This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen
on .
It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
Organising against the enemies of internet freedom
Organising against the enemies of internet freedom
(3 days later)
On 24 April, a group of internet entrepreneurs sought to get the future into a single conference room in Chelsea, and have it talk. "Hacking Society" was hosted by Union Square Ventures – the venture capital firm that was an early investor in Zynga, Twitter, Tumblr, Foursquare, Etsy, and Kickstarter. The mission:
On 24 April, a group of internet entrepreneurs sought to get the future into a single conference room in Chelsea, and have it talk. "Hacking Society" was hosted by Union Square Ventures – the venture capital firm that was an early investor in Zynga, Twitter, Tumblr, Foursquare, Etsy, and Kickstarter. The mission:
"[To] discuss how the economics of networks might help solve challenging social and economic problems; examine how incumbents use their influence over the current policy process to stave off competition from networks; define a proactive, network-friendly 'freedom to innovate' policy agenda; and examine how 'net native' policy advocacy works and how it can be harnessed to promote a positive agenda as well as overthrow bad policy and bad regimes."
"[To] discuss how the economics of networks might help solve challenging social and economic problems; examine how incumbents use their influence over the current policy process to stave off competition from networks; define a proactive, network-friendly 'freedom to innovate' policy agenda; and examine how 'net native' policy advocacy works and how it can be harnessed to promote a positive agenda as well as overthrow bad policy and bad regimes."
A tall order but desperately needed: in an era when revolutions start on Facebook but are ended by internet surveillance; when activists in China connect by tweets but are stalked and arrested by tweets; and when we are seeing copycat legislation in democracies around the world, from Australia to Britain, to Canada and the US, to grab the internet in the hands of the state … many people around the world would want this group to hammer out a successful self-defense agenda.
A tall order but desperately needed: in an era when revolutions start on Facebook but are ended by internet surveillance; when activists in China connect by tweets but are stalked and arrested by tweets; and when we are seeing copycat legislation in democracies around the world, from Australia to Britain, to Canada and the US, to grab the internet in the hands of the state … many people around the world would want this group to hammer out a successful self-defense agenda.
Present were all sectors needed for lift-off: internet freedom champions John Perry Barlow and Cindy Cohn of the Electronic Frontier Foundation; network theory gurus Clay Shirky of NYU and Yochai Benkler of Harvard ; commercial success stories such as Craig Newmark of Craigslist and originators of Mozilla, Reddit and Kickstarter; campaign finance reform champion Larry Lessig; even the Hill was represented by Representative Jim Cooper of Tennessee, and a trade aide for Representative Ron Wyden of Oregon.
Present were all sectors needed for lift-off: internet freedom champions John Perry Barlow and Cindy Cohn of the Electronic Frontier Foundation; network theory gurus Clay Shirky of NYU and Yochai Benkler of Harvard ; commercial success stories such as Craig Newmark of Craigslist and originators of Mozilla, Reddit and Kickstarter; campaign finance reform champion Larry Lessig; even the Hill was represented by Representative Jim Cooper of Tennessee, and a trade aide for Representative Ron Wyden of Oregon.
The conveners framed the clash at hand rightly: the fight over the internet was "incumbents versus insurgents" – insurgents challenging existing gatekeepers and institutional power, incumbents defending. As philosopher Luigi Zingales said, getting the biggest laugh of the day, "All entrepreneurs want a free market when they enter and don't want one after they win." The same could be said of political leaders.
The conveners framed the clash at hand rightly: the fight over the internet was "incumbents versus insurgents" – insurgents challenging existing gatekeepers and institutional power, incumbents defending. As philosopher Luigi Zingales said, getting the biggest laugh of the day, "All entrepreneurs want a free market when they enter and don't want one after they win." The same could be said of political leaders.
The open web has powerful enemies, as the near-death experience of the recent battle over Sopa and Pipa demonstrated, a crisis that added fire to this discussion. Who are the incumbents threatened by an open internet? The existing global power holders, who are waging such war now against it. I would argue that the Hollywood copyright holders who seemingly led the fight for Sopa/Pipa are just being used as stalking horses by the real enemies of an open internet: the global control corporations, the war interests, banking interests, Big Pharma and big insurance.
