Internet Democracy — Less Big Business, More Big Community

What with China making Google dumb down their search engine so you can’t research human rights, the big question is whether or not the Internet is going to be a significant enabler of democracy. Does the Internet guarantee a free and open society, or is it just another technology to be used for the political purposes of the powerful?

This is a big question, still up in the air, but it’s being dealt with in an extremely cogent manner by Douglas Rushkoff, the media critic, Internet guru, and futurist. He’s written about 10 books on the development of the Internet and what it means — his latest, Get Back in the Box is simply unmissable as a business strategy book on innovation.

In fact, you can see him speak over at http://www.rushkoff.com/poptech.html.

My favorite bit is half way through the end when he starts talking about how the Internet has been about people, and all the businesses have been searching for different rationales why the Internet should be big business.

First, the Internet was big because “content is king” as if we were all waiting for Rupert Murdoch to come put some big, popular shows on it to make it good.

Then we had “e-commerce,” as if the Internet would lead to all other stores shutting down.

That never quite took, so there was investing online, which was a coincidence, since so many companies were Internet companies.

Then, it all fell apart…and the real fun began. According to Ruskoff, the killer app of the Internet is…people.

Yup, just people. Connections, social networks, interaction, FAQs, forums, online communities. It’s the one application for which the Internet is perfectly designed. Note the recent popularity of MySpace, which offers no complex search engine for business intelligence, no investing capability, no slick media content — just hundreds of thousands of people being themselves.

This is a pretty positive development. It seems that people are looking for new ways to relate to each other, to stay connected. Moreover, that kind of personalized networking is more attractive to the younger generations than your current political parties and similar social networks.

One can imagine that a generation of people raised with those values of social connections would change the way the Internet is used as a tool of governance.

Perhaps we have a future of more responsive government?

Hey, I live in Washington. I can dream, can’t I?