I do not see the government playing a moral role so much as a verification and attribution assurance role -- regulating the Internet should be like regulating food and drugs as much as it should be like regulating books, TV and movies. A hundred years ago, people had no way of determining the quality of the food and drugs that went into their bodies. Now they cannot determine what sources or forces may be behind the information that goes into their minds. Regulation is desperately needed to prevent widespread, even general, mental and intellectual poisoning of the public.

People assume that what they read on the Net is true. There must be strenuous efforts first and foremost to guarantee that what is represented as fact is fact, and that what is not fact is clearly labeled as such. Right now I could put up a Web site concerning just about anything and say just about anything so long as I attached a disclaimer. But disclaimers can be so well hidden (sometimes even in the code of the site) that they amount to nothing. We should openly recognize that many Net users do not possess the technical skills to detect such deceptions; therefore they need help, just as they need help with radio and television. (A crude and obvious example is the "Blair Witch" site -- not much effort was needed to discover that it was a promotional gimmick, but that was evidently more effort than most people were willing or had the ability to make.) We must have new verification and attribution statutes that are vigorously enforced by empowered agencies, with real punishments for violators.

I don't think this is a particularly complex concept -- but it will be difficult to implement. A federal agency is unquestionably required, although the further argument in my book is that one will never be established: The con job being pulled off by the information companies is too good. They paint themselves as the guardians of free speech, as do the politicians who support them, when really it's about profits for the companies and about graft for the politicians.

OK, so how do you use all this regulation to turn information into knowledge? That is trickier, of course, and becomes a more individual-oriented philosophical issue. But again, I think the key is verification and attribution enforcement -- laws that provide stiff penalties for those who misrepresent information as true when it is false or who do not label fictions as such upfront. If we have a government agency continuously making sure that supposed research presented on the Internet is factual; if site owners can be held legally responsible for disinformation they may unwittingly disseminate (much in the way that if you unknowingly buy stolen goods you can still become an accessory after the fact); and if all images, data and text have to be accompanied by authorship or provenance information, or simply can't be posted; if these and many similar rules are laid down -- I think you can begin to get a picture of the very different kind of Net that would ensue.

Maya Angelou reads from "The Heart of a Woman"