I AM NOT TALKING HERE ABOUT DEMOCRACY THAT IS FOUND AT THE
BOTTOM OF A BOTTLE OF WHISKY BUT REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY THAT
MAY HAVE RUN ITS COURSE.
Technology is fundamentally shifting how government works and how it relates to the citizens it ostensibly represents. In the wake of fake news, algorithms operated by business are shaping a world in which earthly government is becoming less and less functional.
Smartphones with their ease of use and constant accessibility are changing our social networks and reshaping our political world.
Because Social Media companies, not Governments are launching new policies. We need to take a more critical look at the role of social media in society.
The biggest challenge is technology that could potentially help end corruption and lobbying, allow people to delegate votes to trusted friends rather than politicians, and empower experts in a field to meaningfully impact policy cannot be achieved while the content of social media has no legal means of ensuring transparency or verification of authenticity prior to any posting.
WHILE THIS STATE REMAINS Representative democracy may have run its course.
Social Media companies like Facebook, Twitter, U Tube and their like are now shaping a world in which earthly government is becoming inoperative.
SO HOW MIGHT SOCIAL MEDIA – ALGORITHMS – AI – MACHINE LEARNING – ALTER THE CAPACITY OF CITIZENS TO GOVERN THEMSELVES?
As unprecedented numbers of people channel their political energy through this medium, it’s now being used in unforeseen ways with societal repercussions that were never anticipated.
We should all be very wary news feeds which are being personalized.
ONE OF THE GREATEST PROBLEMS for the future is the worldwide existing inequality in access to new communication technologies. It threatens to aggravate existing social inequalities.
How does social media influence a democratic society?
By allowing us to create our very own feeds and essentially live in them.
By allowing algorithms to design communication packages just for individuals with each component full chosen in advance.
By allowing advertising without checking their source of purchase.
By allowing petitions to be voted on.
By allowing algorithms to create what’s called polarization, or an information cocoon.
By allowing another communication channel between voters and politicians.
If there’s one fundamental truth about social media’s impact on democracy it’s that it amplifies human intent — both good and bad. At its best, it allows us to express ourselves and take action. At its worst, it allows people to spread misinformation and corrode democracy.
One way or the other we are arriving rapidly to a crossroads whether we want true freedom of choice or short-term data-driven decisions to rule the roost.
If we can bank online, we can vote online.
We can now publish online, shout online, share music and ideas online, expose new knowledge online, regroup and connect online, bank online. The only thing we still can’t do online is voting on our own laws. No, instead we’re still living under a bizarre psycho-political industrial-era system that wants us to believe we’re represented by elected officials.
The structure of a direct democracy government is simple, and yet profound, giving rise to several questions that need a wide-reaching topic for debate.
SUCH AS.
The people have the final say in every decision that the government makes. That is because, in this government structure, the people are the government.
This can only work if everyone is involved in the voting process in some way. WHICH IS TOTALLY UNWORKABLE.
WHO WANTS MOB RULE.
Voters cannot authentically decide a course of action to take if they are not presented with complete and accurate information. This structure of government requires that all citizens be given the same information and shared within an equal time frame.
It could also allow a majority of people to oppress certain groups in a harmful manner.
IT CAN ONLY WORK IN THE VILLAGE HALL.
Once we count on AI to decide what we do our concept of life will have to change.
Democratic elections and free markets might cease to make any sense, as with most art and religions.
Can parliaments and political parties overcome the challenges?
At the moment it does not seem so. Technological disruption is not even a leading item on the political agenda.
Google and Twitter are attention merchants. They capture our attention and resell it to advertisers. We are becoming their product.
Governments need to nationalize our data.
It is now or never that regulate the ownership of data if we don’t want to end up living in a digital dictatorship.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin.
A common complaint about representative democracy is that it creates a distant class of lawmakers who will often collude with vested interests, or become so detached from the lives of the general public, that they will make decisions that the public does not support. By contrast, in a Direct Democracy system, such corruption of decision-making is impossible if every citizen is an equally powerful participant in the process.
However, it does not make any sense to think that direct democracy is somehow ideologically predisposed in any particular direction.
Direct democracy is simply a median-reverting institution.
It pushes policy back toward the center of public opinion when legislatures move too far to the right or left or is it, in fact, an opportunity to organize a kind of socio-ecological revolution to break away from the western development model of politics.
We know that every political system man has invented is open to corruption.
It is obvious that modern western democracies are now confronted with a change in culture mainly due to the integration of migrants, globalization, terrorism, and artificial intelligence.