The open web has powerful enemies, as the near-death experience of the recent battle over Sopa and Pipa demonstrated, a crisis that added fire to this discussion. Who are the incumbents threatened by an open internet? The existing global power holders, who are waging such war now against it. I would argue that the Hollywood copyright holders who seemingly led the fight for Sopa/Pipa are just being used as stalking horses by the real enemies of an open internet: the global control corporations, the war interests, banking interests, Big Pharma and big insurance.
The real enemy identified by proponents of Sopa/Pipa-type laws is not piracy, or whatever fake message they come up with next, but dissent – which all of these control corporations know will force them to open up their books and be accountable. This is the same threat that led to the violent legislative and physical crackdown against Occupy.
The real enemy identified by proponents of Sopa/Pipa-type laws is not piracy, or whatever fake message they come up with next, but dissent – which all of these control corporations know will force them to open up their books and be accountable. This is the same threat that led to the violent legislative and physical crackdown against Occupy.
Larry Lessig noted that 196 Americans have donated 80% of the Super Pac funds raised so far this year, and that the movement being formed by the internet's defenders should have reform of the money system in US politics as one of its core values. Cindy Cohn of Electronic Frontier Foundation spoke about the need for a legislative "early warning system", to let users know when a bill has been introduced that will threaten open access – but pointed out that nonprofits such as hers are understaffed and underfunded while fighting a well-funded army of countervailing noisemakers.
Larry Lessig noted that 196 Americans have donated 80% of the Super Pac funds raised so far this year, and that the movement being formed by the internet's defenders should have reform of the money system in US politics as one of its core values. Cindy Cohn of Electronic Frontier Foundation spoke about the need for a legislative "early warning system", to let users know when a bill has been introduced that will threaten open access – but pointed out that nonprofits such as hers are understaffed and underfunded while fighting a well-funded army of countervailing noisemakers.
And we are in a race against time. As with dissent activism, by the time an "open-sourced", open-structured pro-internet movement has coalesced, its conversations will already have been surveilled, laws against it passed and its leaders – its participants – will already be targeted. For defensive purposes, this movement should hire its own K street lawyers and organize its own lobby for a free internet, alongside building its "purer" grassroots component.
And we are in a race against time. As with dissent activism, by the time an "open-sourced", open-structured pro-internet movement has coalesced, its conversations will already have been surveilled, laws against it passed and its leaders – its participants – will already be targeted. For defensive purposes, this movement should hire its own K street lawyers and organize its own lobby for a free internet, alongside building its "purer" grassroots component.
Venture capitalist Fred Wilson proposed that Facebook and Google be asked to donate ad space to politicians, as a way of sidestepping the influence of money in politics. This makes huge sense: most people don't realize that the money in US politics is not going into anyone's pocket directly but is buying vast amounts of TV ad space. Donate the space in this crazy new medium, and so disrupt the corruption economy.
Venture capitalist Fred Wilson proposed that Facebook and Google be asked to donate ad space to politicians, as a way of sidestepping the influence of money in politics. This makes huge sense: most people don't realize that the money in US politics is not going into anyone's pocket directly but is buying vast amounts of TV ad space. Donate the space in this crazy new medium, and so disrupt the corruption economy.
Not everyone shares the same levels of optimism or pessimism about the internet's innate ability to out-innovate repressive institutions. I believe the only reason US power interests have not cracked down fully yet on the internet before now is not that the internet is innately smarter and more flexible than the state and corporations, but rather because it has not been understood well enough as an entity until now to break it. But that's changing: the Department of Homeland Security is giving contractors the task of social media surveillance.
Not everyone shares the same levels of optimism or pessimism about the internet's innate ability to out-innovate repressive institutions. I believe the only reason US power interests have not cracked down fully yet on the internet before now is not that the internet is innately smarter and more flexible than the state and corporations, but rather because it has not been understood well enough as an entity until now to break it. But that's changing: the Department of Homeland Security is giving contractors the task of social media surveillance.
My sources of relative anxiety about the internet's fragility are those who love the internet but whom, in the absence of political freedom, the internet has unintentionally seduced and betrayed: the Syrian bloggers jailed for their posts; the Palestinian human rights activists intimidated after raising money online; dissidents like Ai WeiWei, who acted as though the internet itself was freedom – tweeting his injuries after he was beaten up by secret police – but whose tweets went quiet when we was disappeared for over a month. It is important to distinguish between the power of the internet to make the great change it can, and the limits and vulnerabilities of that change without real-time political mobilization deployed globally to protect those who venture out, especially in closed societies, into the heady new vistas it offers.
