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Is the current direction of the web Democratic?
While I agree with Roger that his vision of the future of the web is where we are headed, I would like to argue that it is wholly unDemocratic. The control panel version of the Internet is disturbing, because it seems to me that we have become willing to sacrifice the ability to control what we view and interact with for the convenience of other people making that decision for us.
Facebook and Google's algorithms to filter what we view based on our preferences means that, through the algorithms they have written, corporations have more control over the information we receive than ever before. The definition of fascist corporatism (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism#Fascist_corporatism) is "management of sectors of the economy by government or private organizations." In an information technology age, management of information is management of the economy, and we are letting private corporations manage entirely too much of our information.
We know where the road of fascism leads us. We need to take a step back from that road and find a new path.
Maike Leemets
Tiago Landman
Paul Lillebo
By the way, the "fascist corporatism" of Italy in the 1920s-40s didn't have much to do with "corporations" as we know them today. It was rather a variant quasi-democratic concept. Where we in the U.S. elect our representatives geographically, the idea in the fascist state was to select representatives for the governing body from within interest groups such as trade unions and associations of economic interests. These were the "corporations" that partook in governance. Not a bad idea, on paper at least, and not necessarily non-democratic. The reasons for the fascists' demise was not so much the corporative state structure as fundamental moral failings of the Fascist party and Mussolini personally.
Dorisa Firmin
Ethan
Luis Fernando Morales Ramírez
Switzerland made a very great step forward, but Perú is just going back and this kind of stuff just increasess pirate stuff consume.
Steven Dilloway
Lukas Hostetler
I'm going to have to agree with Aldous here- it's our lack of interest that cripples a democratic internet.
Aldous Blair
Don't get me wrong, there are exceptions everywhere! Dedicated activists who use the web for good.
What about websites who track our movements without our consent (this is a common fact)? So many of us know of this and don't care. So many more don't know.
I'm going off on several tangents so I'll leave it right there.
Vitor da Silva Gonçalves
And then comes the democracy inside the web. Most things we do are ran by corporations that can dictate how those things can evolve.
So, considering the internet as an undemocratic place, how could it be turned into a democratic place?
preventivi fotovoltaico
Sean O Fearghaill
It is however the least undemocratic mass access means of interchange
Libor Supcik 10+
Vivienne Eggers
Not in the sense of control. Originally the web was invented by US military but given to commons - so it could be used by all for beneficial reasons. Management was originally public with academic orientation - sharing of knowledge and cross-border communications. In the 90s the advent of online commerce necessitated that financial regulation and protection of data became critical aspects - privatisation of the web 'space' has since dominated. Privatisation for capitalist purposes of course spells =controls. Yet these are typically democratic oriented controls. Other non-democratic controls (e.g. censorship) impact in the jurisdiction of the web user.
In terms of democratic use:
The internet is self regulated and regulated at three points of governance. These are “the physical, the code (transport) and the content layer.” State government law and regulation primarily covers the physical layer of hardware, equipment and ISP or network hosting sites. As internet servers may be in a jurisdiction outside the user’s domicile and physical location, there may be more than one state involved in the regulation – primarily of telecommunications industry.
The transport layer comprises code and the operational system of the internet. This layer is devoid of a body of law and is self regulated through trans-border standards and protocols. Examples are World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and Internet Corporation for Assigned Codes and Numbers (ICANN).
The content layer has the greatest regulation through state domestic laws and any international law that might be impacted - such as international Intellectual Property protection (WIPO) and Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime.
In summary - controls are subject to the relevant country and use in terms of marketing and privacy - but apart from above still a lot more relaxed on internet than local laws in your own country.
Mohammad Tauheed 500+
The web is continuously being occupied by new 'tend to be giant' or 'tend to be dictators', as we can see now the 'web' is becoming synonymous to Facebook and Google.
That's the scary part of keeping the web democratic. These rises of giants will always lead to ill practices and monopoly. We know, power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Thomas Brucia
Richard Sedivy
Oh, and please, never bring Google and Facebook into the same sentence again. They are both companies with a completely different aim, method, and policy.
