Why a More People-Centered Internet Is Needed + Why Memorial Day is Important
On 09 December 1968, computer science pioneer Douglas Engelbart gave a demonstration that later became known as “the Mother of All Demos” in which he showed a computer screen with a graphical user interface, a mouse pointer, the ability to click on text, version control for files, and many more features that nowadays we associate with how we interface with computers. For 1968, his demo of the future was truly groundbreaking.
Engelbart also had the vision that how computers could make humans smarter, what he called augmented intelligence. This included the idea that technologies could help humans connect, share different ideas, and become “living learning communities” where they could share insights in how to thrive, adapt, and co-exist in ways that celebrate a plurality of different views.
When the Internet began to accelerate in the mid and late 1990s, several of Engelbart’s ideas were present: hyperlinks, sharing of knowledge online, and helping humans connect.
So too was his vision that the Internet could be a place where living learning communities of humans could share insights in how to thrive, adapt, and co-exist.
1. A Bump in the Road Towards the Internet Improving Societies
Fast forward to the present however, and it seems like the Internet is now more of a source of division and frustration in society, not succeeding in its goal of bringing different groups of humans together. Some of this has to do with the nature of us as humans ourselves — we all have biases, including confirmation bias where we actively seek information that reinforces what we already think to be true and dismiss information that challenges our beliefs.
There’s also cognitive ease where the more something is repeated, the more it becomes easier for us to think it must be true (even if it isn’t). The journal Science published a study where the researchers classified news:
“… as true or false using information from six independent fact-checking organizations that exhibited 95 to 98% agreement on the classifications. Falsehood diffused significantly farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth in all categories of information, and the effects were more pronounced for false political news than for false news about terrorism, natural disasters, science, urban legends, or financial information.”
Additional research points to deeper roots to the reason why malicious gossip exists in all human societies, with another article suggesting:
“The general motivation behind gossip is to bring the target down a peg, to blacken their reputation in the community, and to reduce their standing in the eyes of others… If the audience is sufficiently motivated in either case by a shared antipathy towards the target, whether the damaging information is true or false scarcely matters because believing it feels good and serves a social function.”
The big take away: we humans will be naturally motivated to believe fiction when doing so feels better than believing the truth. (!)
While this is irrational, cognitive ease and confirmation bias are part of human nature for each of us.
2. Life, Liberty, Pursuit of Happiness, and Good of the Community
Our own human nature, on a global, interconnected scale, is what challenges us in attempting to achieve Engelbart’s vision of an open Internet that could help humans form “living learning communities” and celebrate a plurality of different views.
Among the statements made in the U.S. Declaration of Independence is the observation that all of us have “unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It is worth noting that Jean-Jacques Rousseau had concerns about democracies that only emphasized the pursuit of individual happiness without also recognizing the need to think of the good of the collective community as a whole too — what he called a plurality.
This weekend is Memorial Day in the United States, when we remember those who willing gave their lives in service to our country. Recognizing in each country there are individuals who give their lives in service to their countries, it may be worth considering when can service towards the collective community — as a whole — help bring people together vs. divide people?
Previously I’ve written about civilization may be when we “don’t automatically kill the newcomer” or new idea — and that President Lincoln’s words of “I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better” may be a refrain we all need to embrace if we are to avoid being fragmented, wedged apart, and divided as an open society.
Having just been in Europe as a Marshall Memorial Fellow seventy years after the Marshall Plan, and seeing the increasing hyper-polarization of societies there as well, I have to wonder if the further Europe and the United States both get from the events of World War II, the more we also lose the spectre of an event so tragic — and a committed cause to ensure a similar future never happens again — that in our forgetfulness we revert back to internal divisions in our societies. Specifically: we lose the ability to say, even though I may not agree with your ideas on this issue X, on this much larger issue Y of never having another World War again we both agree.