My sources of relative anxiety about the internet's fragility are those who love the internet but whom, in the absence of political freedom, the internet has unintentionally seduced and betrayed: the Syrian bloggers jailed for their posts; the Palestinian human rights activists intimidated after raising money online; dissidents like Ai WeiWei, who acted as though the internet itself was freedom – tweeting his injuries after he was beaten up by secret police – but whose tweets went quiet when we was disappeared for over a month. It is important to distinguish between the power of the internet to make the great change it can, and the limits and vulnerabilities of that change without real-time political mobilization deployed globally to protect those who venture out, especially in closed societies, into the heady new vistas it offers.
Yet, I left the event feeling hopeful – even inspired. Among these people, I was reassured that we have the analytical power, political clout and technological vision to organize to protect the internet – and, it is probably not an overstatement to say, in some sense, the global community. Once an umbrella advocacy group (or whatever emerges) is in place, it deserves massive citizen support.
Yet, I left the event feeling hopeful – even inspired. Among these people, I was reassured that we have the analytical power, political clout and technological vision to organize to protect the internet – and, it is probably not an overstatement to say, in some sense, the global community. Once an umbrella advocacy group (or whatever emerges) is in place, it deserves massive citizen support.
Although the beauty of the internet as community is its informal collectivity, next steps urgently require some formal organization, leadership and goal-setting. A utopian future for the internet could be secured if the heavy-duty influencers – and the grassroots influencers tweeting along – can create a new global organization peopled with defenders of internet freedom. That would have the early warning mechanism, deep pockets, smart lawyers, great message team, powerful advocates on Capitol Hill – and a billion, or, say, three billion, connected grassroots users – all linked up, mad, smart and empowered.
Although the beauty of the internet as community is its informal collectivity, next steps urgently require some formal organization, leadership and goal-setting. A utopian future for the internet could be secured if the heavy-duty influencers – and the grassroots influencers tweeting along – can create a new global organization peopled with defenders of internet freedom. That would have the early warning mechanism, deep pockets, smart lawyers, great message team, powerful advocates on Capitol Hill – and a billion, or, say, three billion, connected grassroots users – all linked up, mad, smart and empowered.
• Disclosure: Naomi Wolf has discussed a project proposal with Union Square Ventures
• Disclosure: Naomi Wolf has discussed a project proposal with Union Square Ventures
Comments
29 comments, displaying first
27 April 2012 5:48PM
A good article.
Governments around the world, and corporations too, view the internet as a threat to their control and would love to stop the freedom it provides. We must not let them do this.
Link to this comment:
27 April 2012 5:57PM
The incumbents/insurgents narrative has romantic appeal, and remains relevant for regimes' cyberwalls, but it's important to remember that it is They who are coming in and wish to tame and usurp our frontier. These attempts to regulate and stovepipe the net are fairly recent.
Good and inspiring article, Naomi, but I'm afraid too many interests have aligned against Internet freedom for any of this to be successful. States want to surveil and retain easy pretexts for criminalising undesireables. Corporations want to protect intellectual property and also mine every chunk of information about the ad target to better brainwash us into buying crap. As you recognise, that's more or less all global power covered. Even the 'Facebook revolution' of Egypt is little more than a marketing gimmick; it started quite traditionally, and the use of social media (as opposed to things like simple text messages) for coordination was minimal.
There will be no 'three billion smart, mad activists' if half of them end up having their access to the internet managed through their wretched Facebook page. We can defy for the sake of defiance through better encryption, better p2p, various packet obfuscation methods to complicate jurisdiction, but people will willingly accept Internet life through bright little apps and solipsistic social media hubs. Where will your activists come from?
Link to this comment:
27 April 2012 5:59PM
I'm optimistic that, in the end, it won't be possible to control the internet. But this doesn't mean that we shouldn't fight as hard as we can against every attempt to turn the greatest tool for liberation and education that has emerged in hundreds of years into a cross between cable TV and Stalin's Russia.
Link to this comment:
27 April 2012 6:04PM
I'm sorry. There are adolescents with computers who are mucking up the voting system, bringing down the NHS, etc without any concept of what damage they a
Link to this comment:
27 April 2012 6:06PM
Sorry about that. South of France internet.
Link to this comment:
27 April 2012 6:08PM
Internet freedoms are compatible with the rights enshrined within UNHCR for all to enjoy. For what government believes it has the right in either restricting or curtailing these fundamental rights of expression?
