Internet Democracy

While we permit ourselves the illusion that it is enough for people to possess the right to complain or express themselves freely on the net, there are a lot of other freedoms off-line that are denied to a substantial number of people which are just as important, or even more important, than the periodically exercised freedom to express oneself or the right to dissent. Until the existence of these people are acknowledged and that there is a basic economic floor beneath them, and that they are not blamed en masse for the situation they find themselves in, then the debates that rage forth glibly about democracy and freedom on the Internet will continue to be, at best, sterile and ineffective.

Throughout the Internet, or "cyberspace" to use a more hip term, the words "freedom" and "democracy" have had such a working-over the past couple of years that they have become almost meaningless. On the one extreme, people (mostly Americans) dream in techno-colour about how the Internet represents the most democratic and free form of mass media ever invented. For this reason, attempts to limit this freedom has met with public outcry, as in the case of the CDA. The main argument against the CDA was that it was an infringement on user rights. Furthermore, there was a broad feeling that the mere notion of implementing such legislation spells doom for the future, for this would signal the beginning of the end for democracy.

On the other extreme, there are others who feel that the Internet already poses a threat to democracy in the way in which governments and big business use the new media to manipulate users. In essence, it is the telescreens that George Orwell envisioned in his book, "1984". The only difference is that in Orwell's novel Big Brother had forcibly installed the telescreens into the homes of people; the Internet, on the other hand, is voluntarily being put in the homes of people by the people themselves.

Between these two extremes, there are a myriad voices that in various degrees accept both outlooks. For many, the Internet is a means by which democracy can be advanced, but dangers do exist in the form of misuse and abuse of the new media for purposes of surveillance and censorship. To what extent can the Internet be effectively used as a means of surveillance and censorship is what is being continuously debated throughout the realms of "cyberspace". Subsequently, this debate has generated such an enormous amount of material on the subject that it would be very difficult, if not near impossible, to sift through it all.

While talk about security and democracy continues to dominate a major portion of net discourse, an underlying economic framework that appears to be the driving force of the Internet has been taken for granted and tacitly accepted by most users. American free market capitalism, envisioned as the backbone of an emerging global economy, has come out as the "victor" of the Cold War era and, because it outlasted the others, has by default become our guide to the 21st Century. Hence, "the east is least and the west is best" is a motto that has come to summarize the attitude of many people. In more diplomatic language, it is usually put in this way: "yes, we do have a great democracy [referring to the US], one I appreciate all the more as I visit other countries."

Such views are based on the belief (or shall we daresay, myth) that under an American consumerist democracy, people have the opportunity to educate themselves, choose their own religions, select their own occupations, accumulate capital, and invent better ways of doing things. Consequently (as the argument goes), countries under such a system are relatively more prosperous than others because by accepting individual competition as a responsibility that comes with personal freedom, they have done a better job of applying human energy and individual initiative to the improvement of all. Thus, democracy, which permits and promotes individual enterprise, personal responsibility, free competition, respect for the right of others, freedom of choice and decision, is what makes the difference between those countries which are prosperous and those which are not. The Internet, subsequently, is a perfect reinforcement and expression of these values.

In conjunction with this belief in the inviolability of consumerist democracy, there is a growing rejection of traditional political categorizations, as if the political and economic realities of the past (and present) are no longer relevant. The effect this has is that it perpetuates a growing myth toward social injustice, one akin to "blame the victim". Also, it disengages people from socio-political activity by putting issues out of focus and relegating them into abstraction. The result is that socio-political activity - marching in the streets, attending rallies, volunteer work, etc., as opposed to surfing the net and checking out the web sites of activists - is no longer seen as an effective means to elicit change. As Joyce Stoller aptly put it, "they see what is, not what is possible."

Most of the time, when people on the net write about democracy, they are usually referring to a political state of freedom. Yet when they express the fears of democracy being undermined by those that seek to regulate the Internet, such as the CDA in the US or the German government's persecution of Radikal, they are making assumptions that they live in a de facto free and democratic society. This assumption is unfounded, for the societies in which they live in are not as free as they think, or as free as they could (or should) be.

In a consumerist democracy, the assumption people have that they live in a free society is based primarily on the notion that they have the right to free speech. This is why most "netizens" have such optimistic views about the future - a future wired to the Internet. It provides them with a wide forum whereby they can hold dissident views, criticize their society, and confront their leaders.

But such a right is conditional, at best. Traditional means of confronting leaders is near impossible, for very few people can get close enough to their leaders to actually confront them, no less criticize their policies to their face; they first have the gargantuan task of breaching the edifice of police and security personnel that seem to perpetually surround them. Likewise, confronting leaders via the new media is not much easier, for access is regulated in terms of decent and "content-driven" conditions, not to mention confined by such things as the volume of traffic. And then, of course, there is always the question of hardware.

The right to free speech and the freedom to express one's own views is hedged around a variety of factors, many of them economic. Although the smug minority on the Internet can afford to be outspoken, there are many others who are afraid to do so because of the fear - both real and imagined - of losing their jobs if they express unorthodox opinions. For those who dare to dissent in today's economic climate, they may easily find themselves out of a job, socially ostracized, and economically strangled.

Notwithstanding this, vague mention is made of those who are already living in economic hardship, and thus are unable to afford to be connected to the Internet. Dyson's (1997) claim that networking is "a powerful lever for the haves and have-nots to use to accomplish their goals in collaboration with others" stops short of explaining how the have-nots are able to have access to the Internet. It's not merely the question of buying a computer: it's also paying the monthly access fees and electricity bills. For some, it's even more than that: if you happen to be homeless, you would also need a place where to put your computer in the first place.

While we permit ourselves the illusion that it is enough for people to possess the right to complain or express themselves freely on the net, there are a lot of other freedoms off-line that are denied to a substantial number of people which are just as important, or even more important, than the periodically exercised freedom to express oneself or the right to dissent. There are a large number of people who have not had the opportunity to educate themselves to the limits of their mental abilities nor have they been able to accumulate any liquid capital at all - things which are critical for the independence and security of an individual. In fact, many are working in jobs which are not of their own choosing and which can only be described as degrading. These people can't be said to be free in the proper sense of that overused and mangled word.

Democracy is a farce unless it guarantees both economic and political freedom to its citizens as a whole. A poor person is not free and a destitute person is as much a prisoner as a convict. Actually, a convict generally eats better. A person who can't afford a computer (no less continuously upgrade the software and hardware every year or so), who can't exercise a real choice in matters of food, clothing, and shelter, who can't afford the time to keep up-to-date with the myriad issues that float around in "cyberspace" or elsewhere, who can't afford a proper education for themselves and/or their children - this person is not free no matter how "democratic" or affluent the country is in which s/he resides. And yet these people exist, these people are real; they are more than just a number or set of characters illuminating from a computer monitor or a statistic printed on a sheet of paper. What is more, these people are many, far more in number than those who sit at their keyboards and paint a glorious picture of the future on the Internet.

Until the existence of these people are acknowledged and that there is a basic economic floor beneath them, and that they are not blamed en masse for the situation they find themselves in, then the debates that rage forth glibly about democracy and freedom on the Internet will continue to be, at best, sterile and ineffective.

http://www.heise.de/tp/artikel/8/8006/1.html