Building an Internet Movement from the Bottom-Up

[Commentary] In the early days of the Arab Spring, Wael Ghonim declared, “If you want to liberate a society, just give them the Internet.” In retrospect Ghonim, a well-known Egyptian activist at the center of Cairo protests, should not have stopped there.

Just giving a society the Internet isn’t enough to set it free. In the years since Ghonim’s enthusiastic remarks, communications for protest movements has evolved into a digital game of cat and mouse. Journalists and activists are devising ingenious new ways to get around digital blockades and filters, while authorities deploy new snooping technologies to turn the Web into a tool of repression. This uneasy balance serves as the backdrop for another battle. It’s a fight not playing out between smartphone packing protesters and security forces, but among the Internet governance community -- a globe-trotting tribe of non-governmental organizations (or NGOs), international agencies, world leaders and corporate CEOs. For as long as the World Wide Web has existed these groups have debated its control and administration. What rules should govern a network that transcends national boundaries to connect people everywhere? It’s a discussion -- replete with international agency acronyms and jargon (“multistakeholderism” anyone?) -- that leaves the rest of us scratching our heads.

The Internet is simply an effective tool for connecting people. Whether the network becomes a force for good or evil is up to its users.

[Karr is Senior Director of Strategy at Free Press]