Google Earth, and Siri. These sites are characterised by a shift to AI, 3D mapping, decentralisation and connectivity. 

What are the rules of web3?

Web3 is still in the process of being built, which means that new rules are constantly being created and abandoned. Without third parties like institutions, governments and corporations constantly monitoring the action, individuals must simultaneously trust everyone and no-one to keep the peace and maintain a general sense of morality.

Data Ownership 

Since web3 sites are unable to collect data or require personal identification (i.e., passports, physical addresses), users gain complete autonomy and ownership of their own data. Without a central regulator, however, web3 provides greater opportunity for fraud and copyright infringement. 

In October 2021, the Select Committee on Australia as a Technology and Financial Centre addressed these concerns and published a new report on the regulation of crypto assets to improve instances of fraud and copyright infringement.

The Committee’s report included recommendations for the advancement of web3 in Australia, including a Market Licensing Regime for Digital Currency Exchanges (DCE), a custody or depository regime with minimum standards for digital assets, that Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAO) be recognised as a company structure and that Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing regulations be fit for digital assets. 

These regulations would aim to address growing threats in web3, while honouring the decentralisation that web3 promises. 

Ethics and Art in web3

On the 25th of January, 2022, after five decades of legal dispute, the Commonwealth bought all rights to Luritja artist Harold Thomas’ design of the Australian Aboriginal Flag. Previously, since Thomas retained copyright, permission for its use had to be personally requested from the artist himself. Although this was a means of maintaining proper and respectful usage of the motif, the new deal with the Commonwealth has made the design free for all Australians to use - in the words of the Australian government, ‘as long as it is done in a dignified way’.

Mr Thomas sold the flag to the Australian government for $20 million. Although this was an extremely lucrative outcome for Mr Thomas, it means that he no longer owns the Flag's design.

This sale raised concerns within Australia’s First Nations communities, as the ownership of the Australian Aboriginal Flag had been passed on to an organisation rooted in colonisation, and at the expense of the centuries of discrimination and struggle of First Nations people.

In recognition of these values, Mr Thomas chose to mint an NFT of the Flag . The smart contracts embedded within the NFT deal and the inherent uniqueness of each NFT meant that Mr Thomas does retain ownership and moral rights in his original Flag. This is an example of how NFTs can acknowledge and implement values that would otherwise be lost. Harold Thomas retains ownership of the Flag, and the Commonwealth has purely purchased and freed the copyright of it as a design.

This deal becomes one of many examples in web3’s growing recent history of how decentralising the art market can enhance, rather than destroy, ownership of an asset.

While new rules in web3 are constantly being created, the hope is to create better autonomy for users’ data while finding ways to limit threats within the digital community. Ultimately, web3 has a more prominent need for regulation than the two former versions of the internet, but to bring in a policing entity would disrupt the central values and freedom that web3 offers.