Direct Democracy is presented as a solution to these challenges mainly by Social Media with its partitions and manipulation of voters with false news and software bots that amplify specific conversations on Twitter and Facebook by posting videos, photos, and biased statements targeting particular hashtags and wordings.
Resulting in phony debates, nurtured by cliches and prejudices that are destabilizing the political systems we have had for hundreds of years.
At what cost?
One of the obvious cost is Brexit and the not so obvious Donald Trump.
It is simply impossible to have direct democracy as the common Googlefied smartphone citizen does not have a grasp of political understanding nor the cognitive capacities to achieve direct democracy.
However, this view cuts against democracy in general.
As it implies that politicians always know better than the average citizen.
This is far from the truth when one looks at the current state of the world that is crying for some common action.
Politicians don’t necessarily show expertise and interest and certainly don’t know all the issues and are not always well informed.
They depend on shortcuts and have to ask other politicians and experts.
This morning I received an email from John Taylo in response to my last post ( The Beady Eye ask’s: Does anyone really know what quantum chips will do.)
He sums up the situation by saying and I quote
” We have yet to invent a political system that will harness the knowledge of mankind. if AI can be used for the benefit of all to reduce poverty and increase living standers of all without wrecking the planet it will be ……. Only dreaming”
I replied “What a dream”
Perhaps I should have said ” Where do dreams come from. Look around you. That is where dreams come from. The only planet we know. ”
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin.
≈ Comments Off on THE BEADY EYE ASK’S: WHAT IS THE STANDING OF DEMOCRACY IN THE WORLD TO DAY AND IS IT SOCIAL MEDIA THAT IS ALIENATING US FROM THE VOTE.
Democracy has many strengths, including the capacity for self-correction, but the question is can it survive social media.
The word ‘democracy’ has its origins in the Greek language. It combines two shorter words: ‘demos’ meaning whole citizen living within a particular city-state and ‘kratos’ meaning power or rule.
Democracy of sorts had existed for centuries but there is no absolute definition of democracy. The term is elastic and expands and contracts according to the time, place and circumstances of its use.
Meaningful democracy only arrived at a national level in 1906, when Finland became the first country to abolish race and gender requirements for both voting and for serving in government.
Even in established democracies, flaws in the system have become worryingly visible and disillusion with politics is rife. Yet just a few years ago democracy looked as though it would dominate the world. The combination of globalization and the digital revolution has made some of democracy’s most cherished institutions look outdated.
It is far short of the settled, comfortable state of maturity that many of its early adherents expected (or at least hoped) it would be able to claim after decades of effort.
Just a few years ago, Facebook and Twitter were hailed as tools for democracy activists, enabling movements like the Arab Spring to flourish.
Today, the tables have turned as fears grow over how social media may have been manipulated to disrupt the US election, and over how authoritarian governments are using the networks to clamp down on dissent.
They are fast becoming tools for social control.
So has democracy’s global advance come to a halt, and may even be in reverse.
The notion that winning an election entitles the majority to do whatever it pleases no longer holds water.
Since the dawn of the modern democratic era in the late 19th century, democracy has expressed itself through nation-states and national parliaments. People elect representatives who pull the levers of national power for a fixed period. But this arrangement is now under assault from both above and below.
From above, globalization has changed national politics profoundly.
From below Modern technology is implementing a new modern version with national politicians surrendering more and more power to Social Media.
For example over trade and financial flows, to global markets and supranational bodies, and may thus find that they are unable to keep promises they have made to voters.
International organizations such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organisation, and the European Union might have extended their influence, but they no longer have the power to implement what they preach.
There is a compelling logic too much of this:
The fragility of the United Nations influence elsewhere has become increasingly apparent with the state of the world.
How can anyone Organisation or a single country deal with problems like climate change or tax evasion?
National politicians have also responded to globalization by limiting their discretion and handing power to unelected technocrats in some areas. The number of countries with independent central banks, for example, has increased from about 20 in 1980 to more than 160 today.
So is the power now in the hands of multi Clongormentts like Apple, Facebook, Twitter, Mircosoft etc.
Certainly, the perception that democracy in decline has become more widespread than at any time during the past quarter-century. Erosion of freedom over the past few years, adopting smarter methods for m of subversion
There are four main sorts of Democracy.
Direct democracy
Representative democracy
Constitutional democracy
Monitory democracy
A liberal democracy (that is, one that champions the development and well-being of the individual) is organised in such a way as to define and limit power so as to promote legitimate government within a framework of justice and freedom.
