Sandbox

Weekly inspiration #23: Internet Lovin’

February 15th, 2010 by Paul Gleger

Sunday being Valentines and the Chinese New Year, I tried to find a theme somehow connecting the two – ultimately settling on our love affair with the internet. Google’s first TV advertisement in the US captures the sentiment quite well.  The internet enables and initiates almost everything, from information sharing to  something potentially much more.

Ironically, as the ad tells the story of the internet being woven into our personal lives, Google threatens to withdraw services from China while Iran bans email and nearly shuts down its own internet.  Similarly, in more progressive countries, workplaces and schools seek to limit private communication, ranging from blocking social media to enforcing penalties for texting. The collision of interests is cultural as much as it is political.  Stefana Broadbent, an ethnographer studying the way social habits and relationships function in the digital age, concludes the internet facilitates modern intimacy.  Efforts to regulate this intimacy will be strenuous and short lived at best.

This exposes a deeper cultural dynamic. As the millennial generation merges the physical and virtual worlds and as ubiquitous, borderless, and instant communication become the norm, authorities with outdated worldviews will fall.  Fearing limits on their ability to maintain control, institutions corner communication technologies as a scapegoat, sometimes even blaming external powers for stirring domestic affairs.  China, for example, believes that the west is “wielding communications innovations from malware to Twitter to weaken it militarily and to stir dissent internally.” 

It’s true, online communication amplifies the collective (sometimes critical) voice.  Instead of silencing this voice, figures of authority must engage in conversation and establish a dialogue that demonstrates genuine concern. If the government or workplace can’t trust its own people to communicate freely, the problem is rooted much deeper.  Last week’s Economist Special Report on Social Networking briefly discusses this topic in relation to the workplace.

Image thanks to ivoryocean on Flickr.

Limiting access to communication won’t work for a generation of ‘digital natives’.  Online communication, in many ways, is an extension of and facilitator for physical interactions.  Connectivity is the new cultural norm and it’s woven into daily routines.  As younger people enter public service, the number of supporters understanding and championing this cultural norm will grow (Alec Ross and Jared Cohen being great examples in the US) — hopefully the trend is similar in other parts of the world.

As we celebrate the Chinese New Year and Valentines day, let’s hope China and all other countries with questionable internet policies realize that just as physical walls failed in the 20^th century, virtual walls will fail in the 21^st.  The internet must remain uncensored, information must move freely, and countries need to embrace the cultural norm valuing connectivity.  It’s time for internet lovin’.

Paul Gleger previously worked for the International Office of Communication and Information Policy at the US Department of State.  Among other things, the office was tasked with promoting internet freedom.  It was successfully lead by Sandbox Advisory Board member David Gross.