Revealing the Dark Side of the Internet: A Governance Framework Based on Users' Negative Psychology

The purpose of this study is to reveal the dark side the Internet and establish a hierarchical framework to provide its governance path based on users' negative psychology. However, this hierarchical framework must consider unnecessary attributes and the interrelationships between the aspects and the criteria. Hence, fuzzy set theory is used for screening out the unnecessary attributes, a decision-making and trial evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) is proposed to manage the complex interrelationships among the aspects and attributes, and interpretive structural modeling (ISM) is used to divide the hierarchy and construct a hierarchical theoretical framework. The results show that: (1) the institutional system is the driver of Internet governance improvement (2) personal values are the last link in the governance process (3) the governance transition from institutional system to values must cross the barriers of ethics and technology. This paper proposes a more systematic and integrated hierarchical framework which provides theoretical guidance to govern the dark side of the Internet.