What I wrote in 2000 about the future of Internet & Democracy

“One of the things I did not understand, was that  these systems can be used to manipulate public opinion in ways that are  quite inconsistent with what we think of as democracy”*…

(h/t patron Lawrence Wilkinson, who published this on his Instagram)

Nineteen years ago, in his third annual call for answers to an Annual Question, John Brockman asked members of the Edge community what they believed to be “today’s [2000’s] most important unreported story.”  This is is what I wrote.

The way we learn to use the Internet in the next few  years (or fail to learn) will influence the way our grandchildren govern  themselves. Yet only a tiny fraction of the news stories about the  impact of the Net focus attention on the ways many to-many communication  technology might be changing democracy — and those few stories that are  published center on how traditional political parties are using the  Web, not on how grassroots movements might be finding a voice…

Every communication technology alters governance and political  processes. Candidates and issues are packaged and sold on television by  the very same professionals who package and sell other commodities. In  the age of mass media, the amount of money a candidate can spend on  television advertising is the single most important influence on the  electoral success. Now that the Internet has transformed every desktop  into a printing press, broadcasting station, and place of assembly, will  enough people learn to make use of this potential? Or will our lack of  news, information, and understanding of the Net as a political tool  prove insufficient against the centralization of capital, power, and  knowledge that modern media also make possible?…

The political power afforded to citizens by the Web is not a  technology issue. Technology makes a great democratization of  publishing, journalism, public discourse possible, but does not  determine whether or not that potential will be realized. Every computer  connected to the Net can publish a manifesto, broadcast audio and video  eyewitness reports of events in real time, host a virtual community  where people argue about those manifestos and broadcasts. Will only the  cranks, the enthusiasts, the fringe groups take advantage of this  communication platform? Or will many-to-many communication skills become  a broader literacy, the way knowing and arguing about the issues of the  day in print was the literacy necessary for the American revolution?…