Another thing about the Democracy part: The internet *never was* democratic. Yes, as you pointed out somewhere, there have been democratic elections and things like that, but what you have to realize is that that is a very different topic. In this case it is that the internet is being used as a medium to create democracy in the world. But the rest of the internet here was mostly just free reign, with a few international laws and everything.
David Wees
Have you actually tested your Google results and your friends Google results, and the difference between when you are logged in, or not logged in?
christine vincent
I fall flat at times when I see how much time young people are sitting on their mobile devices and other technology - the technologies that are meant to encourage their growth and look at all the opportunities that are passing them by. I see all the unemployment caused by a growth in jobs for a few and wonder about what this will mean in 10 years time. I am on Facebook, twitter, linkedin and I look at it all and think - has this really enriched my life?
To answer the question directly - yes the aforementioned are democratic in that we have signed up to their conditions without force but I do feel that I am a lemming going over the edge and not knowing why. I know they filter, I know that the market is funded by advertising and that at certain times of the day the consumer is more willing to buy products than other so it is my 'choice' as it is the masses whether to buy or not to buy. I always wanted to have 'my world' online which means I really appreciate that when i go to Amazon it recognizes what i had last time and offers me products. What Facebook and Google are doing do not seem new to me. We have enabled them to create the filters by sharing so much with them.
The bigger question must be what in this brave new world is democracy?
Vivienne Eggers
I think the concept of permission based marketing is a far more just and secure method of data sharing of personal details and information - than cookie collection and stealth tools directly used to mine and store customer data. But the reality is that the world of anal control is the smelly armpit of our western first world society and rapidly integrating into third world economies - where cheap labour market enable capitalism to bloom - but not sustainably or for long - because the next step in the capitalist process (i.e. to keep making profit margins) is to downsize labour. After capitalising third world and developing it - unlike the low population first world economies - companies will resort to technology and there will be a great divergence of no longer needed 'poor' labour. By this time we should have cut down all the trees, fished out the waters and be living in climate disaster refugee camps anyway - wherever we live - predicted by scientists for the next 15 years at over 250 million displacements like those of Darfur - climate disasters in first or third world. But we will be able to send live real time footage and update our friends with our internet WAP whatever it is then (thats the cynical side of me).
Do you think a bunch of tweeters really sparked an Arab revolution? Or do you think it was just the revolt of human consciousness that comes from exasperation and desperation? I mean - did Gandhi have an iphone or use Wikileaks?
Vivienne Eggers
Originally developed from a US Department of Defence research project, the internet has evolved into the world’s largest computer network of over 72 million computers – the World Wide Web comprising a public access cyberspace residing outside territorial boundaries of sovereign nations. This event produced significant benefits and impacts shaping current liberal economic platform of unified financial transaction integration and facilitated a growing sphere of international communications and information sharing via computer technology. (excerpt from a recent legal paper I wrote)
The point - although a US military invention - the web cyberspace is public commons with no formal jurisdiction - but the point of entry or management - i.e. the use of that space is very much controlled by territorial concerns and global governance interests.
The main reasons for controlling the web are commercial. Originally the web was primarily an academic managed environment. People saw capitalist business (democratic) opportunities for using it to make money and the management or control geared into the new goldrush of the millenium. Thars gold in tham thar ills...
So as long as l'iberal economic democracy prevails' - commercially oriented management (CONTROL) also takes place. You buy a block of land and want to build an empire. Then you want to protect the empire - i.e. the money changing hands and locations - and the information that now has an 'economic' value. So governments need to take a greater role to protect your interests and those of the corporates. They make laws to protect citizens/shareholders.
Most of international law surrounding internet use is developed to combat crime. Crimes such as hacking, theft and lowlife paedophiles who trade child sex and animal abuse. Quite frankly I don't see a problem with enforcing prevention and protection from this.
The issue of Censorship exists without web
scott lee
The real danger as far as I'm concerned is in the realm of wireless internet provided by cell phone networks. There seems to have been a complete abandonment of net neutrality within cellular networks. For instance, in my cell phone plan i get free data for facebook and twitter. Why don't I get free data for wikipedia? Why is the cost of my data dependent on what site I am visiting. The whole idea of net neutrality is to prevent the provider of the internet from exerting economic control which sites I see. Now it costs me more to go to wikipedia, rueters, cbc, or whatever than it does to go to facebook.
