Another edition of the Web Summit, Lisbon 2018 has ended. This year's themes were very varied, but the risks and limitations of the use of digital technology were especially addressed, for example: the false news circulating on social networks and the dangers for democracy, privacy, personal data and colonization of the information society, infoexclusion and digital discrimination, artificial intelligence and the robotization of society, autonomous vehicles, flying cars and mobility in the cities of tomorrow, the goals of sustainable development and the contribution of green technologies.
There were many speakers, but some statements, due to their assertiveness, were especially revealing, here are some examples:
Microsoft President: “We have become a battleground"
Cambridge Analytica case whistleblower: "Facebook is making a digital clone of our society"
Vice President of Google: “We have a responsibility to keep personal data secure."
European Commissioner for Justice: “Cambridge Analytica was a brutal interference with our privacy"
President of Samsung: “Data is the new oil and artificial intelligence is its engine"
President of the WWW Foundation: “We have to apply human rights to the digital universe"
In fact, half a century later, the internet's libertarian myth has vanished. At this moment, the internet-nation is going through a great bifurcation.
On the one hand, the crowd, user citizens, anonymous and innocent citizens who accepted a "voluntary servitude" and were captured by a growing number of technological devices, on the other, the tech giants of large platforms managing a huge economy of crowds and generating monumental profits that channel to tax havens and corporations offshore.
The problem today – which in essence is a problem of fiscal and financial extra-territoriality and power sharing – lies in knowing, firstly, how to regulate these emerging markets for the benefit of societies and individual people and, secondly, how to return to a "citizens' internet", better distributed, which can lead us to the collaborative society, intelligent environments and the common goods of humanity as instruments for the realization of fundamental rights, in line precisely with what the president says of the WWW Foundation.
In the near future, the most interesting evolution will concern, I believe, the multiple forms of bifurcation of the digital age: between distributed and decentralized networks heirs to a primordial, collaborative and citizen internet, on the one hand, and centralized networks at the service of a hypercapitalism of large technological and business platforms, on the other.
At the same time, on the empirical level of social networks in the digital age, we are taking the path that will take us, gradually, from representative democracy to participatory democracy and from there to interactive democracy. In the near future, I am convinced, the effectiveness, efficiency and equity of a social organization and a nation-state will depend, at each moment, on the dynamic balance between these three democratic geographies and geometries.
This is where we find ourselves today, in full virtualization of society by digital technologies: the uberization and platforming of activities, artificial intelligence and the robotization of operations, the smartification of environments and territories, the pluriactivity and pluri-income of the labor markets because of its precariousness, the emergence of an immense fourth collaborative and solidary sector to accommodate, precisely, this immense “precariousness” in constant transit.
All these innovation factors add reality to the already existing reality (augmented reality), intelligence to the already existing intelligence (artificial intelligence) and man to the already existing man (augmented man).
The bifurcation of the digital age also means that we have a gigantic battle ahead of us, namely, to narrow the abyss that opens between societies and territories with and without access to digital technologies, but also between societies and territories with and without humanity. In the background, the same raw material and the same transformers.
Henceforth, infra-personal data and its universal processors, algorithms, will derive our digital footprint. It is society and algorithmic governance that arrives.
For these reasons, a long way awaits the internet nation before it becomes citizen, independent and truly collaborative. Until then, the internet-nation will continue to be colonized by the great technological conglomerates that will use and abuse their dominant position to assert the principle of fiscal and financial extra-territoriality.
In this trajectory, more or less long, we will most likely continue to be the useful idiots of the emerging markets that we are today and as long as the levels of “digital addition” do not go down, we will continue to believe that we have direct access to reality and the truth, without need for any kind of intermediation or political representation, as everything that is needed will already be in our “application menus”.
Most likely, the next collision of this technological revolution will be over regulatory policies for digital markets, which were also discussed at this year's Web Summit.
In this sense, technological conglomerates should not abuse their extra-territorial aspect or underestimate the powers of the state-administration in dealing with the digital revolution.
If, on the side of large platforms, one can speak of “digital colonization”, on the side of national states there may be the temptation of “balkanization of the internet”, that is, of circumscribing a national internet according to the law, idiosyncrasy and national culture.
Take, for example, the hefty fines imposed by the European Commission on major technology platforms for distorting competition rules and violating citizens' privacy.
The proposal by Tim Berners-Lee, the founder of the WWW in 1989, to create a magna letter to save the internet, marked this year's edition of the Web Summit.
In the same sense, access to the internet was highlighted as a super right that needs to be guaranteed, as those who do not have access are also excluded from education, health and culture.
In this context, the universal declaration of human rights needs to be interpreted and applied to digital rights to their fullest extent. Also, let's not forget that half the world is still not connected to the internet.
After the January 2015 open letter signed by several scientists, headed by Stephen Hawking, on the dangers of some applications of artificial intelligence, now comes the proposal for a Magna Carta from WWW founder Tim Berners Lee on a set of principles that governments, businesses and citizens must comply with to guarantee a free, open internet and a basic right for all.
To date, civil society organizations, companies such as Google and Facebook and the French government have signed the agreement.
For future memory, here are the principles of this magna letter:
A Magna Carta for the WEB (free translation from english)
Basic principles
The WEB was designed to bring people together and make knowledge accessible to everyone.
Each of us has a role to play for the benefit of humanity.
By complying with these nine principles, governments, businesses and citizens around the world ensure a free and open WEB as a fundamental public good and a basic right for all.
The government's
They ensure that each and everyone, wherever they are, can be connected to the internet in order to actively participate in online activities.
They guarantee an accessible internet at all times, in such a way that no one is prevented from having full access to the network.
Ensure respect for the fundamental right to privacy, so that everyone uses the internet freely, without fear and in safety
The companies
They provide an internet that is cheap and accessible to everyone, so that no one is left out.
They respect users' personal data and privacy, so that citizens control their online life.
They develop technologies that serve and benefit humanity, as a common good at the service of citizens.
The citizens
They are creators and collaborators on the internet, on behalf of a richer network of useful content for everyone.
They build strong human communities, in the name of everyone's respect and dignity, also online.
They protect the internet as a fundamental global public good, free and open, now and in the future.
Author António Covas is a full professor at the University of Algarve and a PhD in European Affairs from the Free University of Brussels
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