Category: Democracy

The end of Elites?

The defining characteristics of Elites have traditionally been threefold. The first is their institutionalised access to information. The second, their exercise of influence. Thirdly, they controlled opinion and expertise in the public sphere.

Now, we’re seeing the demise of these three assets – and with them the demise of the establishment. It’s clear that we’re in the middle of a seismic change to the way information, influence and control is spread within society.

Huffington Post: The End Of Elites? How Technology Is Killing The Man »

Trump won – now what?

In some sort of a reaction against the political elite, a corrupt system, and political correctness – the US has elected Donald Trump as president.

On the one hand, it is more or less impossible to foresee the president elects politics on IT, mass surveillance, and civil rights. (OK, he has opened up for torture of suspected terrorists – but I’m not sure that he himself will remember or stand by that.)

On the other hand, he might quickly become a prisoner of the system. When it comes to day-to-day politics elected politicians have surprisingly limited powers. It is also possible that president Trump will leave everything but big, symbolic issues to governments civil servants.

And with two houses of Congress and the Supreme Court – the US has a reasonably well-founded and stable system when it comes to separation of powers. The system ought to be able to handle one branch going a bit la-di-da.

However, Donald Trump has very little understanding of the Internet, IT-related issues and the principles of human and civil rights. Caution is recommended.

And, by the way – what will happen to Julian Assange?

Here are some other voices on the president-elect:
• What The Election Means For Stuff Techdirt Cares About? »
• A madman has been given the keys to the surveillance state »
• Donald Trump elected US president: What it means for tech and science »

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The UN is morally corrupt

A majority of the members of the United Nations Human Rights Council are non-democratic. Obviously, this is a problem – if we presume human rights to have anything to do with fundamental democratic principles such as free speech, a free press and free and fair elections.

With countries such as China, Cuba, Iraq and Saudi Arabia in the council – one must also doubt what it will and can do when it comes to the right to fair trials, the issue of cruel and unusual punishments and the death penalty.

A Human Rights Council that is not committed to democracy and human rights is a travesty, a mockery of the UN:s own declaration of human rights.

The Council members are appointed by the UN General Assembly. So, obviously, not even the UN:s central body can be trusted when it comes to human rights issues. Sorry to say, I am not surprised.

The UN is morally corrupt.

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Merkel to social networks: Hand over the Holy Grail

In times when most people (at least most young people) use social media as their main source for news, German Chancellor Angela Merkel demands that these platforms should disclose their privately-developed algorithms.

“The algorithms must be made public, so that one can inform oneself as an interested citizen on questions like: what influences my behavior on the internet and that of others?” (…)

“These algorithms, when they are not transparent, can lead to a distortion of our perception, they narrow our breadth of information.”

Of course, that would be very interesting. But, at the same time, demanding that private companies disclose their deepest trade secrets doesn’t seem very reasonable or likely to happen.

Nevertheless, Merkel touches on an important issue, with far-reaching democratic implications. Information is power. And whoever is in control of the flow of information has a huge influence on society and politics. She continued…

“The big internet platforms, via their algorithms, have become an eye of a needle which diverse media must pass through to reach users. This is a development that we need to pay careful attention to.”

On the other hand, what information will show up in your Facebook newsfeed or Google searches is largely decided by who your friends are, what they read, what they share and also by what web pages you yourself use to visit, like and on your own web search history. There is no universal model – rather all newsfeeds and all search results are personal.

And it would be rather strange to have news feeds insisting on trying to have you to read articles that you don’t care about or find interesting. Or search engines coming up with results that are not relevant to you or not in line with your preferences.

Taking the Chancellors remarks to the extreme, it would be quite terrifying if the government were to have influence over your news flow and your search results. It’s foreboding enough that politicians (on both national and EU levels) have had Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Microsoft to censor posts with certain content.

In my opinion, the only way to tackle this issue is by introducing disruptive competition. And it will happen. Internet platforms rise and fall. We have absolutely no idea what platforms or what technical concepts will be used tomorrow.

The Internet and the World Wide Web is, by design, an unprecedented opportunity for humanity to discover of information and knowledge, distribute content and take part in a free and open debate. I don’t think it would be a good idea for governments to interfere in this free and dynamic evolution.

The focus should be on entrepreneurs, activists, academia and private individuals to develop new and better tools and platforms. In doing so, I’m quite sure that information diversity, as well as privacy, will be competitive advantages.

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RT: Merkel says Facebook, Google ‘distort perception,’ demands they ‘reveal algorithms’ »