Hello! I'm Jonathan Pace. I study the regulation of internet technologies by governments and companies. I’m interested in how political and economic narratives inform regulatory policies — specifically, policies that transfer authority over internet governance from public institutions to private firms. I connect important episodes in internet history to emerging trends in platform governance, examining the handover of regulatory authority from the state to the market in three contexts: the self-governance of dark web platforms, the privatization of digital infrastructure, and the laissez-faire doctrine of internet policy. My research explains why internet regulation has been continually designated as a market project rather than an institutional responsibility, and it shows how this designation contributes to ongoing problems of industry accountability, internet access, and online conflict. Based on these insights, I develop democratic policy frameworks for internet governance that redistribute authority over digital systems in order to address the regulatory problems that afflict them.

My current projects include a book, Cyberlibertarianism, which analyzes how an anti-statist narrative motivated a coalition of technology groups to advocate against internet regulation in the 1990s and the 2000s; and a technology policy report, funded by a $28,000 grant from Stanford University, that outlines a multisector framework for the governance of digital infrastructure, designed to address structural obstacles to internet access.

All of this draws on my background in communication, which I studied in the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania and in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University. Read more about my research by clicking the tabs above.

Header image. Dream Hack, the world's largest computer festival and Local Area Network (LAN) gathering. The biannual event also features live music, art, gaming, and product expos. Image courtesy of Dream Hack.