Social media is a double-edged sword it allows us to speak truth to power but on the other hand, it allows power to manipulate public opinion and polarize the electorate.
Citizens use it to speak truth to power, and authoritarian governments use it to spread misinformation.
Twitter users got more misinformation, polarizing and conspiratorial content than professionally produced news.”
They fake petition signatures. They skew poll results and recommendation engines.
Rather than a complete totalitarianism based on fear and the blocking of information, the newer methods include demonizing online media and mobilizing armies of supporters or paid employees who muddy the online waters with misinformation, information overload, doubt, confusion, harassment, and distraction.”
And yes, governments are increasing their efforts to censor the internet, but that’s because they recognize that the internet poses a threat to their control.
Every authoritarian regime has social media campaigns targeting their own populations.
If the liberal world order is indeed coming apart under pressure from
the authoritarians, the future of democracy will be deeply affected.
Social media firms are “largely immune from responsibility” in the legal sense, but that “in the court of public opinion it is a different matter, and future US/EU legislation seems likely if they don’t address these issues in a meaningful way.
So what is the answer?
Is social media basically good, or does it have a “negative impact on society”
There are no gatekeepers when you publish via your social profile, (outside of each platform’s terms of use) – you can write anything and anyone has the chance to view it.
Social Media has truly democratized media and given everyone a medium through which to be heard.
It has also opened the system up to those who would exploit it to push their own agendas. The platforms are now looking to police this, but it’ll likely always play a part.
To make democracy work, we must be participants, not simply observers.
One who does not vote has no right to complain.
Here are a few questions to mull over.
What can be done to fight citizens’ political alienation and distrust?
Are representative democracy and greater public participation the answer or do we need to think beyond current practices?
How can the cultural and historical factors involved and reflected in present developments help us look into the future?
What knowledge is needed to understand and inform decision-making in the future?
Which values are and which values must be at the base of decision-making?
If we are indeed heading for a Smartphone Algorithms Democracy:Who, or What will be in control.
The algorithms behind social media platforms convert popularity into legitimacy, creating echo chambers, overwhelming the public square with multiple, conflicting assertions.
Today, social media acts as an accelerant, and an at-scale content platform and distribution channel, for both viral “dis”-information (the deliberate creation and sharing of information known to be false) and “mis”-information.
“Populist” leaders use these platforms, often aided by trolls, “hackers for hire” and bots, on open networks such as Twitter and YouTube.
Sometimes they are seeking to communicate directly with their electorate. In using such platforms, they subvert established protocol, shut down dissent, marginalize minority voices, project soft power across borders, normalize hateful views, showcase false momentum for their views, or create the impression of tacit approval of their appeals to extremism.
And they are not the only actors attempting to use these platforms to manipulate political opinion — such activity is now acknowledged by governments of democratic countries.
In addition, advanced methods for capturing personal data have led to sophisticated psychographic analysis, behavioral profiling, and micro-targeting of individuals to influence their actions via so-called “dark ads.” to self-censor or opt out of participating in public discourse.
Currently, there are few options for redress. At the same time, platforms are faced with complex legal and operational challenges with respect to determining how they will manage speech, a task made all the more difficult since norms vary widely by geographic and cultural context.
Every democracy needs its justice system, so we must “catch up with the modern world”, to cope with the social media.
In reality, old power structures still have power, they just have it in new spaces.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the Bin.
The question however is, what (if any) form is worthwhile having or is what we have worth keeping.
I ask this because we are now traveling in some of the Earth,s most unforgiving environments where consensus democracy is just beginning to take hold.
We are entering a period in the world thanks to Social Media where old grudges are arising to the surface and are now threatening to destabilize world peace.
We are also entering a biomedical and silicon society with the recombinant DNA enabling the manipulation of life as its genetic essence.
Physics and Math with the help of computer power is not only revealing how the world works but how the Universe was formed with magnificent and dangerous ways to exploit it.
Perhaps because we are the invasive species of all it’s time we have to ask ourselves is Science and the game changing technology collaborating to destroy democracy or enhance it.
Is it still true to say:
Compared to dictatorships, oligarchies, monarchies and aristocracies, in which the people have little or no say in who is elected and how the government is run, a democracy is often said to be the most challenging form of government, as input from those representing citizens determines the direction of the country. The basic definition of democracy in its purest form comes from the Greek language: The term means “rule by the people.” But democracy is defined in many ways — a fact that has caused much disagreement among those leading various democracies as to how best to run one.
