Government's Hold on the Individual and Innovation

Many of the readings this week pointed to trends and technologies that allow analysts to have some predictive capability of the future. Arguably, the most important trend comes from the National Intelligence Council (NIC). It predicts that “poverty reduction and a huge growth of the global middle class, greater educational attainment, and better health care” could facilitate individual empowerment, diffuse power across smaller actors, and leave traditional power sources, like sovereign government, less impactful. Undoubtedly, individuals have and will need to continue to employ increasingly accessible and powerful communication platforms to achieve this outcome. When considering the potential global economic impact of an increasingly accessible mobile internet could be as much as $10.8 trillion in 2025, this outcome appears likely (Manyika et al, 2013). Still, societies with oppressive governments seem to be effectively constraining the impact of these communication tools and impeding this predicted social and economic progress. 

Recent examples of these constraints on individual empowerment are prolific. In Egypt, individual citizens calling for better access to economic opportunity organized the protests of the Arab Spring and the subsequent unrest in 2013. Despite ultimately leaving the country politically unchanged after ceding control to the Egyptian military, the short-term results were a twice overthrown government. Importantly, the short-term success of these protests were largely fueled by the ability to communicate and organize on platforms like Twitter and Facebook. These protests are a clear demonstration of the growing power of the individual.

Unfortunately, states like Egypt, China, and Russia also seemingly recognize the growing power of the individual and have taken action to impede on innovations in communications for individual by threatening to use and actively using coercion. The Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International report that state sponsored “disappearances” and torture of those who speak out against the current government in Egypt as well as unjust arrests of political dissidents in Russia and China are common place. Even more unfortunate is that these governments are not exceptions. 

As a result, leaders in both the public and private sectors must learn to operate within the constraints of this reality. Those invested in individual empowerment must develop better and safer platforms for communication and organization. That is, when Facebook decides to rebuild its recently exploded satellite to provide internet access in Sub-Saharan Africa, the company might also consider the effect that dramatically increasing internet connectivity may have on the safety of those in its new service area. If companies like Facebook do not consider these potential impacts, is their business in that area warranted? Are these companies responsible for the potential repercussions of individuals facing the consequences of oppressive governments due to the use of their platforms?