The Wiki man cometh
The mighty should quake before the Wiki man
New technology has the power to transform democracy
Tapscott calls them ‘the integrity generation. They’re a generation that wants to see integrity in the institutions that they deal with — whether they’re governments or companies or whatever.’ Their rise as the next cohort of voters should both thrill and terrify our politicians.
I think this is where the real energy in future politics now lies, much of it still latent. When the Prime Minister asked me over the summer what was worth reading, I unhesitatingly recommended Mark Earls’s Herd: How To Change Mass Behaviour By Harnessing our True Nature, a brilliant guide to the new landscape.
This is politics defined not only by the ballot box, spin doctoring, or the face beamed into the sitting-room on a plasma screen but something much bigger, messier and harder to define: millions of people interacting online 24 hours a day, seven days a week, finding common cause and using their collective power to achieve goals that may range from the irritatingly trivial to the deadly serious.
More so than in the case of any such revolution in history, this technological power really is in the hands of the people, if they wish to use it. Everywhere you see green shoots of activity that defy the control freaks and the sceptics. When I look at the netroots that are springing up, I must confess that I feel a bit old; but I also feel very optimistic. A different, decentralised, unformed moral and political economy is emerging all around us. Wolfie Smith would be proud.
Power and the Web, produced by Helen Grady, is broadcast on BBC Radio Four on Sunday 25 November at 10.45 p.m.; the second part can be heard on Sunday 2 December at the same time.
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Kare Anderson
November 22nd, 2007 11:18pmYou inadvertently offer a primer for politics everywhere - how cool here's to more coverage of Me2We methods.. my neighbor, Howard "Smart Mob" would love to observe http://www.movingfrommetowe.com/
Cogito Ergosum
November 22nd, 2007 11:31pmBefore the twentieth century we had the London Mob. Nowadays we have the comprehensive rabble. None of these would interact with the Internet in the way the author supposes. (P) I am afraid the Internet has captured his imagination but drained him of his powers of observing ordinary people.
Lucan C. Heraclitus
November 23rd, 2007 12:28amYou speak for yourself Cogito and I'll speak for mine. Comprehensive rabble indeed! Rubbish, Sir! Rubbish! For the past forty years the politics of our country has been dominated by networks of neo-marxist cliques and now the web is washing out their covert webs. The totalitarian movements of the twentieth century depended upon the use of the mass media to manipulate the public opinion but the use of force to silence opposition. The w.w.web has made it very difficult for political cliques - a point underlined by Blair's distressingly distressed attack on this 'feral' world of ours that he made shortly before he went on his way somewhere or other.
alan
November 26th, 2007 7:13pmLast week my organisation had some Web 2.0 "Experts" in the office, attempting to convince some of the older elements of the office of the value of the internet, of the web, of new media tools and techniques. Some of it fell on some very deaf ears. I've only listened to the first show, but i will be sending the Radio 4 Listen Again link to my superiors, as it is an excellent primer to some of the ideas and concepts you present so well and so simply.
ATFlynn.
November 27th, 2007 10:43amI wrote to Professor Peter Cochrane, Head of Research at BT, on the 20th Aug. 1999. about this subject. And I have posted many comments on BBC Actionnetwork and other places. This is the ultimate power to put a Check Rein on any Politician. The power of all and any government, rests in its ability to levy Taxation. It is legally possible today, to move all income beyond the jurisdiction of the government and quite legally avoid all Direct Taxation. My suggestion is for all working TaxPayers to come to an agreement on the amount of Taxation to be paid, and then use their Parish and Town Councils as their Tax Collectors. In this fashion, the government of the day, has only the power to spend the money that the TaxPayer agrees to allow. Regards, ATFlynn.
Bu on U
November 28th, 2007 4:07pmThe www works in another, surprising way to battle totalitarianism by overzealous police action - people can post them on YouTube, and the official line of the police officer that he was acting appropriately, or that the citizen was resisting, or that the protesting mob was about to riot, are utterly destroyed. Let a transparent justice reign!
Andromeda
November 29th, 2007 12:23pmHas anyone visited http://www.1party4all.co.uk the opinion-polling direct democracy website where you can vote on its many provocative polls? Its conceit is that it is a VIRTUAL protest party with "policies" influenced by its ENTIRE membership. It also has 2 systems of voting: OMOV (One Member One Vote) and OMMV (One Member Multiple Votes - earned through an internal award system that is designed to be meritocratic). You can change your mind at any time and vote the other way. Membership is free requiring only the minimum of personal information. Its current poll concerns the very topical issue of party funding and suggests a radical alternative of no representation without taxation and greater representation with greater taxation.
Christian Egners
March 7th, 2008 1:31amVery true, a lot has changed with the internet, giving lots of people immediate access to information and communication. However, the authorities are uneasy about it, trying to use information technology against us (DNA-databases, etc.), reducing each and every user of the internet to potential terrorists that must be monitored. We all ought to be very aware and wary of state interference that pretends to interfere in our privacy for the sake of security (quite a buzz word since "9-11"). Let's all watch out for Big Brother, who is no ,longer content with just watching us...