In the last three months, I have attended two major events and participated in discussions on free speech on the internet. On July 10, I participated in the Uganda social media conference in Kampala. Earlier in May, I was in Berlin for the 10th edition of re:publica. Discussions at the two events reveal one thing: we are no longer capable of building the net we want.
When the world wide web was created in the early 1990s, enhancing the potential of the internet, the promise was that it would allow us to democratize free speech in unprecedented ways. This hope depended on the promise of existence of a free net in the digital age.
In a race to use the platform for free expression, millions of people around the world continue to respond to the urge to get online. However, few are alerted about the issues that threaten their digital rights to prepare them to challenge abuse of their rights. And yet, the threats are real.
For example, social media has created a robust social graph of the human race like never seen before. Governments in turn are using these graphs to monitor and survey the net. How they use the data largely depends on the quality of democracy in the country. In an authoritarian country, we are creating a platform for perfect despotism – run on a chip.
We must be prepared enough to demand respect of our internet freedoms and use the platform for digital activism or simply express ourselves freely. But will folks in government let us exercise this inherent freedom on a silver platter – as it should be?… Read more