Corporate Policy, Public Policy, and Mobile Phones: Takeaways from the Media Action Project Event
Last week I attended the Media Access Project (MAP) event, part of a series of forums on “How Technologies Are Changing Our World View”. Tuesday's topic: The Global Internet and the Free Flow of Information. Panelists were invited from a number of sectors - including academia, business, and policy - to participate in two panels; the first discussed the threats and challenges facing online expressions and the second focused on public policies that can protect online freedoms. There were many interesting perspectives, opinions, and facts presented, and here are some of the most important ones that will affect our work.
- Technology companies have been expanding their markets by providing tools and services to people around the world. As companies enter new markets and introduce new products, they face a number of challenges. Will their technologies be used to limit human rights? Do local laws require them to share user information to governments, and if so will they comply? These issue have already been seen (Yahoo handing over data on Chinese dissidents who were then imprisoned) and will continue to be seen. Moreover, there has been growing pressure on companies to develop policies surrounding human rights issues and regularly assess these issues as companies expand. The trend of companies developing policies around these issues is important, as it will change the threats and concerns that users face when using technology tools.
- As more and more citizens get online and use online tools, governments around the world are devising public policies surrounding the Internet. Countries like the United States, Sweden, and the Netherlands have promoted policies that ensure that the Internet is open, while countries like China and Russia have looked towards censoring the Internet. Many countries, however, are still somewhere in the middle, and are still devising policies for the Internet. In the upcoming months it will be interesting to see how countries' policies towards the Internet evolve, as they will present challenges and opportunities to democracy programs.
- Mobile phones have been a common theme on our blog, and they come up again as they were a key takeaway from today’s event. Many of the panelists discussed how mobile phones and handheld devices will be a key trend in the next two years. As we have discussed before, mobile phones allow citizens to engage and participate in political processes in new ways.
As MAP’s title for this series of events states, technologies are changing our worldview. From how companies shape their corporate policies to how governments devise public policies surrounding Internet use, the next couple of years will continue to shape how we use the Internet around the world.