Peer2Politics

The net has the potential to revolutionize democracy with an informed citizenry empowered to deliberate and decide on key issues. Yet current trends strengthen anti-democratic forces. In addition to concerns over privacy, there is an urgent need to address how the public realm is being hollowed out by corporate interests and advertisers. The ideal of democracy presupposes a shared public sphere in which citizens can construct, debate and decide on collective projects. This requires access to quality information and while the net has certainly increased the quantity of information available, its reliability is debatable. This is compounded by the fact a few key players, such as Facebook and Google, now act as powerful gatekeepers to who sees what.

A decision by the ITC prohibiting the transmission of 3D dental records into the U.S. could open the door to further content online restrictions, digital rights groups argue.