WRITTEN ON September 20th, 2006 BY Richard S AND STORED IN Political engagement
Google has filed the USA federal paperwork necessary to be a Political Action Committee (PAC), allowing it to raise money for political candidates and causes. This huge company already has some of the features of a “government;” including a “foreign policy” and bi-lateral agreements with the next super-power – China. Does this mark the next twist in the evolution of “Western Democracy”?
We’ve seen a steady decline in people’s interest or involvement in traditional “party politics,” a decline in the quality of political candidates, and continual funding crises. At the same time, large Internet companies have become ever more central to people’s lives: Influencing their “world view,” affecting their purchases, filtering their information, providing their leisure, etc. etc.
Could Internet companies replace political parties? Could they even replace traditional parliaments?
2 Responses to “Google for President?”
The implications are interesting, but also troubling.
In the spirit of “brainstorming,” imaging how a future MyTube/MySpace/Linked-in type publishing, networking, discussion, voting, web-site could actually replace Parliament and much of Whitehall!
Would this be more or less democratic and effective than our present system?
—
That video of the vulnerable voting machines is so much more effective than a judicial enquiry. (And immediately believed even though we aren’t absolutely sure who posted it or whether it was faked!)
—
Conversely, many democracies including the UK try to avoid any one group gaining too much control over the mass media: What about these rich, powerful internet companies?
What if Google supported the Democrats; Yahoo & MSN the Republicans?
What if these search engines biased their search results along party political lines?
What if these foreign companies interfered in national politics? (China?)
I’m not sure I can fully get my head round this. Is this a strange legal or tax move simply to ensure they can do policy lobbying? I wonder where that leaves Google next to people like EFF and EPIC. And I wonder how similar or different their agendas are. Do Exxon and tobacco firms similarly file as PACs?