Is the Internet inherently democratic?

The Internet is not inherently anything. It is a product of its environment, of its technology, and of its time – all of these being variables. Those who praise the Internet for being inherently democratic are all also products of their environment and their time. They cannot remove themselves from their own context and imagine what the Internet could be. The Internet could have been nationalized into an American weapons platform. The Internet is still largely privatized and susceptible to undemocratic market forces. China’s political policies very effectively suppress a democratic Internet. It is questionable international legal bodies such as ICANN are representative of users emerging at the edge of the Digital Divide. The nature of the technology from which the Internet is built can also potentially restrict and limit user access and control. Cisco, a large networking company, provides essential hardware to China allowing the government to filter and block large amounts of information from the populace. Even software companies such as Google have had authoritarian terms dictated to them by China. As individual privacy becomes threatened more and more by governments and technology, so too will the liberties and privacy of Internet users. The Internet is still rooted in a physical reality which, given conceivable conditions, could create a very undemocratic virtual world.