The Arab Spring and the SOPA controversy are but two recent flashpoints that point to a growing trend. Thomas Friedman preceded the zeitgeist when he proclaimed "the world is flat." As the Internet and other communications networks shrink the earth, two groups remain worryingly distant: policy makers and software developers. The Hill and the Bay need to start listening to each other if we hope to reap a net benefit from this digital revolution. Beyond friendly brainstorming sessions, their discourse must inform and enlighten both sides.
Computers have compacted humanity to the point where I can access vignettes of a billion people via a Facebook Mobile app. That's the same as cramming a million people onto the head of a pin. And this connectivity is unlike any we've ever seen. Like a book, a blog post lingers long after the author writes it, yet its contents are malleable just as indefinitely. The Internet takes the continuous presence that the printing press introduced and combines it with the fluidity of a telephone conversation, where callers can redact their statements.
This continuity and fluidity, combined with anonymity, makes ideas disseminated on the web particularly infectious, even "viral." Take Charter 08, a manifesto for Internet freedom that Chinese bloggers proliferated during the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Within a month of its publication, 5,000 Chinese scholars, computer scientists, businessmen and activists signed it. A Colombian organization, "No More FARC," reached 500,000 members within months with nothing more than a Facebook group and a URL. The unemployed engineer who started the group now holds the reigns of the world's largest crowd-sourced think tank. As I write this, videos taken on the smartphones of Syrian demonstrators are weaving history's most complete account of a political revolt. All of this hints that we may be witnessing an end of history. While abusive regimes may reject it, netizens have come to a resounding consensus: the people want democracy. They want freedom. They want to join the global network. With all the changes that computers have catalyzed, their potential as game-changers is undeniable.
In a better world, this would be good news for society. But right now a critical gap exists between policymakers and programmers. There are several ways to explain the disconnect between these two groups. First, they live in radically different environments. Silicon Valley is famous for innovation, where anything is possible and ideas translate into action instantly. Washington is famous for bureaucracy (not the efficient kind, but the kind where a million different interests pull at an idea until it grinds to a halt). Second, their thought processes differ radically. Computer scientists by their very nature are left-brained, rational and methodical. Policy makers have a reputation for right-brained, abstract thought. Naturally, there's a lot of overlap, and the leaders of both groups are remarkably gifted in both lines of thought.
Some of the best thinkers in D.C. actually thought that SOPA was a good idea. They could not understand what the bill would mean for online commerce, search engine utility and the costs imposed on Internet companies. We can't forget that many congressmen started their speeches about SOPA with "Now I don't know much about the Internet, but…" Thankfully Internet censorship is the worst net-effect that Western states have to grapple with. Their authoritarian adversaries in the Arab world really got the short end of the stick.
To date, three dictatorships have fallen at the hands of youth armed with nothing but Twitter, YouTube and a bottomless well of frustration. Those in power fail to grasp the digital revolution under way. While many politicos have spent decades untangling to intricate web of interests in domestic and international politics, they have no interest in understanding the seven layers that organize the Internet. This cripples their ability to conceptualize this information era. More importantly, public servants bear the task of regulating an intricate system that they don't understand. That's the only way such learned legislators could advocate a policy that requires the Department of Justice to send cease and desist orders via the postal service.
At the same time, many of Silicon Valley's brightest coders don't realize the complexity of the world that their software enters. Google's idea to scan books and make them available online was both valiant and intuitive, if it were not for the fact that authors still want to make money writing. Although they had no intention of doing so, the tech giant found themselves stepping all over publishers' toes. While Google provides a textbook case of a utopian vision corrupted by the world's harsh realities, Twitter shows how even minute moves make a big difference.
Twitter, in the midst of Iran's 2009 Green Movement protests, planned to update their software in the middle of the night in U.S. time. The company did not realize that this coincided with peak protest hours in Tehran, where demonstrators depended on Twitter to live blog the news to the world. Thanks to a clever diplomat at the State Department, Twitter rescheduled the software update and tens of thousands of tweets came from the protestors that day. Not since the days of Standard Oil have we seen a cluster of companies wield so much power in everyday life.
I'm not calling for computer scientists to go into lawmaking; that would amount to demanding that nuclear physicists run for office at the dawn of the nuclear era. But the nuclear age provides some lessons that we would be wise to heed. First, just like the bomb, the Web is here to stay; society will not rollback its connectivity. Second, the lawmakers are handling one of the most advanced ideas that civilization ever produced. So the "Geek Squad" will need to sit down with public servants more often to explain what's going on under the hood of a computer. Third, the scientists need to understand the realities we live in and the plethora of stakeholders involved in every public decision.
The proliferation of their platforms necessitates that tech companies understand every major decision they make is inherently political. For both parties, this requires venturing into unfamiliar ground. But if a few more computer scientists knew the difference between liberalism and realism, and a few more political scientists could tell a struct from a class, there's only a chance that the world would be a better place.
If you would like to discuss more about this topic, you should come to the EPIIC symposium on "Conflict in the 21st Century" Feb. 22–26.
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Agree Ahmed is a freshman who has not yet declared a major.
