If the internet was invented to keep in touch, it has surely done a remarkable job. It has reunited long lost friends, class-mates and colleagues, it has allowed working from home, it has allowed learning from a distance and it has allowed treating patients in remote areas from mega hospitals in the cities. We do not have to wait indefinitely for scientific journals to reach us by post and we do not have to travel across continents to attend conferences. Imagine what COVID-19 would have been like had it hit 15 years ago, before smartphones, video calls and social media. No Slack and Zoom to keep the workers busy at home and no Netflix to keep us entertained. A recent three-year study by the MacArthur foundation found that the Internet helps young people to become "competent citizens in the digital age."
But this digital highway is not infallible – we are susceptible to internet outages and cyber attacks, as well as information overload. Our digital wallets can be stolen and our digital privacy can be invaded leading to unimaginable social consequences. For better or worse, the digital tools that have kept us connected and informed throughout the pandemic now also hold us captive.
Amidst this black and white digital divide are many shades of grey, the digital renegades to some and the digital terrorists to others. There are "digital renegades," ready to leverage the power of social networking and text messaging to topple their undemocratic governments as we are seeing right now in Myanmar. The democratic forces in Ukraine used the Internet to mobilize young people and get them into the streets during the Orange Revolution. Facebook has been used in Egypt and Saudi Arabia to fuel a series of protests. Again it was the internet which was used by the opposition in Russia to drum up support in favour of Alexie Navalni, President Putin’s strongest political opponent.
Digital renegades come in various shades. The post-election violence in Armenia and Kenya was well-documented on local blogs, and there were two opposing sides of these stories. The Chinese bloggers continue testing the patience of their state with numerous protest activities - coordinated over the Internet but there are some Chinese government sponsored bloggers trying to fish in troubled waters during elections in the U.S and India. Pakistani Whats App groups ferment unrest in Kashmir by posting videos of atrocities on Muslims perpetrated in China, Syria and Iraq and trying to pass them on as violence in Kashmir and when internet services are interrupted in Kashmir they cry hoarse about internet being their fundamental right and its interruption being human rights violation.
And then there are ‘digital captives’ whose political and social dissent has been significantly neutered by the Internet, turning them into happy consumers of Hollywood's digital marginalia. When the state is too strong and all powerful like in China and North Korea digital activism is not taken very kindly. The law of the land falls on the activists like a ton of bricks and activism is either aborted or goes underground. The official fairy tale of ‘sugar and spice and everything nice’ then keeps on repeating throughout the social media with a heavy dose of multi-cultural entertainment and a new generation of ‘digital captives’ are born.
Internet has given the youth living in controlled societies infinite venues for digital entertainment - without any religious or social censorship - that may not necessarily be enhancing their digital sense of citizenship and civic engagement. Risking the comfort of their bedrooms - with their hard-drives full of digital goodies - for the gloom of a prison cell does not appeal to many of them. Entertainment is being catered as a heady drug to keep them oblivious of the plight of their fellow citizens. The governments are all too happy to promote this new cult of "cyber-hedonism." Whatever keeps these troubled youths from the streets is inherently a good thing. Digital captives are, after all, cheaper to sustain than the real ones.
Internet as a tool of unrestricted information and mass mobilization initially showed a lot of promise. Even the most heinous dictatorships were put on alert and the internet promised a global triumph of liberal democracy, responsible governance and radical transparency. To the dismay of most policymakers and technology enthusiasts, this has not happened. The Berlin Wall may have fallen, but the Chinese Firewall has been erected in its place. So was the original premise wrong and is the Internet is not a great force for democratic change but rather the clay that keeps authoritarian regimes together?
This will solely depend upon how many digital natives were converted by the Internet into digital renegades and how many into digital captives. It's precisely this balance that will determine what the political landscape of Russia, China, Pakistan or Iran will look like in 10 years.
'Net-smart'is my take. Things have become so convenient. A tremendous ocean of knowledge is available at a click of a button. Abuse, specially by youngsters remains a cause of concern. For that, developing the sense of 'good' and 'bad', by parents and teachers, remains the gold standard.
ReplyDeleteAll responsible persons should be careful about forwarding messages they recieve If a message does not pass a basic logic test one must try to check the facts before forwarding it
ReplyDeleteNet smart is need ofthe hour, as all theinformation is available at click of button. To make best use of it one has to do some analysis and keep a watch to find out the objectives.
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