Tonight I participated in the seminar at Lund University and the very awesome and interesting title was Caught in the Web? Or armed for revolution?
The inspiring ingress for the announcement was "The Internet is free, but dominated by giants like Google and Facebook. Who guarantees the integrity of the individual? Who safeguards democracy? Do social media make us freer or do we become more controlled, caught up in new norms and social roles?"
On the panel:
Marcin de Kaminski, researcher in sociology of law at Lund University,
active in the Cybernorms research project.
Elza Dunkels, researcher at Umeå University, focusing on children’s and
young people’s Internet use.
Thore Husfeldt, computer scientist and public debater from Lund
University, who warns of the consequences of letting algorithms decide
for us.
Hanne Petersen, Professor at the University of Copenhagen, conducts
research on cultural. Moderator: Andreas Ekström, author and journalist
for Sydsvenskan.
Debatt i Lund is a series of debates between Lund University
researchers, guests and the public. The debate was webcasted live on
the Newsmill website, through which questions and comments was
submitted.
Just to mention some citations of the interesting topics covered through the debate was:
The strongest power with internet is that it is self-regulated
W pay with our time and social norms and we do it as we got so much back from it (but what we get is not explicit, more research has to be carried out on this
Facebook and internet collapse public and private sectors
We are like grasshoopers on internet
With internet and FB we are part of something, so what is this something? In a global world we have a need and desire to be in smaller communities/villages
Everybody can read and write, the new things ar to build systems/algorithms not to read and write
FB was the first community adults understood, that is one reason why it is so huge
Getting organised just getting things easier (with internet, google and FB we get organised)
The panel discussion in the end challenged the question where is the power today: There are challenges how we think about democracy and democratic processes will be transformed. The one who has the code has the power. Everyone can be elected today to get the power. Some of the last words from the panelists was wishes that everyone can access internet, that we develop RTP (responsible to protect) and that we decide our self of the future of internet. It was also mentioned that universities in UK and also some in the US has compulsory computer science courses for all students as the one who has the code has the power. The development might thus be that computer science will be a subject in schools a s well as children learn to read and write and maths and languages etc.
