If we look 20 years forward, what do we
see? What are the game-changers?
These are the questions posed for this
panel. They are not easy to answer, but
they are easy in the sense that you wouldn't know it if I were totally wrong,
because it will take 20 years to prove that I am wrong and by then I hope you
will not remember what I have said.
But really, when I look at these questions,
the first thing I ask myself was, is the development of the Internet so
predictable? I tend to think not. But maybe the game-changers or the key trends
are easier to spot, although sometimes we may not know in advance where they
may lead us.
To begin, I see conflicts. Conflicts between the governments and those
in society with power, from political powers to economical or social or
cultural power, with those common, average people who uses the Internet and
especially the younger generation who are not only growing up with the Internet
but literally born with the Internet.
The struggle for control of the Internet between them – as a set of
technological tools, as an environment, as a lifestyle -- will intensify
greatly.
It is obvious that governments around the
world, and increasingly we are not only talking about the authoritative
totalitarian regimes in the world, but more and more western democracies,
trying to legalize the control they want to impose for the Internet, starting
with surveillance in the greatest measures.
Privacy and security is one of the key
battlegrounds, but copyright is another.
As we speak now here in Geneva, back home in Hong Kong where I came
from, netizens especially youngsters and artists are organizing themselves in
unprecedented ways to oppose government legislative attempt to strengthen
copyright enforcement in the digital world, all dressed in the goodness of
'protecting the creative environment' but without providing exemption for
re-creation or parody or satirical treatment on copyrighted works. Such opposition was unexpected in scale and
scope by our government, to say the least.
And I'll use Hong Kong as an example for
this coming conflict between the wish for more control by the authorities and
powerful businesses on the one hand, and the urge for more freedom by Internet
users all over the world on the other. Hong Kong is in a particularly unique
crossroad situation because even as a part of the People's Republic of China,
we have an advanced, affordable, almost ubiquitous environment for the Internet
and telecommunications usage, where our access to content is as free as
anywhere else on earth, without any filtering.
Yet right across our border the situation would be totally different,
with the most widespread, technologically and operationally advanced and
functional Great Firewall in the world for content filtering. Other governments do have so much to learn
from China, and many have openly said so.
So for us in Hong Kong, not one moment
passed that we don't look over our shoulders to watch what may be coming, when
and where the next clampdown may arrive.
We know the free flow of information is our biggest current asset, and
now almost suddenly our young Internet users have learned to use the net as a
tool to defend their rights, much in the same ways as the young people have been
doing in Egypt and other places.
But if we look once again at the situation
across the border from Hong Kong into the Mainland China, here's where the real
contradiction lies. You may think that
is a land still isolated with this powerful, efficient and effective Great
Firewall. Yes and no. The reality is that people there – the
biggest population of Internet users in the world in any country – have more
freedom and access to more information than they ever had before. Most do not get arrested for speaking out
their minds, and I am not saying that of course to defend the rulers. If anything, the Chinese Internet users still
have a choice to circumvent the firewall if they want to, and they are making
changes to their society using the Internet in ways unseen before.
Just as people are more alike one another than
they're not all across the world, governments are alike too when it comes to
the will to control, especially on things that they worry to be out of their
control.
So, in Hong Kong and in the Mainland China,
I think we are having a front row seat to witness these game-changers in the
next twenty years – the greatest technologies to control the Internet and the
people on it, and the greatest will from the people to stop these interference,
using yet many of the same technologies to circumvent and counter.
These will be where the greatest innovation
may take place, and I am not talking just about security software or
circumvention tools. They can also be
the next generation of social media platforms that will allow people to share
and get organized more easily or on a different level.
So with these game-changers, where will we
be in 2032? My greatest hope will be
that the Internet of tomorrow will withstand governmental interference and
continue to be governed, as well as function and operate relatively free from
governmental and inter- and intra-governmental control, and that the Internet
users – those who are very young today who will be the leaders in twenty years'
time – will develop into truly responsible next-generation leaders of the
Internet. But that’s only my hope, and I
am not sure if I can call that a prediction yet, because I still harbor an
opposite worry, that the governments of the world may become more successful in
exerting their influence.
And I will close with one example. While we all marvel at the convenience and
benefits of Twitter as a micro-blogging, the Twitter copycats in China, called
Weibo, have "innovated" way beyond Twitter has in terms of functionalities,
user-friendliness and integration with mobile, cameras and other
equipment. Yes, the government has also
established a very closely monitored control mechanism on its user-generated
content. Yet, users and dissidents share
information relatively freely – I guess using that same 11 minute rule that our
copyright friends talk about the time it takes for a TV program to be pirated
onto the net, for that same 11 or so minutes before the content will be removed
by the censors – to create social changes.
If that is possible behind the Great
Firewall, I think we have reasons to be more optimistic about 2032 than we have
to be pessimistic.
Presentation
at Closing Roundtable of Global INET 2012: “Game-changers: Where will they take
us by 2032?”