E-democracy
E-democracy refers to the integration of internet technology into democratic processes, aiming to enhance citizen engagement, empower individuals, and increase governmental accountability. It envisions a future where significant aspects of governance, such as voting, are conducted online, potentially transforming traditional representative democracies. The concept began to take shape in the 1960s and 1970s, with theorists exploring how evolving technology could connect people globally and influence governance. While initial hopes were high for the internet to foster transparency and cooperation in government, progress has been slow, with various barriers such as privacy concerns and resistance from officials.
By the 2010s, social media became a critical element in political discourse, raising new questions about privacy and data security. Although some organizations, like Democracy.Earth, pursued the development of direct online voting systems, challenges remained in ensuring safe and fair election processes. The impact of the internet and social media was notably highlighted during events like the 2016 U.S. presidential election, which involved significant online engagement and concerns over misinformation. Proponents of e-democracy continue to explore technological solutions, like blockchain, to address these issues while aiming to create a more participatory democratic framework.
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E-democracy
E-democracy is the use of the internet and technology to connect members of a democracy, give citizens more power, and make the government more accountable to its citizens. Proponents of e-democracy envision a future in which people conduct many fundamental aspects of governance, such as voting, through the internet. Although achieving these goals would fundamentally change democracy, critics believe that—because of privacy concerns and threats from hackers—these changes are nearly impossible.
Background
A democracy is a system of government in which people have the power. Most democracies throughout history have been representative democracies, in which the citizens of an area elect people to represent them in the government. Democracies have existed for thousands of years. Technology and new modes of transportation have changed democracy over time. Computers and the internet have also changed democracy, and many people believe such technologies will lead to more change in the future. The idea of e-democracy, a democracy that takes place mostly in the digital world, first began to develop in the 1960s and 1970s. Theorists started to imagine how the ever-changing technology of computers would affect the world. These theorists realized that one important aspect of technology was the way it could connect people across the globe. By the 1990s, social scientists believed that the world was only a few decades away from achieving many aspects of e-democracy, including online voting.
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The internet and technology changed government and citizen engagement in many ways. When governments and politicians first started using the internet, it was used to improve efficiency. Emails replaced mailed letters, making the time between communications shorter. Websites allowed the government to share important information with the public. Yet, many governments were not as quick to adopt later developments, such as social networking platforms. During the early age of the internet, technology and government experts hoped that governments would adopt more internet capabilities to make government more open and accountable to citizens. This idea led to the term e-democracy, which became popular in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Researchers theorized that the internet would fundamentally change democracy within a few years.
Although people had high hopes for new levels of transparency and cooperation, e-democracy had not been fully realized by 2005. Technology companies had sold governments software to help them transition more of their work to the internet, but governments were slow in changing their habits. Some critics believed that governments did not want the transparency of e-democracy, so officials did not make the necessary changes. For example, local governments were slow to move their roll call voting records online. Some critics claim that government officials want to keep as much information off the internet as possible since political opponents and citizens could find that information much more easily through the internet.
By the 2010s, ideas about e-democracy had evolved just as the internet had evolved. After 2005, social media became an important tool. By the mid-2010s, billions of people were using social media and freely giving these corporations a great deal of data about themselves. Privacy experts became concerned about the amount of information social media companies had on individuals. Although e-democracy was still an important idea, media professionals realized that protecting people's anonymity and information would be paramount in any e-democracies of the future. Despite these challenges, many people still believed that the internet would fundamentally transform democracy. For example, the nonprofit group Democracy Earth stated that its goal was to create a framework with which individuals could take control of their government through direct participation.
In the 2010s, democracy was practiced almost exclusively through representative democracies, which means people elect officials who vote on laws and maintain control in the legislature. Yet, some people, including the founders of Democracy Earth, wanted people to be able to use the internet to vote on issues themselves. Through that system, people would no longer require representatives. If a reliable, safe, and hack-proof voting system were created, then people in the democracy could vote on issues themselves, thereby transforming the democratic system. Democracy Earth worked on developing such a system, but the technology still did not exist for people to vote online safely by late 2024. In addition, there was no way to guarantee that the votes would be counted fairly.
By the 2010s, less attention was being focused on researching and developing e-democracy, even while social media and other networks that connected people online became more popular than ever. In 2016, the United States held a contentious presidential election. The country holds presidential elections every four years. In 2016, more people were involved in researching and discussing the election online. This election was very much influenced by the internet and social media. The winning candidate, Donald Trump, was famous for his use of the social media platform Twitter, which is now called X. He and his supporters claimed that he could use Twitter to communicate directly with citizens. Although this was true, Trump's critics claimed that he manipulated the truth and even lied to the American people while using the platform. During the early part of his presidency, Trump used Twitter to attack organizations, governments, and even individuals. The Trump administration maintained that his Twitter account was helpful to democracy because it allowed him to communicate openly and effectively. Still, many critics and even some of Trump's supporters believed that his use of Twitter was not helpful to the government or the United States as a whole. Furthermore, the people who first envisioned e-democracy would have supported a candidate being able to speak directly to voters without the bias of the media, but these visionaries would have hoped that candidates would have interactive discussions with other citizens. Instead, Trump used his Twitter platform to broadcast his talking points and mostly did not engage in conversation with regular citizens.
The 2016 US presidential race was also notable due to Russian interference in the election. Some social media accounts were found to be fake, and these users spread misinformation during the election. The United States government investigated this use of social media, especially on Facebook and Twitter, to see how these fake users affected American citizens' votes and how Russia controlled these fake accounts. Supporters of e-democracy believe that a framework that verifies individuals' identities online, such as a blockchain, could overcome such problems in the future. Even after investigations into the interference, problems continued with misinformation and fake accounts during other elections. The 2024 US presidential election noted that Russia did not even attempt to disguise its interference efforts. Russia was not the only foreign power attempting to interfere using social media. The US government sanctioned both Russia and Iran for their attempts to manipulate the elections.
Bibliography
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