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# Three Kings, Clerkenwell, London. Thursday Mar 19 2009
- URL: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/three-kings-clerkenwell-london-thursday-mar-19-2009/
- Published: 2009-03-22T19:03:46.000Z
- Updated: 2019-02-14T23:00:40.000Z
- Author: Tony Curzon Price
- Tags: #en, #Migrated, #Import 2026-04-09 19:57

openDemocracy's quarterly London meeting. [Bill Thompson](http://www.thebillblog.com/billblog/?ref=opendemocracy.net) led a discussion on journalism, the web and civil liberties. About 30 people made it - many people who had met online as part of the publishing and research volunteer-group, but never in the face -- great human moments, that knowing yet not-knowing someone.

Bill talked of the good old days -- when the guardian website was a computer on Bill's desk, and when he was its sys admin, webmaster, editor-in-chief and coder. He argued that the "good web" --- the liberating forces of the free-flow of information --- necessarily develops along-side all the abuses of technology, including State abuses. Bill's solution to privacy issues: [radical transparency](http://www.longtail.com/the%5Flong%5Ftail/2006/11/in%5Fpraise%5Fof%5Fra.html?ref=opendemocracy.net).

The discussion turned to "what is journalism-- or whatever you want to call what openDemocracy does -- for in a world where the technology and organisations we're creating can be used for authoritarian means. "Speak truth to power" was Bill's reply. Rosemary and Anthony were not completely satisfied with that: what about making a self-conscious, self-understanding society?

The formal meeting broke up, and I look forward very much to the next get-together.