Alec Ross: Re-imagining International Relations in a Networked Age
BY Antonella Napolitano | Monday, October 4 2010
“The struggle between open societies vs. closed societies goes back 2300 years”
Alec Ross’ presentation opened this edition of PdF Europe by making the best of the conference’s historical location. As far back as Euclid, the father of geometry, in Alexandria in 300BC, history shows us many examples of open societies vs. closed societies and more – such as examples of open societies becoming closed ones.
And history shows us where the power lies: technology has changed history but, more than this, information did.
The crucial difference is that our age is a networked one, Ross said, with two billion people worldwide using the Internet.
Ross provided effective examples, ranging from Haiti, where $35 million in donations were collected via SMS, to Iran, where Twitter “did not lead a revolution but was crucial in sharing information and helped mobilizing people.”
But technology may be fuel for ideas, even in unlikely contexts: in Syria, where Facebook is banned (and accessible only through proxies), a Facebook campaign proved particularly effective in denouncing and firing a teacher who had beaten a child.
So what is the role of technology then?
It may be very easy to speak in general of freedom of expression and changing the world, but Ross is very clear in stating that he does not like either cyber-sceptics or cyber-utopian positions – somewhat reassuring from a European perspective that may be hypocritical towards a general US-based optimism.
The effective conclusion comes from an unlikely reference, Josef Stalin: “We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas?”
So it’s not only about what technology can achieve but how it can help information and ideas flow.
Technology did not open up society in history; people did. And in a networked age they have a whole new, bigger, connected field to do that.