Link to this comment:
27 April 2012 6:11PM
An article without a book plug...?
*swoon*
Link to this comment:
27 April 2012 6:32PM
"For what government believes it has the right in either restricting or curtailing these fundamental rights of expression?"
All of them?
Link to this comment:
27 April 2012 6:35PM
My interpretation of what is written is that the author believes that legislation is being put forward in some western countries, notably the USA, to stifle dissent against government and powerful commercial interests. That might be true but I don't understand the mechanism. USA citizens via their constitution have far more protection of their freedom of speech than we in the UK. How would increasing control of the internet affect this unless the constitution is changed? My understanding is that, at least in the UK and likely to an extent in the USA, freedom of speech is not freedom to say anything; the judge opining that one does not have the right mischievously to shout "Fire!" in a theatre comes to mind.
The question arises as to how current proposals to tighten control of the internet would work to the advantage of power groups. Its likely that it will be more easy to apprehend those who by any reasonable standards are abusing what they believe to be freedom of expression such as when encouraging others onto the streets to riot; perhaps some readers regard that as a virtue in oppressed countries but would shy away from it here. So, how shall trenchant criticism of the political and economic order be suppressed if only legitimate political expression rather than riot is being advocated? The only possibility I can see is such tight control of the internet that all websites along with blogs etc. have to be licensed; a robust national firewall would be required too. I can't see that the present legislative moves, repellent though they are, lead to the necessary level of control to suppress peaceful dissent. To those who say that sometimes violent dissent is required I respond: maybe so but usually that reflects poverty of imagination - in our complicated, interconnected society all manner of mischief can be wrought against oppressive bodies without any need to go on the streets.
Link to this comment:
27 April 2012 6:41PM
A non-profit organization will never have the funds or skill to compete with a vested for-profit interests.
Simply put, the public can't play the same game as the Powers-That-Be because they made the rules. The only way for the internet to be universally free and accessible is to build a new infrastructure which is exists outside of the reach of governments and corporations. Rather than depending on an infrastructure controlled by for-profit stakeholders.
So, instead of taking money and giving it to lawyers, lobbyists and legislators, who really only care about supporting this cause so long as they're paid. It should be given to engineers and scientists who actually care about creating an Internet that supports the advancement of humanity, as a whole. They can use these resources to develop and deploy new communication technology to build an Internet with a widely distributed infrastructure that isn't dominated by any single entity or group.
The Internet is the greatest invention of humanity, to date. It is the best chance for our species to advance to a civilization that can survive beyond the next cataclysm. If we allow it to become the tool of the profit-motivated, then we are doomed. Depending on legislation is a losing game, we must depend on innovation.
Link to this comment:
27 April 2012 7:07PM
How can you have net freedom if people can go to prison in the UK for tweeting dumb things. The last thing the UK Left wants is US style freedom of speech, so what is the point of this? State interference in the net is in the eye of the beholder ...
Link to this comment:
27 April 2012 7:50PM
The internet following on from television, has made lard-arses/minds out of most.
Link to this comment:
27 April 2012 8:02PM
We need a global movement to check them
It's called Anonymous @anonops No need to reinvent the wheel.
Link to this comment:
27 April 2012 8:16PM
I agree with this, and am tired of the "Internet freedom" debate. Freedom to do what? Say Hitler was a socialist? Freedom to say single mothers are the cause of all government debt?
Link to this comment:
27 April 2012 8:25PM
An important article for me who isn't nudged awake from under the rock where I hide except by the likes of the EFF, Craigslist, and Anonymous, on occasion. How to keep the economic behemoth from monetizing every scrap of value on the internet when our 'leaders' are natural born ass kissers? Sheer outrage seems a good first reaction.
Link to this comment:
27 April 2012 10:00PM
Neither global nor a movement nor very effective.
Link to this comment:
27 April 2012 10:10PM
Freedom to say single mothers are the cause of all government debt?
You dont need the imternet for that...just the Daily Mail
Link to this comment:
27 April 2012 10:11PM
While I appreciate your motives, your idea to build a global, independent network without government interference is just never going to happen. Even if you had lots of money.
The trick is to build a network within the present day internet which will allow people to use the internet in the way it was intended. The foundations of this "hidden" network is already there. Activists, artists, politicians and journalists in countries with oppressive governments (such as the UK) already use it to get their message or story out.
