The Political Demographics of Cyberspace (page 1 of 2)
By Michel Bauwens

We have all known that innovation always comes from the fringes, before it is co-opted and integrated by commercial interests.

Undoubtedly, the commercialization of the Internet will also have an influence on the Internet culture. First, traditional businesses will increasingly want a presence on the Internet, in the form of electronic storefronts. Second, there's a new breed of cyber-entrepreneurs exploiting new niches. We do not belong to the group of people who deplores this development. We believe business is a legitimate activity, and that it will not destroy the net. The barter economy and the new cyber-entrepreneurs will find a modus vivendi. The free services and knowledge sharing will survive, supplemented with fee-based services and electronic commerce. There are powerful technological and social reasons why these forces will not dominate the net: the nature of the medium simply does not allow for centralized control and for intrusive broadcasting. Only Invited Persuaders' will be culturally acceptable. As has been proven many times by now, the users of the Internet have enough retaliatory power at their kill unsavory practices in the bud.

The above section is based on personal observations and analysis. What do actual studies tell us?

Do these social forces find a political expression? They indeed do.

I had the opportunity to witness the first conference of the American Progress & Freedom Foundation, led by Newt Gingrich, an organization which seems to represent the economic forces creating the technology. The ideological rationales behind the APFF are the Third Wave ideas of Alvin Toffler.

Speakers argued that just as the industrial revolution (second wave) had to sweep away the restrictions imposed by feudal society (first wave), the third wave forces now should do the same with second wave restrictions. Hence Big Government, and industrial society' type institutions like the educational establishment, welfare, and unions should be made harmless, and greater freedom of enterprise (no restrictions on cable/telecom mergers) should allow the emergence of a new cyber economy. What was puzzling to me, especially as a European observer, is that not all speakers were Republican. The Board included people not usually associated with the political ideas of a Newt Gingrich. I'm thinking of E and even of Alvin Toffler, who, though known as a personal friend of the Gingrich's, is not a right winger or free-marketeer.

Such a bipartisan gathering would suggest a temporary bipartisan alliance between left and right Third Wave forces, that just as the French Revolution originally united bourgeois moderate Girondins and radically populist Jacobins, similarly cyberspace forces would unite to overthrow Second Wave political forces, and would split up after achieving victory. It is too early to say whether the APFF will have discredited itself before such a process could consolidate. As it turns out, debate on the Internet was quite critical of the AFPP. It was noted that the foundation's primary discussion paper, the Magna Carta of the Knowledge Age', written by George Gilder and Alvin Toffler, among others, seemed to consider cyberspace as a collection of knowledge bases, and not as a collection of people communicating. Reports that the APFF may have been a conduit for donations to the Gingrich political machine may have further weakened the foundation's potential role. However, it must be noted that most par the APFF meeting, with few exceptions (such as Gilder and Dyson), were not indigenous to cyberspace and the Internet, but rather seemed a group of people who intended to piggy-back on the enthusiasm generated by the Internet.

Another expression of cyber-culture comes from the pioneering users. I am primarily thinking of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a genuine bottom-up political initiative. The idea behind the EFF is that the traditional democratic freedoms should be duplicated and extended in cyberspace. It is the main political force fighting for due process, against censorship, and for the protection of privacy. It tackles head on the new problems generated by the electronic networks. Its leaders come from the sixties generation: John Perry Barlow was a songwriter for the Grateful Dead, and Mitch Kapor not only the founder of Lotus but also a Transcendental Meditation instructor (he still is a practicing Buddhist). Rumor has it that both Gore's staff and the EFF have several Deadheads' on the payroll. In any case, the EFF confirm the strong links between the traditional counterculture, both in its political and mystical/psychedelic expressions, and current cyberspace. They remind us that the personal co above all a political project, to empower individual users against the centralizing effect of IBM mainframes, and that the Internet is seen as a continuation of this empowerment strategy. The EFF is a genuinely popular force in the Internet community, and has succeeded in temporarily defeating the Clipper Chip plans of the Clinton administration. They are able to quickly mobilize hundreds of thousands of electronic signatures to defeat moves in Congress. Thus, the EFF is a left/liberal mirror image of the APFF-type coalition, as it also has powerful corporate sponsors. Though the majority of EFF supporters may perhaps vote Republican (Barlow himself has been an active Republican), on issues of censorship and privacy they are definitely on the side of freedom of expression.

Another expression of the Internet community is the freenet movement. Freenets are locally-based (but internet-connected) networks that aim to enhance the social life of cities through the creation of online communities. The idea behind freenets is to build digital cities, where local associations, governments, and companies, can offer information, and where the local community can discuss and communicate. It is a grassroots effort to democratize the access to electronic information, just as the public library movement aimed at democratizing access to books. Several hundred projects have been successfully initiated. Digital Amsterdam is an European example. More >>