Our governments have made education a chain and ball of debt that locks the mind into materialism.
Instead of looking after their citizens they put ( under the miss comprehension that growth will cure-all ) the Economy first when they should be hanging their heads in shame when one citizen through no fault of his or her own lives life and died in poverty.
There is little point in maintaining a nuclear deterrent if you have to live out you life on the bread line. What’s the point if you all but wiped out before the button is pressed.
I recently visited Singapore Zoo. The youngest zoo in the world.
It sported a simulated Rainforest, a tropical Polar Bear and hundred of school children which will never see any of the Zoo residents in the wild. I could not shake the feeling that I was looking at our feeble attempts to show what was left of values. Perhaps it is because I was seeing a generation becoming bereft of connection to nature.
The caused of our separation from all these things pervade every aspect of our lives.
The rise of personal computer in the form of smart phones solely promoting free-market capitalism rather than equality, and values that count.
Most of us in the west are crying to have our needs met, and eventually adapting to them not being met. Perhaps such an upbringing is necessary in our cultural democracy contex. We are prepared from birth for a competitive dog-eat-dog economy. That expresses itself in greed by the continuing the imperative need to convert all natural and social into money.
All aspects of our present day democratic culture conspire to strip us of our connection and belongingness.
Property rights, Surveillance, Debt based financial systems where money is scarce, religious indoctrination, a legal culture of liability, Racial, ethnic, national chauvinism, deskilling jobs hat leave us as passive helpless consumers of experiences.
An Internet of everything that most impertantly is a metaphysics that tells us that we are discrete, separate selves in a universe of others.
As this world of separation crumbles so will Democracy.
Because of the atmosphere of scarcity is everywhere everything must change.
To appreciate the sweep of change and magnitude you only have to look at Climate change (perhaps its time to put a monetary value on the sky and people will not treat it like a free dump.) and the billions being spent by the Candidates for the President of the USA.
Ted Cruz $65 million
Mareo Rubio $ 17 million
Jeb Bush $104 million
Ben Carson $39 million
Chris Christie $19 million
Donal Trump $6 Million
Hillary Clinton $100 million
Bernie Sanders $42 million
They are transforming modern-day American democracy into a form of theater and television ads. The correlation between big money has condensed democracy into buzzwords, glitz, the main currencies attracting attention on our television screens.
With the wealth of the 62 richest people in the word now standing at over $2 trillion which is the cumulative worth of the poor half of the world population we have Google, Facebook, Twitter and other Corporate giants building technologies with artificial neurons that can learn on their own.
These may in time exhibit intelligent behaviours virtually indistinguishable from those of its human masters.
The question is longer what phone should I get? It’s what ecosystem should I join if any as they could all become the same.
Privacy is going out the window.
There are vats of coli bacteria churning out medical insulin, plastic polymers and food additives that might go where they are not wanted.
Limited world resources and being snapped up by sovereign wealth funds and hedge funds.
Algorithms buy and sell share and currencies making a mockery of the stock exchange.
Fusion power is light years away.
Not everybody is happy with the high-tech changes.
The Web is weakened the foundation principles of Democracy or if not reshaping them.
Our World Organisation are out of date, setting in motion a sequence of events that will change the history of life which is one contingent tale, liable to be rerouted at anytime. ( See previous posts)
We left with the question can capitalism Democracy deliver change.
Not on its own as it is based on greed, power, corruption, non transparency, taxies, to name just a few of its ticking cogs. God forbid its is left down to this man.
There is only one way we can achieve a better world.
Scrap the United Nations which has become a begging Organisation of worthless resolutions.
Replace it with a World Aid Organisation that is financed by Capitalism with a 0.05% world aid commission on all High Frequency Trading, on all Foreign Exchange Transactions (over $20,000) and on all Sovereign Wealth Funds Acquisitions.
This would create an Organisation with genuine clout and save Democracy.
I hope this blog will awaken those who are not already conscious. All comments welcome.
The Internet’s impact on culture, business, and politics is vast, for sure.
It is becoming a bigger part of our lives everyday, making life more convenient but also taking away the human element of living in the moment and making relationships more superficial.
But where actually is it take us?
To answer that question is difficult, because the Internet is not simply a set of interconnecting links and protocols connecting packet switchednetworks, but it is also a construct of imagination, an inkblot test into which everybody projects their desires, fears and fantasies. Some see enlightenment and education. Others see pornography and gambling. Some see sharing and collaboration; others see e-commerce and profit.
The purpose of this post however is not to highlight all that the Internet has achieved or all that it will achieve.
