The early years of the Internet were marked by a liberal optimism about its decentralizing and democratizing effects. Information would be widely available and undercut the monopolies of authoritarian governments. However, the world seems to have undertaken a radically different path.
Autocracies are able to protect themselves by controlling information flows, while the openness of democracies expose them to vulnerabilities that authoritarian regimes can exploit via information warfare. Along with big data and artificial intelligence, technology has made the problem of defending democracy from information warfare far more complicated than it was expected just two decades ago, creating enormous geopolitical consequences.
The West, Russia and China are fiercely competing in the data domain and there is a high risk that such technological race might eventually turn into new cold or hybrid wars. However, even within the democratic West, the Internet could end up breaching its own core values: the rule of law, trust, truth and openness. Digital technologies have led to unprecedented access to and exchange of information, amplifying the spread of fake news, contributing to rising populism and polarizing democratic societies.
At the heart of the problem is that data are concentrated in the hands of a few players – particularly Silicon Valley giants. They provide their customers with services for free, but their underlying business models and the concentration of influence and wealth have raised pressing questions regarding privacy and data ownership.
As democracies respond to such challenges, they run the risk of doing too little, but also too much. Measures that curtail openness and trust would become self-inflicted wounds. This will be true of both the defensive and offensive measures that democracies undertake. Imitation of the authoritarian practices would be self-defeating.
The main challenge in realizing the potential offered by new technologies and Big Data lies in channeling the digital paradigm along a trajectory that stimulates innovation, participation and citizen empowerment, while respecting the fundamental principles of transparency and collaboration. The benefits of the data economy and technological progress in key areas such as artificial intelligence remain fully compatible with a stable, dynamic and prosperous democratic society based on liberal values like freedom and individual rights.
What’s needed is a multi-actors, multidimensional approach. Governments are being required to update regulations, competition rules and supervision in order to fulfil the new requirements of the global digital economy. Companies are expected to guarantee that their business models and products are compatible with users’ constitutional rights and the integrity of democratic institutions and processes. Citizens are required to become ‘digitally literate’ so as to better understand the mechanics that govern the data economy. This way, the early hopes surrounding the rise of the Internet will not be betrayed.