Jon Bright (London, OK): How will the internet affect politics? Jonathan Freedland gives his prognosis in the Guardian today taking up the theme if not the wide monitoring of Bill Thompson yesterday. He sees good and bad in his crystal ball. Predicting unpredictable and far-reaching change is par for the course in techno-journalism these days (the only way to spare future blushes) but he does get a bit more specific. Yes, what might seem a harmless joke on Facebook or MySpace can quickly start affecting your employment chances (I found myself dialling down reporting on my social life after misguidedly 'friending' my boss). His scepticism about exactly how 'nice' an all powerful Google might be makes a refreshing and much needed change from the usual blind G-love. And he's is scathing of British politician's current attempts to get 'online' - particularly the bland, stage-managed antics of "webcameron" (this week Dave shadows police officers in Wales, beaming incongrously as people are nicked for speeding).
Freedland's grasp of the technology is not perfect ("why would it not be possible to draft 'wikipolicy'?" he asks - because wikis don't solve arguments: they are brilliant for sharing a consensus on the known; making policy, however, means winning an argument about the unknown). What he has figured out is that the internet can change ends as well as means, that it doesn't just change how we do things, but what we do as well (eg: a worthy mention for the ingenious Kiva.org, which allows microcredit to be financed through microlending). He also suggests that "the idea of the internet could be reducing the very idea of a collective society". Social cohesion, or lack thereof, is a thread running through the debate on Britishness, the many calls for an English parliament for the 'English', and how a written constitution might increase faith in the political system. For Freedland, our increased ability to associate with whoever we like on the basis of choice rather than fate, "risks shattering what was once a collective mass into a thousand shards, not a society at all but a bunch of niches". Maybe; but only if we find out we've got nothing at all in common. I'm a bit more optimistic. The internet gives us more power to choose our connections, but all the evidence is that this can then brings people together directly and physically. This could result in greater and better cohesion - not necessarily based on narrow, inherited or territorial conceptions of what it means to be a human.
