week 24: story 47

https://www.theguardian.com/public-leaders-network/2017/feb/23/democracy-digital-lessons-brazil-iceland-spain

Digital democracy: lessons from Brazil, Iceland and Spain

Can digital technology offer democracy anything other than trouble? Concerns are growing that platforms like Facebook and Twitter help create partisan echo chambers, spread fake news and render intelligent argument impossible when clicks are valued more than facts.

In Iceland, ‘Better Reykjavik’ was launched in 2010 as a collaboration between the local government and a civic tech charity so that citizens could suggest, debate and rank ideas for improving their city. With the opportunity to vote on specific proposals, they have the power to make real decisions about how local resources are spent and allocated. Far from being of narrow interest to the digitally savvy, more than 70,000 people have visited the website – out of a population of 120,000.

In Britian we believe that our social space on the internet is democratic but even last year when they passed a bill to record and store our internet searches we still believe we are free to roam around and post anything we please without some consequence.