The Infrastructure of Democracy - Strengthening the Open Internet for a Safer World (Madrid, Spain. March 11, 2005).
I. The Internet is a foundation of democratic society in the 21st century, because the core values of the Internet and democracy are so closely aligned.
II. Decentralized systems — the power of many — can combat decentralized foes.
III. The best response to abuses of openness is more openness.
IV. Well-meaning regulation of the Internet in established democracies could threaten the development of emerging democracies.
V. In conclusion we urge those gathered here in Madrid to:
1. Embrace the open Internet as a foundation of 21st Century democracy, and a critical tool in the fight against terrorism.
2. Recognizing the Internet’s value as a critical communications infrastructure, invest to strengthen it against attacks and recover quickly from damage.
3. Work to spread access more evenly, aggressively addressing the Digital Divide, and to provide Internet access for all.
4. To protect free speech and association, endorse the availability of anonymous communications for all.
5. Resist attempts at international governance of the Internet: It can introduce processes that have unintended effects and violate the bottom-up democratic nature of the Net.
There was a conversation on the comment on point 2:
3. As we saw in the aftermath of the March 11 bombing, response was spontaneous and rapid because the citizens were able to use the Internet to organize themselves.
People from the right of the Spanish political spectrum are against the word “spontaneous”.
Some think that powerful Spanish media organized demonstrations in front of the building of the Popular Party and forced citizens to vote the leftist PSOE.
My comments were:
I agree with the word “spontaneous” because people decided to attend to the demonstration, resend SMS, blog about it…
From my point of view, it is not credible that some groups forced hundreds or even thousands to do what they did. They did what they did because they wanted it to do it.
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PSOE didn’t have that power then, so PP won’t have it in the future.
This is a free society, and free people do whatever they want.
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Stressing the point that media are bad and open source journalism is good, is a dangerous simplification.
There are biased blogs and free media.
People have sources to choose, for me this is the key.
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Spain is not a dictatorship and wasn’t neither during the 8 years of PP government.
Some media are biased and so dozens of blogs, but there are both media and blogs which are truly free and independent, sources that people can trust and relay on.
Maybe I am too naive, but think that people could be manipulated some times but not all the time and specially not everybody could be manipulated all the time. This free voices will talk and people will listen.
6 comments
3/13/2005 at 4:17 pm
Stephanie
I also agree that the Internet is like a Democracy. Where else do you get so much freedom? A way to solve problems with the internet is to create even more internet and open ways getting out issues. But a lot of (if not almost all) blogs and basic internet sites are biased, there’s no way around it.
3/13/2005 at 9:02 pm
Justin E.
I have to admit that the Internet may be becoming larger and more powerful than many people ever dreamed. While the internet is a democracy and the truest form of free speech, I don’t know if I see it as a way to combat terrorism. I think that as long as there aren’t any regulations on the internet then terrorist or anyone else can use it for whatever they want,
3/17/2005 at 1:32 pm
Ashley C
I think it is good that the internet remains free of restrictions and promotes free speech. The interent has become too vast to regulate in my opinion. I think everyone who uses the internet for information realizes that a lot of what they are reading are people’s opinions, not necessarily fact.
3/20/2005 at 5:34 pm
Lindsay_J
This made me think of those Left Behind books… one way the “underground” Christians united themselves and accessed biblical teachings was via the internet. It was used as a tool to strenghthen the army of believers and to get out messages that needed to be disemminated. So I guess that is an example of the internet being “a critical communications infrastructure” with the opportunity to “strengthen … against attacks and recover quickly from damage.”
3/20/2005 at 7:25 pm
Karen
The Internet is a democracy. There is much freedom when using it. It is for all with access. But with that freedom comes, what I believe to be a lack of trust. You can never be sure of what you are reading. There are no regulations, no one to validate what is being said, no rules. So, everyone must take it for what it is. On the other side, with the internet becoming increasing popular, many credible sources have placed their opinions out there. Going along with what you said, not everyone has to listen to what is being said. We all have the freedom to choose what we read on the internet.
3/21/2005 at 5:08 am
Octavio Isaac Rojas Orduña
Thank you to all for your comments.
Freedom at whatever the price is not good, but it is quite difficult to establish limits to a new universe and this is exactly what internet is: a whole new brand universe that is having a new explosion with blogs.