How should Donald Trump’s administration regulate the Internet?

[Commentary] How will the Trump Administration regulate the Internet? The truth is that nobody really knows. With virtually nothing to go on, speculation about the new Administration’s approach to technology (and there has been a lot of it) is mostly just hot air rushing to fill a vacuum. So perhaps the better question to ask is: How should the new Administration approach digital innovation? The short answer: cautiously.

As the Trump Administration belatedly prepares its technology policy, the best Silicon Valley and its customers worldwide can hope for is a recognition that slow-moving regulators, even with the best of intentions, can do very little good trying to shape a digital revolution already in progress. As new interns are told on their first day in the emergency room, “Don’t just do something. Stand there.”

[Larry Downes is a project director at the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy]