To Build a Movement for Democracy, We Have to Win the Internet

                     Political rights are human rights and the worldwide movement for democracy, human rights, justice, political inclusion, and my candidacy is becoming stronger each day. Since 2020 I've also a YouTube channel  https://www.youtube.com/@lucianofietto4773 and like have been happening with this blog, for some unknown reason to me, they don't show us the real number of visualizations. This post is a summary of the article with the title above, published in July 2023 at https://convergencemag.com/articles/to-build-a-movement-for-democracy-we-have-to-win-the-internet/

                   Looking towards the 2024 election, we must face the real possibility that we may be headed into an electoral autocracy. For those committed to building a real democracy, we must grapple with how deeply technological innovation and internet in particular has played a fundamental role. And to win on our vision for justice sustained by a resilient democracy, we need to take seriously that the internet must be at the core of any sustained global democracy movement. We must face the fact that authoritarianism and the move towards minority rule has advanced in part because decisions that affect our lives happen in two realms simultaneously: both within nations states and on the internet. As pro-democracy movements, we work hard to govern, but we have yet to reckon with or truly acknowledge the need to govern the digital realm. We can't win the fight against authoritarianism if we, as a movement, don't also have a theory of governance of the internet. In the digital world we have a legal regime, albeit a broken one, that governs he physical world and we have land borders that delineate the boundaries of a country. But the terrain on which our movements are often fighting is not in the physical world. The terrain on which we are fighting for justice and the governance that can help us get there is largely online. A democratic internet was never going to manifest itself because, contrary to what techno-optimists claim, the internet does not create a neutral playing field. Many people who seek to regulate the internet focus on disinformation as the problem. But disinformation is the canary in the coalmine of a much bigger problem. Seasoned organizers know that focusing on "truth vs. lies" doesn't actually work as a part of an organizing strategy. What works is to focus on building relationships that help us unlock the fears that underlie belief systems. When combating disinformation that spreads online, we need to understand why fear travels faster on the internet than the principles of collective care. When our concern about how the internet distorts democracy focuses on disinformation as the loci of the problem, it's like we have decided to address the wound instead of the infection. In this case the infection is the for-profit motive. Tech companies amass huge profits from the world views espoused, as algorithms (and the advertising) draw more people into online spaces and polarizing content drives those individuals into hotbeds. Authoritarianism benefits, which allows the strategy of "flooding the zone with shit," as Steve Bannon put it, however inaccurate, toxic and manipulative it is. We have the ability to fight back and to advance our democracy. Here are three insights that can shape near-term strategy:  1) We can begin by acknowledging that the internet is not just a tool that we wield but a world and place that we should occupy.  2) We can draw connections between advancements in tech, A.I. and the profit-driven nature of the internet with issues like surveillance, climate change and the gutting of our voting rights. By doing this, we can set tech companies in our sight as targets as we take on a battle for our democracy. Targeting tech companies for any kind of surveillance would create another path forward in the battle for justice and could have implications for others ways that data tracking is used to police our communities.  3) We can take the terrain of the fight online, not just by sharing news or getting better at social media, but by investing in bringing approaches of deep relational and place-based organizing to the digital realm. During the 2020 election some power building organizations to develop followings on platforms like TIkTok, Facebook, and Instagram. The purpose of this type of organizing was to broaden their base and scale the reach of member leaders to share messages and push back against disinformation. Organizations in Minnesota, Michigan, and Arizona did this as a way to protect against efforts to steal elections, mobilize voters, and scale membership bases. As we imagine not just stemming the authoritarian, but seeding a more bright future, we should see the fight for the internet as core to building that world. We are having the opportunity to build a pro-democracy movement to coalesce around strategies. Together, we can imagine what full-scale governance of the internet would look like and feel like, and set the roadmap to get there. It won't happen overnight, but it can happen. It is key to truly realizing a democratic society.