Democratization of the Internet
September 2006
Dr. Mona Al-achkar Jabbour
Researches and studies Center in Legal Informatics
Faculty of Law and Political Sciences
Lebanese University
Introduction:
The two main elements of Tunis Agenda were ICTs for development and Internet governance.
Human beings all around the world have something in common; they are more inclined to accept what they know. Accepting means big opportunities to reduce clashes be it with an idea or a person.
Mass communication is key to democracy, and Internet is today the third generation of mass media after the printing and the broadcasting medias.
All generations of mass medias (press, radio, television), have contributed to make some ideas, policies as well as social values and rules more acceptable. They have even been responsible for the adoption of many new ones by some societies and groups totally strange to them.
And this goes for fashion as well as for culinary for education for economy and politics.
ICTs and particularly the new mass media, the Internet can play an important role in fostering a climate favorable towards reconciliation and peace as well as towards democracy and development.
This is due to the pluralistic news sources of information and the many opportunities of communication of sharing of discussing and meeting it can create.
Today everyone can find a community of people on the internet who share its ideals despite the fact that each member of this community could be in different geographical location, of different religion, of different nationality and different ethnic.
Today computers and the internet are not anymore associated with researchers and superior intellects; the internet is becoming truly the internet of the people.
Because of all this,
Many called the internet “a democratic tool” because of its inherent liberal characteristics that makes its democratization effect inevitable.
Others say it’s a tool that can help dissolve cross-cultural misconceptions and a guide to new understanding of each other.
According to the WSIS knowledge sharing is essential to ensure the development of a democratic information society since it’s the mechanism that guarantees the permanent technological innovation and the digital inclusion.
Anyhow, Internet governance and infrastructure of telecommunications are still arising more and more fervent discussions and a lot of heat especially because of the challenges they represent to the democratization of the internet.
Anti-democratic forms:
The governance of this medium as well as the digital inclusion of all the people of the globe will decide of the future of the Internet as a key in economic growth and development.
Democratization of the internet, involves not only the economics of participation but also the ability of ordinary people to express themselves and pursue meaningful experiences in the virtual world created by computer communication.
But, this is not true at the moment since there are many factors that restrict citizens all around the world, from effectively using the Internet. These include financial matters as well as linguistic and infrastructural ones. These factors are so serious they threaten some societies to become societies of Disinformation.
Among the factors that are still hindering us from achieving our goals are those that threaten the democratization of the Internet.
Issues like monopolies on telecommunications and the Internet connection to home and businesses to a single or two companies within a huge geographical area
Some see that standards that facilitate intellectual propriety rights doesn’t serve the public interest and democracy because they don’t allow users to improve on existing technology and to share information and techniques across the web.
The standards that hold control on the Internet are deeply affected by the increasing presence of commercial interests. Hence the first challenge would be to ensure that companies providing access to the Internet don’t shut down its basic open nature by restricting access only to content that is profitable or linked to other commercial entities through corporate deals. Moreover a special attention should be given to what is going on now at the software development level where many companies are now developing exclusively for Internet explorer, so users of other browsers are denied access to many services.
Here we can point out also the practices of giant companies that control the “pipes” and who are allowed to profit from the demand on broadband, by limiting the fast services to those who can pay their toll.
They are generating discrimination in favor of some applications such as search engines, voice over the internet and streaming videos archives.
They can decide what content, applications and services we can use.
On another hand we have the “Palladium” or “trusted systems”. The “palladium” or “trusted computing” that threatens to take control of the computer away from its user.
Moreover, there are legislative challenges, such as software patenting, and the digital Rights management (DRM), that Worsen when used technologies are embedded in industry standards, denying interoperability to anyone who can not get a patent license.
Another anti-democratic form would be the control of addresses and the Internet management.
What is required?
The future of the Internet depends on open dialogue and on the willingness of all interested parties – civil society, industry and governments. - To cooperate in a spirit of collaboration and mutual understanding.
Therefore, a culture of online communications should be encouraged by promoting internet access and use, by the governments as well as by the civil society.
Joint projects based on the use of the internet between different organizations and groups ensure not only presence and availability of local content but also promotion of democracy, social and economic development.
Fiscal policies and supportive legislation are of great importance in developing internet use.
Supporting democracy relies heavily on not creating new abuses and new forms of discriminations
Securing and promoting values such as human rights, democracy, rule of law, social cohesion, respect for cultural diversity and trust between individuals and between people, will largely depend on governments’ cooperation.
Democratization of the internet means a commitment of the governments to maintain software support for the network community. It means also Public policies and legislative texts that support all sorts of initiatives aiming to block commercial practices and greed from reversing the Internet revolution, by fencing off the internet: one for the haves and one for the haves not.
Multi-stakeholders assiduous efforts are required to build an inclusive development –oriented Information society.
Hence, not only effective cooperation is essential between the public and the private sectors in a country but also, between governments and international organizations.
According to the WSIS full participation of developing countries in the global market for ICT-enabled services should be guaranteed in order to allow these countries to reap the benefits of ICTs and to achieve digital inclusion.
Nevertheless, and despite all the commitments made by WSIS our world is still far from achieving this democratization of the internet.
Governments in rich countries where the internet finds much of its roots are still insisting on deepening the intellectual property laws in all countries around the world as if they desired to preserve absolute control over the technology.