What happens if media tycoons use this to control the news. Imagine fox news is free but I have to pay for cbc.
There was a reason the net neutrality laws were put in place.
Glen Yoshioka
scott lee
Second. Consumers should avoid using them and stick to regular wifi networks that hook to the old shool internet to show our intolerance to net non-neutrality. (its cheaper anyway)
Richard Sedivy
Well... That is the price for a world controlled by large corporations...
David Wees
Net Neutrality is a huge issue as well. No disagreement from me here, we need to get that sorted out, and I don't see that we can rely on our governments to support Net Neutrality.
scott lee
David,
We have to remember the good old education system. Teachers (even in public high schools) are wise to require diverse source when doing research. Many people have gone on in education and have at least some university or college experience doing research. This is the skill we use when we search for information. People are smart, they know they can't just look in one place and believe everything they read, whether its google, facebook or the local newspaper.
People who can't get around a filter bubble have only themselves to blame. If someone finds google too filtered, they can go somewhere else. They can use another search engine, or for that matter, go to a library. We can't expect to be spoon fed an objectively diverse collection of sources at a click of a mouse. We have to dig a little. As long as people keep digging then there is a market for a search engine that provides unusual info.
Admittedly I find search engine filters to be a little condescending, since they imply I can't decide for myself what I'm looking for. I find that about a lot of the "conveniences" of new high tech innovations lately. But I don't think it prevents me from accessing information. If I want to know something, I take it upon myself to find out. The internet still helps me do that.
Pontus Westermark
Google is very clear with one of their aims (read their financial report for more, you can google it):
"We provide users with products and services that enable people to more quickly and easily find, create, and organize information that is useful to them. "
My point is that I use google as a middleman between "knowing what I'm searching for" and "reading what I want". For this, no other search engine comes close. I remember back in 2000-2001 when I started using the internet, when searching for something, I went through three different search engines (yahoo, altavista and google, thought at first I didn't know about google), each engine only provided one or two links remotely relevant to my interests. Over time, I dropped Yahoo, it didn't give me what I wanted, later on, I dropped Altavista, because Google was the only one that consistently provided the sites I was searching for.
If some other engine comes along that more consistently provides me with what I'm searchinig for, I'd be willing to switch instantly. I'm not loyal to google in that I trust them to be the judge of what I should read, it's just very convenient.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for new ways of doing things. I'd probably love a search engine that regularly incorporates new and different ideas and variations of my searches into the result, but a lot of the times I'm using the engine as a middleman, then I only want the straight up; "This is probably what you'd like to read"-answer.
David Wees
Pontus Westermark
The thing I like with google is that it's very good at providing exactly the most relevant sites available on the net for my particular search terms. If it didn't, it wouldn't be a very good engine at all!
If you search the index of your computer for "Iron Maiden", would you like the search results to include "lady gaga" as well?
I'm open to the idea of a different search engine, but I probably wouldn't use it when mainly searching for information.
But say that you have the control over facebook, how would you filter the information for people recieving 2000 status updates over the course of a day? The most personally relevant ones does not sound like such a bad idea, me thinks!
Vivienne Eggers
The best way to filter is the same as with twitter. Just don't log on.
I enjoyed early browser flexibility where Google arose but I appreciate their attempts at context sensitivity. The trouble is that cognitive science of web user experience is hugely complex and diverse - developers use information architecture that often is created out of just a few use case scenarios and a bit of pre modelled patterning. For this reason - validating the IA of any web or software application use can be redundant unless you really research with full ethnographic and understanding the 'who what where why and how' of understanding humans interaction with software applications. The best safeguard is to build in a bit of high level self designing flexibility - i.e. include some more useful sensitivity built in but also give the user some soft options for creating their own user environment - that is if they ever want it as a real desktop.
David Wees
Democratic:
Social media success - Examples: Elections in Iran, and people revolutions in the Arab world this year.
unDemocratic:
Internet Censorship still a problem in countries led by single political parties: China, Syria, Burma.
US Sen. tried to overturn the FCC's rules on Open Int. intro. in 2010. Corp. interests over democracy.
US Sen voted 52–46 to defeat S.J Res 6 which would have overturned the FCC Commissions Open Int Rules.
Can you think of other examples in which the Internet is becoming less Democratic?