What role will govt play in social web of the future?

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Governments and Socialising

The advent of social media has seen governments hopping onto the bandwagon in a bid to further engage citizens.

Central Government, Citizen Engagement

By Robin Hicks | 20 April 2010

In the not too distant future, a new generation of social media will be administered by virtual civil servants and patrolled by cyber sheriffs. Highly evolved versions of Second Life, where netizens meet, trade, and play, will also become places where policy is debated and decided. Sound fanciful? Well, this is the way the world is headed, predicts futurist and author Thornton May.

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In an interview with FutureGov at the SAS Global Forum in Seattle last week, May, who is Executive Director and Dean of the IT Leadership Academy in Florida, said that the idea that a semi-sentient device with its own cognition will be used by governments to gauge public sentiment is not unrealistic given current trends.

“I’m not saying government decision-making will be automated and left in the hands of digital agents. And I’m not saying that we will be electing digital officials either,” said May. “What there will be, I think, is a representative government online that issues drivers’ licenses, collects taxes, listens to public sentiment and lays down the rules.”

However, governing the internet will not be about control, it will be about influence, May added. “Governments have not shown themselves to be adept at managing large systems online, whereas individuals have shown themselves to be scarily adept at doing just that. The future will be influenced by many ‘little brothers’, not one big one. And this brave new world will be self policing.”

Top-down governance is not going to help solve the world’s biggest problems, May said. “One of the biggest disappointments of our age is that while people are smarter, richer and healthier than ever, our ability to engage with the big issues, such as the energy crisis, has reduced. But what if, rather like Wikipedia, we could tackle problems by exposing the masses to information governments like to keep locked away?”

But the new digital age will come with risks as well as opportunities, May continued. The role of government will be to break up fights between computers, send law-breaking avatars to digital jails, and protect netizens from emerging dangers. “When everyone is empowered to observe everything, you end up in a state of monstrous transparency. The cons of not managing your data properly are not life-threatening - yet. But we are only three to five years away from a scenario when your quality of life will seriously suffer if you do not manage your Facebook profile right.”

Privacy will play a key role in distinguishing between the digital haves and have-nots in the future. “Some people will give away their DNA away for a US$2.50 latte. We need to be more responsible for our digital personae,” May concluded. “Privacy is becoming the purview of the truly intelligent and the truly affluent. In the future, such people will hire someone to manage their privacy online. But what will society do with people who can’t take care of themselves digitally?”

Thornton May wrote the book, The New Know: innovation powered by analytics last year.

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1 Comments

On 21 April 2010 Wan wrote:

It's very interesting to see how government tackle social networks into their day-to-day operations. I think you are right, sooner or later we would have a cyber sheriffs for the netizens to control wisdom of crowd to prevent from unwanted happenings.