What actually needs to happen is for people to take their online presence and privacy seriously, then the net will become much freer.
The tools are there - Tor, IRC, Bitcoins and unbreakable encryption are all easily available - use them.
Link to this comment:
27 April 2012 10:12PM
PS:
Although, judging by the number of comments, nobody gives a shit.
Link to this comment:
28 April 2012 12:12AM
Response to mrsussex, 27 April 2012 10:11PM:
"The tools are there..."
Not everyone is technically savvy enough to assemble a toolkit. What's needed is a bootable CD that you can put in any PC with all the tools assembled from open sources so there's no copyright violation and no cost. The tools are here:
The Amnesic Incognito Live System
Use the Internet anonymously almost anywhere you go and on any computer:
all connections to the internet are forced to go through the Tor network;
leave no trace on the computer you're using unless you ask it explicitly; and
use state of the art cryptographic tools to encrypt your files, email and instant messaging.
https://tails.boum.org/
Link to this comment:
28 April 2012 12:18AM
Words of wisdom for a time like this:
Jim Hacker: Don't tell me about the Press. I know exactly who reads the papers. The Daily Mirror is read by the people who think they run the country. The Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country. The Times is read by the people who actually do run the country. The Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country. The Financial Times is read by people who own the country. The Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country. The Daily Telegraph is read by the people who think it is.
Sir Humphrey: Prime Minister, what about the people who read The Sun?
Link to this comment:
28 April 2012 12:46AM
People would, but Freenet is horribly slow and filled with perverts and schizophrenics.
If you want to build your own, I wouldn't use IRC and Bitcoin is definitely a no-no. Tor is a good start, but it is limited because it's a proxy and not a virtual network device. XBone is better, from that standpoint, but it lacks the randomized paths of Tor. Tor needs components of XBone merged in to be fully useful.
No encryption is "unbreakable" (other than one-time pads), but it can be made extremely hard to break. Opportunistic IPSec is the best place to start there. In fact, when IPv6 was first designed, opportunistic encryption was intended to be a fundamental part of it to protect privacy and prevent cyber attacks. Opponents to the idea (such as law enforcement) went virtually unopposed, resulting in encryption being removed from the technology. I'd love to know where the privacy advocates were during those debates, since they might have won had they bothered to turn up.
Another program you don't mention is Balsa, which lets you send strongly-encrypted emails. Email is one of the least secure formats out there, but is widely used and is used to share highly personal information. PGP (and, more recently, GnuPG) had that all solved in the 90s, but again nobody clamoured for it and nobody much cared. Privacy now is bolting the door two decades after the horse gave several week's advance notice, left after providing a forwarding address and has died of old age. Useful, but a little late.
The real problem is that nobody believes privacy violations can happen to them. Others, yes, but not them. Until it happens. Even if the technical aspects of the problem are fixed, until the attitude is fixed then privacy will remain an illusion. Those of us British old enough to remember aught to have learned that in the 1980s from the Cheshire Catalyst's poetic words of advice to the presenters of Micro Live. My guess is that the majority of those who saw that episode still to this day assume nothing could happen to them or their data.
There's also the reverse problem. Worry too much, become obsessive about it, and you can actually give yourself schizophrenia and/or paranoia. That's why it would have been far better if IPv6 had all the security originally intended, because then almost everything is done for you. If there's little to worry about and nothing to stress over, you won't induce a mental illness.
Link to this comment:
28 April 2012 4:11AM
Response to imipak, 28 April 2012 12:46AM:
Thanks for an accurate summary of how we got to this point and of the tools we have available. One thing though:
"No encryption is unbreakable (other than one-time pads)..."
That's probably true, although some encryption would probably take a while to break, but there are several fairly simple techniques to improve communication security.
Steganography embeds one message within another. Unless you know there's a hidden message, you won't be looking for one.
Even better, channel coding such as Tor uses distributes segments of a message across a number of communication channels so that only a fragment of the message can be recovered from any one channel. Systems like Tor make it difficult for third parties to re-assemble the message fragments.
Not everyone can assess all of the available choices. That's the beauty of the TAILS Linux distribution that provides a preconfigured toolkit for strong communication security.
https://tails.boum.org
Link to this comment:
28 April 2012 4:14AM
The Internet is the greatest invention of humanity, to date. It is the best chance for our species to advance to a civilization that can survive beyond the next cataclysm. If we allow it to become the tool of the profit-motivated, then we are doomed. Depending on legislation is a losing game, we must depend on innovation
Who will provide the massive electric power and physical infrastructure needed to sustain the internet after that cataclysm?