September 2006
Dr. Mona Al-achkar Jabbour
Researches and studies Center in Legal Informatics
Faculty of Law and Political Sciences
Lebanese University
Introduction:
The two main elements of Tunis Agenda were ICTs for development and Internet governance.
Human beings all around the world have something in common; they are more inclined to accept what they know. Accepting means big opportunities to reduce clashes be it with an idea or a person.
Mass communication is key to democracy, and Internet is today the third generation of mass media after the printing and the broadcasting medias.
All generations of mass medias (press, radio, television), have contributed to make some ideas, policies as well as social values and rules more acceptable. They have even been responsible for the adoption of many new ones by some societies and groups totally strange to them.
And this goes for fashion as well as for culinary for education for economy and politics.
ICTs and particularly the new mass media, the Internet can play an important role in fostering a climate favorable towards reconciliation and peace as well as towards democracy and development.
This is due to the pluralistic news sources of information and the many opportunities of communication of sharing of discussing and meeting it can create.
Today everyone can find a community of people on the internet who share its ideals despite the fact that each member of this community could be in different geographical location, of different religion, of different nationality and different ethnic.
Today computers and the internet are not anymore associated with researchers and superior intellects; the internet is becoming truly the internet of the people.
Because of all this,
Many called the internet “a democratic tool” because of its inherent liberal characteristics that makes its democratization effect inevitable.
Others say it’s a tool that can help dissolve cross-cultural misconceptions and a guide to new understanding of each other.
According to the WSIS knowledge sharing is essential to ensure the development of a democratic information society since it’s the mechanism that guarantees the permanent technological innovation and the digital inclusion.
Anyhow, Internet governance and infrastructure of telecommunications are still arising more and more fervent discussions and a lot of heat especially because of the challenges they represent to the democratization of the internet.
Anti-democratic forms:
The governance of this medium as well as the digital inclusion of all the people of the globe will decide of the future of the Internet as a key in economic growth and development.
Democratization of the internet, involves not only the economics of participation but also the ability of ordinary people to express themselves and pursue meaningful experiences in the virtual world created by computer communication.
But, this is not true at the moment since there are many factors that restrict citizens all around the world, from effectively using the Internet. These include financial matters as well as linguistic and infrastructural ones. These factors are so serious they threaten some societies to become societies of Disinformation.
Among the factors that are still hindering us from achieving our goals are those that threaten the democratization of the Internet.
Issues like monopolies on telecommunications and the Internet connection to home and businesses to a single or two companies within a huge geographical area
Some see that standards that facilitate intellectual propriety rights doesn’t serve the public interest and democracy because they don’t allow users to improve on existing technology and to share information and techniques across the web.
The standards that hold control on the Internet are deeply affected by the increasing presence of commercial interests. Hence the first challenge would be to ensure that companies providing access to the Internet don’t shut down its basic open nature by restricting access only to content that is profitable or linked to other commercial entities through corporate deals. Moreover a special attention should be given to what is going on now at the software development level where many companies are now developing exclusively for Internet explorer, so users of other browsers are denied access to many services.
Here we can point out also the practices of giant companies that control the “pipes” and who are allowed to profit from the demand on broadband, by limiting the fast services to those who can pay their toll.
They are generating discrimination in favor of some applications such as search engines, voice over the internet and streaming videos archives.
They can decide what content, applications and services we can use.
On another hand we have the “Palladium” or “trusted systems”. The “palladium” or “trusted computing” that threatens to take control of the computer away from its user.
Moreover, there are legislative challenges, such as software patenting, and the digital Rights management (DRM), that Worsen when used technologies are embedded in industry standards, denying interoperability to anyone who can not get a patent license.
Another anti-democratic form would be the control of addresses and the Internet management.
What is required?
The future of the Internet depends on open dialogue and on the willingness of all interested parties – civil society, industry and governments. - To cooperate in a spirit of collaboration and mutual understanding.
Therefore, a culture of online communications should be encouraged by promoting internet access and use, by the governments as well as by the civil society.
Joint projects based on the use of the internet between different organizations and groups ensure not only presence and availability of local content but also promotion of democracy, social and economic development.
Fiscal policies and supportive legislation are of great importance in developing internet use.
Supporting democracy relies heavily on not creating new abuses and new forms of discriminations
Securing and promoting values such as human rights, democracy, rule of law, social cohesion, respect for cultural diversity and trust between individuals and between people, will largely depend on governments’ cooperation.
Democratization of the internet means a commitment of the governments to maintain software support for the network community. It means also Public policies and legislative texts that support all sorts of initiatives aiming to block commercial practices and greed from reversing the Internet revolution, by fencing off the internet: one for the haves and one for the haves not.
Multi-stakeholders assiduous efforts are required to build an inclusive development –oriented Information society.
Hence, not only effective cooperation is essential between the public and the private sectors in a country but also, between governments and international organizations.
According to the WSIS full participation of developing countries in the global market for ICT-enabled services should be guaranteed in order to allow these countries to reap the benefits of ICTs and to achieve digital inclusion.
Nevertheless, and despite all the commitments made by WSIS our world is still far from achieving this democratization of the internet.
Governments in rich countries where the internet finds much of its roots are still insisting on deepening the intellectual property laws in all countries around the world as if they desired to preserve absolute control over the technology.
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