MPs, step away from the Internet

"I'm all for regulation when the entities needing regulation are themselves suitable for it. But the internet isn't. It's like trying to regulate the weather. Social sites have their own regulation: it's called their users. They can flag the bad stuff — retroactively, of course — and report concerns. And actually, the system that works best to defeat the lousy content is a machine-based one, marking down and making invisible the content that the community deems undesirable. It works on sites like, well, this one, and Slashdot, and many others.

"But MPs won't like it. It's entirely peer-based. No central bodies. How do you invite 8 million people to a private little lunch? No, it'll never catch on at Westminster." —Charles Arthur