The article, Why Generation X will save the web, makes an important point for those concerned about new laws written regarding the Internet:
Government and policy – the mechanics and grunt work, not the media showmanship – are powered by an army of hard-working, very young people who have all of the academic knowledge and very little of the practical experience. Those young folks, now, in 2021, who were in nappies when I was on the Hill, now run whatever corridors of power they (virtually) travel through, in professional support of those older politicians.
And it’s these young professionals – not the boomer career politicians – who are setting the tone of internet policy.
As the article suggests, we tend to think it’s gray haired Senators, who don’t understand the Internet, who are going to write new laws against encryption and other parts of what we call the open Internet, and that is wrong. The laws will be written by millenials who have never known the open Internet. The only Internet millenials know is the bad, closed corporate Internet of Facebook and Twitter and Medium.
We shouldn’t be surprised if they don’t protect that which they have never known nor experienced.