After the fall, those with books, those who can still write by hand, do mathematics without a calculator, communicate in person, farm, tend herds, hunt, gather… get the picture?
A utopian future for the internet ... would have the early warning mechanism, deep pockets, smart lawyers, great message team, powerful advocates on Capitol Hill – and a billion, or, say, three billion, connected grassroots users – all linked up, mad, smart and empowered.
Sadly, most of those Internet users are not represented by elected representative or lobbyists on Capitol Hill. Many are not to be found within the borders of the United States, but rather within the bounds, and under the control, of authoritarian states.
A supra-national organisation of Internet users is clearly called for - and perhaps by keeping the Internet free, those who use it will also find their freedom.
Link to this comment:
28 April 2012 5:50PM
I ... am tired of the "Internet freedom" debate. Freedom to do what? Say Hitler was a socialist? Freedom to say single mothers are the cause of all government debt?
Human stupidity knows no bounds, and the Internet is simply another outlet to disseminate such tripe.
Link to this comment:
28 April 2012 5:51PM
Planet Zorak, for example, is completely IP-enabled.
Link to this comment:
30 April 2012 11:46AM
Once again the guardian misses the not-so-subtlety of the debate. It's not Governments and large corporations on one side of the "freedom of the internet" debate and individuals on the other. This is a completely outdated narrative.
The freedom of the internet debate has been totally co-opted. Google and other giant tech companies would have you believe they are fighting for your "freedom" when it's actually their freedom to exploit us. Further they want to be beyond government control. In this publication Sergey Brin said: "If we could wave a magic wand and not be subject to US law, that would be great".
Personally I'd rather have a democratically controlled elected government regulating the internet, rather than a company like google which isn't even accountable to it's own shareholders. (see latest stock split).
Further Google, Facebook and others web 2.0 companies are all built on an "architecture of exploitation". or as Stephen Colbert smartly noted in his interview with Lawrence Lessig:
Colbert: Well let’s see (laughing)…so the hybrid economy is where everybody else does the work and Flickr makes all the money?
Wake up people.
Link to this comment:
30 April 2012 2:11PM
Why is it that the people most worked up by "internet freedom" are the ones with the least understanding of it, or did I just answer my own question?
Trust me Naomi, there's not a single person of any importance who considers anything you say as being remotely 'dangerous' or worth censoring.
Link to this comment:
Comments on this page are now closed.
More from On making change
A weekly column by campaigning author and journalist Naomi Wolf. Follow her on Twitter @naomirwolf
26 Oct 2012: Amanda Todd's suicide and social media's sexualisation of youth culture | Naomi Wolf
1 May 2012: Q&A with Naomi Wolf: the open internet and its enemies
20 Apr 2012: Q&A with Naomi Wolf: Katy Perry's pop and US military PR | Naomi Wolf
On making change index
Turn autoplay off
Turn autoplay on
Please activate cookies in order to turn autoplay off
Edition: UK
About us
Today's paper
Subscribe
There are powerful state and corporate interests ranged against an open internet. We need a global movement to check them
On 24 April, a group of internet entrepreneurs sought to get the future into a single conference room in Chelsea, and have it talk. "Hacking Society" was hosted by Union Square Ventures – the venture capital firm that was an early investor in Zynga, Twitter, Tumblr, Foursquare, Etsy, and Kickstarter. The mission:
"[To] discuss how the economics of networks might help solve challenging social and economic problems; examine how incumbents use their influence over the current policy process to stave off competition from networks; define a proactive, network-friendly 'freedom to innovate' policy agenda; and examine how 'net native' policy advocacy works and how it can be harnessed to promote a positive agenda as well as overthrow bad policy and bad regimes."
A tall order but desperately needed: in an era when revolutions start on Facebook but are ended by internet surveillance; when activists in China connect by tweets but are stalked and arrested by tweets; and when we are seeing copycat legislation in democracies around the world, from Australia to Britain, to Canada and the US, to grab the internet in the hands of the state … many people around the world would want this group to hammer out a successful self-defense agenda.