Which is why over Memorial Day weekend, I find myself wondering what sacrifices — ideally not of life or liberty — would any of us be willing to make if it could help heal fragmented societies?
Thinking about our children and future generations ahead, what can help us move closer to a future that is more of Engelbart’s living learning communities that bring different people together vs. apart?
3. We Should Have More Choices About Our Personal Data
The date that I write this is also the effective date for General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe, which has impacts around the world regarding how personal data should be protected and individuals informed about how their personal data is processed. Back in 2015 when I was in Taiwan as a Eisenhower Fellow, I concluded that with the increasing rise of “Internet of Everything” devices in homes, workplaces, cars, and more that we each needed to be able to have our own personal data broker where we could express our preferences on when, where, and what personal data were shared and not shared; specifically:
“… [an] open source agent using Natural Language Processing (NLP) to interact in a narrative form with individual consumers. For instance the app might ask: ‘Are you willing to share your health data with company X?’ … And a consumer might choose to say no. The app might then come back and say: ‘Okay, would you be willing to share your health data if you received a reduction in your health insurance premiums of 50 percent?’ Some consumers might say yes, others may still choose to say no.”
“… Later the app, noticing the functionality of your new Internet-enabled watch or piece of clothing, might ask: ‘Would you be willing to share your health data with emergency personnel if your wearables notice your heart going into cardiac arrest?’ Those consumers who said no before might be willing to say yes here.”
The easy ability for individuals to decide when, where, and what personal data are and are not shared is still needed, in a form that is easily accessible and does not require navigating 30–40 pages of terms and conditions.
Recently I have heard some talking about the idea of personal data as property and the ability to choose what is done with your data as a basic human right. Both are encouraging signs of progress in my opinion towards a more People-Centered Internet vision.
Closing Thoughts
December 2018 will mark fifty years since Engelbart’s “Mother of all Demos”. This will also be around the time when 50% of the planet is now connected to the Internet, approximately 3.8 out of 7.6 billion people on the Earth.
We still have lots of work to do to help connect those who want the Internet on the planet, improve access, and address the digital divide even in places where the Internet is available, and ensure a more open Internet for everyone as well find new ways to address the challenges of human biases with regards to news and information.
I remain hopeful that we can find a way to address what right now feels like a loss of civility what historically have been pluralistic societies in the U.S. and Europe — that we will find a way to starting healing the current fragmentation of societies, avoid “winner-take-all” autocracies, and turn away from hyper-polarized politics where the ability to compromise is lost. At the same time, I am conscious that if it were easy all these challenges would have already been resolved and often hard work of positive #ChangeAgents over a period of years if not longer is needed to help turn things around.
For several years I strove to do the best I could as a non-partisan civil servant because I perceived there was a need for positive #ChangeAgents who could focus on “getting stuff done” free from political interpretation or spin.
I still think there is a need for this, however I’m also not sure in the era of 24/7 news and social media anything done by anyone can’t be spun or taken out of context or put in a political light (even if none was intended) by others, which means increasing difficulty for non-partisan positive #ChangeAgents around the world. In my current role with the People-Centered Internet coalition, I currently have the luxury of being a private citizen, working with Vint Cerf, Mei Lin, and several other positive #ChangeAgents. This means I can take a stand on social issues.
While I do not choose to wade into political waters since I continue to believe in the value of a plurality that is not one-sided or “winner take all”, I do want close by sharing an modified, updated version of the 1895 poem “If — “ that hopefully makes it much more about plurality, human diversity, equality, and that expresses my hope that we all can overcome the fragmented history of the past and work towards an open society together:
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men (and women) doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can serve multiple parties, including the greater good
Though none may ever notice what you endure,
If you can innovate shared solutions so together we would
Collaborate — to make our diverse world prosperous, free, and secure;
If you can embody what “We the People” stands for:
Choices and compromises — both recognized as central,
Then yours is an internet society’s truly great endeavor
Promoting courage, creativity, and ideas from us all.