It is to ask the question is it good for a Democratic World.?
We know that it is exposing Capitalism for what it is and Communism for what it wants, along with the comity of Nations. It is making us ask what a well-functioning democratic order requires.
It is creating a world people’s voice that could be manipulated in the extreme.
You might think with all the other problems the world faces this it is of little importance. You would be wrong as it is shaping the Future.
As a result of the Internet and other technological developments, many people are increasingly engaged in a process of “personalization” that limits their exposure to topics and points of view of their own choosing.
The growing power of consumers to “filter” what they see and the servers to dish up what they want you to see is from the standpoint of democracy, a mixed blessing.
But in a heterogeneous society, such a system requires something other than free, or publicly unrestricted, individual choices. Without shared experiences, a heterogeneous society will have a more difficult time addressing social problems and understanding one another.
People should be exposed to materials that they would not have chosen in advance.
As a matter of technological feasibility, our communications market is moving rapidly toward this apparently utopian picture which is a far cry from reality.
It is happening on the Internet where private corporate interests rule, money calls the shots, and we the people are seen as mere subjects to be controlled.
We are moving into “Corporatism which is the halfway point on the road to full-blown fascism.
Consider this: It is estimated that the 2016 presidential election in the USA could cost as much a $5 billion, more than double what was spent getting Obama re-elected in 2012.
We are allowing ourselves to become fearful, controlled, pacified zombies, Screen watchers.
The internet is introducing a system of perfect individual control reducing the importance of the “public sphere” and of common spaces in general. It is increasing people’s ability to wall themselves off from topics and opinions that they would prefer to avoid.
I am sure that if new technologies diminish the number of common spaces, and reduce, for many, the number of unanticipated, unchosen exposures, something important will have been lost.
Because the Internet has changed the quantity and range of information available to citizens, it directly influences how societies evaluate government performance—in all parts of the globe.
It is Changing Democratic Attitudes throughout the World.
It is altered the informational relationship between governments and their citizens.
In how information is packaged, how that information can be physically transmitted and the networks that determine who can send and receive those transmissions. This has meant the largest decentralization in communication capacity and increase in expressive capacity that we have ever seen in human history—particularly in nations where access to political information tended to be very limited, often due to strict government censorship of traditional media.
Thus, the expansion of the Internet has significant ramifications on the amount and type of information that individuals use to evaluate their governments.
The global nature of the Internet opens a larger window for individuals to better view how governments function in other countries, particularly the advanced democracies that are most visible on the Internet. This provides users with a more realistic and globally consistent scale by which to make comparative evaluations about how well their own government functions.
As a result, the Internet is playing a central role in shaping the political evaluations and resultant satisfaction that citizens have toward their governments.
This is significant because the impetus to act politically—from day-to-day civic activities to the more extreme cases of protest and revolution—begins in the minds of men and women.
An understanding of this mix will permit us to obtain a better sense of what makes for a well-functioning system of free expression and to address the serious dangers that are hidden within the Internet.
For example the creation of perfect and splendid isolation, or a process of getting over disagreements, or the undermining our values to the detriment of the all of us.
The reasons why the Internet is supposed to strengthen democracy include the following.
1.The Internet lowers the entry barriers to political participation.
2. It strengthens political dialogue.
3. It creates community.
4. It cannot be controlled by government.
5. It increases voting participation.
6. It permits closer communication with officials.
7. It spreads democracy world-wide.
In contrast, the Internet, far from helping democracy, is a threat to it precisely because the Internet is powerful and revolutionary, it also affects, and even destroys, all traditional institutions–including–democracy.
To deny this potential is to invite a backlash when the ignored problems eventually emerge.
So why will there be problems?
Because more than half of communications traffic is data rather than voice.
Because it has been liberated from the terror of the PC as its gateway into the world of Smart Phones.
Our smartphones have become Swiss army knife–like appliances that include a dictionary, calculator, web browser, email, Game Boy, appointment calendar, voice recorder, guitar tuner, weather forecaster, GPS, texter, tweeter, Facebook updater, and flashlight.
Because a politically disenfranchised digital underclass is emerging.
Because with the commercialization of the Internet things previously unreachable are now available through our personal computers.
Because cars will be chatting with highways. Suitcases will complain to airlines. Front doors will check in with police departments. Pacemakers will talk to hospitals. Television sets will connect to video servers. Keeping this aggregated information in the cloud allows researchers and developers to examine the data and identify “digital bio markers” to inform prevention, diagnoses and treatment in a constellation of brain and mental disorders that are now mostly defined by subjective symptoms.