Present were all sectors needed for lift-off: internet freedom champions John Perry Barlow and Cindy Cohn of the Electronic Frontier Foundation; network theory gurus Clay Shirky of NYU and Yochai Benkler of Harvard ; commercial success stories such as Craig Newmark of Craigslist and originators of Mozilla, Reddit and Kickstarter; campaign finance reform champion Larry Lessig; even the Hill was represented by Representative Jim Cooper of Tennessee, and a trade aide for Representative Ron Wyden of Oregon.
The conveners framed the clash at hand rightly: the fight over the internet was "incumbents versus insurgents" – insurgents challenging existing gatekeepers and institutional power, incumbents defending. As philosopher Luigi Zingales said, getting the biggest laugh of the day, "All entrepreneurs want a free market when they enter and don't want one after they win." The same could be said of political leaders.
The open web has powerful enemies, as the near-death experience of the recent battle over Sopa and Pipa demonstrated, a crisis that added fire to this discussion. Who are the incumbents threatened by an open internet? The existing global power holders, who are waging such war now against it. I would argue that the Hollywood copyright holders who seemingly led the fight for Sopa/Pipa are just being used as stalking horses by the real enemies of an open internet: the global control corporations, the war interests, banking interests, Big Pharma and big insurance.
The real enemy identified by proponents of Sopa/Pipa-type laws is not piracy, or whatever fake message they come up with next, but dissent – which all of these control corporations know will force them to open up their books and be accountable. This is the same threat that led to the violent legislative and physical crackdown against Occupy.
Larry Lessig noted that 196 Americans have donated 80% of the Super Pac funds raised so far this year, and that the movement being formed by the internet's defenders should have reform of the money system in US politics as one of its core values. Cindy Cohn of Electronic Frontier Foundation spoke about the need for a legislative "early warning system", to let users know when a bill has been introduced that will threaten open access – but pointed out that nonprofits such as hers are understaffed and underfunded while fighting a well-funded army of countervailing noisemakers.
And we are in a race against time. As with dissent activism, by the time an "open-sourced", open-structured pro-internet movement has coalesced, its conversations will already have been surveilled, laws against it passed and its leaders – its participants – will already be targeted. For defensive purposes, this movement should hire its own K street lawyers and organize its own lobby for a free internet, alongside building its "purer" grassroots component.
Venture capitalist Fred Wilson proposed that Facebook and Google be asked to donate ad space to politicians, as a way of sidestepping the influence of money in politics. This makes huge sense: most people don't realize that the money in US politics is not going into anyone's pocket directly but is buying vast amounts of TV ad space. Donate the space in this crazy new medium, and so disrupt the corruption economy.
Not everyone shares the same levels of optimism or pessimism about the internet's innate ability to out-innovate repressive institutions. I believe the only reason US power interests have not cracked down fully yet on the internet before now is not that the internet is innately smarter and more flexible than the state and corporations, but rather because it has not been understood well enough as an entity until now to break it. But that's changing: the Department of Homeland Security is giving contractors the task of social media surveillance.
My sources of relative anxiety about the internet's fragility are those who love the internet but whom, in the absence of political freedom, the internet has unintentionally seduced and betrayed: the Syrian bloggers jailed for their posts; the Palestinian human rights activists intimidated after raising money online; dissidents like Ai WeiWei, who acted as though the internet itself was freedom – tweeting his injuries after he was beaten up by secret police – but whose tweets went quiet when we was disappeared for over a month. It is important to distinguish between the power of the internet to make the great change it can, and the limits and vulnerabilities of that change without real-time political mobilization deployed globally to protect those who venture out, especially in closed societies, into the heady new vistas it offers.
Yet, I left the event feeling hopeful – even inspired. Among these people, I was reassured that we have the analytical power, political clout and technological vision to organize to protect the internet – and, it is probably not an overstatement to say, in some sense, the global community. Once an umbrella advocacy group (or whatever emerges) is in place, it deserves massive citizen support.
Although the beauty of the internet as community is its informal collectivity, next steps urgently require some formal organization, leadership and goal-setting. A utopian future for the internet could be secured if the heavy-duty influencers – and the grassroots influencers tweeting along – can create a new global organization peopled with defenders of internet freedom. That would have the early warning mechanism, deep pockets, smart lawyers, great message team, powerful advocates on Capitol Hill – and a billion, or, say, three billion, connected grassroots users – all linked up, mad, smart and empowered.
• Disclosure: Naomi Wolf has discussed a project proposal with Union Square Ventures
