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I am guessing part of the push of politicians into "the Internet" is because they do see this effort of the tech community to minimize them. They see themselves

I am guessing part of the push of politicians into "the Internet" is because they do see this effort of the tech community to minimize them. They see themselves as representatives of the people of their countries (especially democratic western countries) and so they should have a say about how the Internet works rather than unelected groups of technologists. I heard this repeated several times in meetings where Internet governance is discussed. You may agree with that or not, but that's their point of view. I don't know if tech could ever be completely separated: infrastructure needs physical locations, tech companies have employees who are citizens of somewhere, etc. The Internet grew because it wasn't seen as a threat at first, or the benefits outweighed the risks. Now, an instant, global communication network that is critical to the economy means it's seen as too important to leave up to a bunch of computer nerds.

raxxorraxor 3y ago
Ideally it would be the case that there is some democratic control instead of just random technocratic growth. I think that could only ever be legitimized if access stays universally free. There are also decent and most importantly honest political ambitions to improve the net. But there are the other kind too. Overall the most profound impact of politics is still content control and putting up barriers. Of course I am biased, but I am very glad that some computer nerds made manipulation and censorship as difficult as it is. If we talk about truly global efforts, the democratic legitimacy can also be disputed for that matter as there is no world government. Again, it became a topic about control and the strategy to create technological realities is maybe not a good defense, but the best one I could imagine.
nvm0n2 3y ago
How the internet works is decided by their voters already, by the act of deciding what products to use.

raxxorraxor 3y ago

Ideally it would be the case that there is some democratic control instead of just random technocratic growth. I think that could only ever be legitimized if access stays universally free. There are also decent and most importantly honest political ambitions to improve the net. But there are the other kind too. Overall the most profound impact of politics is still content control and putting up barriers. Of course I am biased, but I am very glad that some computer nerds made manipulation and censorship as difficult as it is. If we talk about truly global efforts, the democratic legitimacy can also be disputed for that matter as there is no world government. Again, it became a topic about control and the strategy to create technological realities is maybe not a good defense, but the best one I could imagine.

nvm0n2 3y ago

How the internet works is decided by their voters already, by the act of deciding what products to use.