It’s easy to see that our role is really changing with the advance of the Internet. We are no longer okay to just sit on the sidelines as activity on the Web increases. Netizenship is something author Jonathan Zittrain discusses in the book, “The Future of the Internet.” Zittrain discusses the trend of “netizenship” in the context of Wikipedia, and the role we as “users” will have in the future. Zittrain says, “We live under the rule of law when people are treated equally, without regard to their power or station; when the rules that apply to them arise legitimately from the consent of the governed; when those rules are clearly stated and when there is a source of dispassionate, independent application of those rules.” This is the future. We are the future, the “users.” We determine what’s important on the Internet and the role that everything plays, and if it’s not there, we have the power to add it. That’s what Wikipedia shows us. This is what living in a society that appreciates all our differences is about.
According to Zittrain, netizens use the Internet to engage in activities of “extended social groups, such as giving and receiving viewpoints, furnishing information, fostering the Internet as an intellectual and a social resource and making choices for the self-assembled communities.” Zittrain argues that if we leave the future of the Internet in the hands of the world’s “powerful”, the same thing that happened to the TV networks and the newspaper industry will happen to the Internet. It too will become all about money. So, I realize the Internet has to make money. But the goal is to make the world’s population so powerful that they take back control of the future of the Internet. Zittrain argues that the Internet as it is now is “one of lost opportunity” and its salvation lies in the hands of us, the users. It’s evident that the creation of more technologies and social structures like Wikipedia where people can participate and work creativity and collaboratively will be the only way to survive the future. Is this what the future is? Can we get to a point where netizenship is the norm? Where every citizen of the world can have an equal voice and play an equal role in the democratic process of contributing to the Internet?