Because it is making Politics More Expensive and Raise Entry Barriers.
Because it is making reasoned and informed political dialog more difficult.
Because it disconnects as much as it connects.
With the increase of smartphones in recent years many have all griped about the narcissism of people who spend all their time on social networks, text messaging at a dinner table or taking photos of the food they eat.
Because it is facilitating the International Manipulation of Domestic Politics.
Because it will essentially making the world a global village with vast deserts of highly visible inequalities which would not be possible without the internet.
And this is why ubiquitous, scalable technology such as the Internet must be part of the solution if we are to avoid an information-choked societies.
Because it is creating a mental fog or scrambled thinking in a kind of weird, impersonal cyber way.
Constant multitasking is taking its toll.
Although we think we’re doing several things at once, multitasking, this is a powerful and diabolical illusion. Ironically, multitasking makes us demonstrably less efficient. The flow of information can be overwhelming and lead to “paralysis by analysis.” Chronic multi-tasking can make us less productive, not more. Increased choices and uncertainty can lead to increased stress and anxiety.
Because it is causing fragmentation, increasing cost, and declining value of “hard” information. Our brains are busier than ever before. We’re assaulted with facts, pseudo facts, jibber-jabber, and rumour, all posing as information.
Make no mistake: email-, Facebook- and Twitter-checking constitute a neural addiction.
It’s naïve to cling to the image of the early Internet – – nonprofit, cooperative, and free.
You might say that the CONTROVERSY ITSELF is superficial; as the obvious reality is the internet and technology are not only here to stay, but constantly evolving and permeating more of our lives.
The real conversation should be how we can best use the Internet in smarter ways that help us to monitor and enhance the brain, and how can we actively prepare to manage information overload.
“Big Data” applications are becoming available and capable of helping personalize brain health tools at the individual level, based on both past data and information gathered over time. This, in turn, is already changing research and preventive health practices. Tablet-based screenings can be instrumental in diagnoses of Alzheimer’s and MCI.
Mobile devices are already entering the sports world, with cognitive tests for concussions. Institutions like AAA have begun large-scale web-based assessments and cognitive training that works on driver’s cognitive skills in order to become safer (and less expensive to insure) drivers.
Now, every new technology presents a fair set of challenges. It is important to note that these are quasi-universal features of modern life, not the type of conditions of disorders that our medical system is set up to address.
There is talk about how social networks and new devices like the Google Glass visor have diluted privacy, smart phone apps “turning us into sociopaths” and the danger of turning over our daily routines to new technology like Apple’s Siri digital assistant.
The trick will be in properly preparing and guiding people to adapt to the mental demands of a modern society. Fortunately it is us, not the Internet, who have a plastic and resilient brain.
My conclusion is that information does not necessarily weaken Democracy or the state but electronic voting will not strengthen democracy as it will be manipulated by Big data.
So is the internet good for the brain?
If the analytical and collaborative power of the internet is used properly to monitor and enhance brain functionality in a cost-effective, scalable manner the answer can be a resounding “yes”
At the moment it is having a negative impact on our societies having a polarizing effect on democracies. Although it has the capacity to bring people together, too often the associations formed online comprise self-selecting groups with little diversity of opinion.
Free speech on the Internet is not enough to ensure a healthy democracy. The conception of free speech emerging in today’s communications market emphasizes “an architecture of control…by which each of us can select a [customized] free-speech package.”
Google News feed filters out the information we receive. It is a product of what information we demand.
We should create twenty-first-century equivalents of the kinds of public spaces and institutions where diverse people will congregate.
If we are to avoid western democracy being hobbled by disengagement, falling turnout, and disconnection with citizens we must counter the growing power of consumers to “filter” what they “see” will create information ghettos and isolated citizens.
The Internet changes expectations. The Avaaz 41 million-strong online internet community is a prime example.
It lowers the economic and information cost of group formation and the internet lends itself to this type of direct connection, and hence is likely to create demands for more direct forms of democracy. But the way the Internet empowers people – by giving them huge choice over the information they receive – can make them less likely to engage in a free debate of ideas.
Why?
Because there will be neither leaders nor agendas to make Governments sit down with their detractors.
Citizens can use new media to avoid, rather than embrace, new ideas or common experiences.
The Internet, as a highly democratic and participatory medium, can perform democratic wonders. But the bien pensant e-Democracy consensus is wrong and dangerous if it thinks this will happen automatically. All of these facets are critical if we are to thrive at a human.
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