by Philippe Des Rivières

Have you ever been scrolling through Instagram and all of a sudden received a notification from a friend linking you to a post they thought would interest you, but upon clicking on that link you are confronted with the dreaded “Sorry, this content is unavailable” message? Quite annoying, right? Now imagine receiving a similar notification restricting your access to a news article about a natural disaster that has left many dead in your country. You want to read this report to make sure your family is okay, but the only way to access this information is by paying your Internet Service Provider (ISP) an additional fee on top of the small monthly fortune you already pay them. A bit more than annoying at this point, right? Well, I would like to welcome you to a world without the guarantee of net neutrality.

The Internet is a beautiful innovation and reflects the core values of democracy. It has allowed for freedom, creativity, growth, and has given the individual all the power in the world to grow and create change.However, this beauty has now been put at risk, and the power Americans once held has been shifted to the greedy hands of the elite after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in December 2017 to get rid of net neutrality.

You might be asking yourself, “what is net neutrality?”. To answer this one must first understand the basic ideas around how the Internet works.The Internet works similarly as to how a mailing service does. Mail works through the transportation of letters and packages from point A to point B. In the case of the Internet, these are packages of data that are travelling from one point in the network to another.

So, where does net neutrality come into play with this? In Canada, the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has ensured Canadians with an “open communication system”, ensuring the access we have to the Internet is . This fairness and openness relates to the speed data packages are transmitted within the network. Net neutrality ensures that all these data packages, regardless of their content, move at equal speeds without allowing the service providers to throttle, slow down, or block the transfer of this data. Seems like a reasonable rule, right?

Well, the FCC thought otherwise and voted against the beautiful openness of the Internet. In doing so taking the power out of the hands of the people, stripping them of their of online freedom and Internet access, and directly placing the power the individual once had back into the hands of elites.

The FCC dropping net neutrality is a nightmare for us as the general consumers, but a dream come true for the ISPs, giving them even more power in controlling what information we have access to through access to certain online sites and putting even more of our money in their wallets.

Imagine living your life without being able to surf the Internet freely. How would you have a voice in driving political change through online activity? How would you be able to tweet at Donald Trump telling him building a wall is not necessary? How would you know what restaurant to go to in a new city if accessing Trip Advisor cost more money itself than the dinner you had planned?

These are all things to consider when thinking about what the effects of getting rid of net neutrality could be and why it is so important to keep the Internet fair and open.

The Internet is something that has reflected the core values of democracy by granting everyone a voice and freedom. By governing one’s access and exposure to it, stripping them of their UN declared , and putting the power back into the hands of the elite, the elimination of net neutrality is transforming the Internet from a representation of democracy into a place reflective of a totalitarian regime.

The Internet and the guarantee of net neutrality allow for the unheard to be heard, the ones who feel weak to feel powerful, the uneducated to become educated, and for the general public to have the ability to put a check on the power of the elites. But without net neutrality all of this is at risk of disappearing. What we have all grown to know and love over the past twenty-five years faces its greatest threat ever with the questioning of net neutrality.

Why the FCC voted against net neutrality in the US is beyond me, but let us take a step back, Canada. Take advantage of your voice and your Internet freedom, and make sure Canada’s networks stay neutral.

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by Christopher Breen

You follow the hashtag religiously, and you certainly know your way around the Google search engine. All things considered, you might think you are a reasonably well-informed voter. But when you go to the polls in the upcoming Ontario election, will you really know all there is to know?

It’s almost an absurd question, in reality no one could ever achieve perfect information. Fortunately, as goes the common point of view, the internet exposes us to an endless number of differing viewpoints – and the healthy debate that comes with them. Right?

Not so, argues Eli Pariser. In his recent work , the Chief Executive at viral content website Upworthy argues that we are not receiving the wealth of information from the internet that we might perceive we are. He calls what we are living in a filter bubble – the product of algorithms personalizing our search results to feed us what they think we want to see. If two people search online for the same company, one might primarily see updates on their recent stock performance, while the other may primarily see articles on recent their recent ethical violations. It all depends on what the algorithm decides the reader wishes to see.

This is not a small or relatively contained phenomenon. Google, a prominent administrator of the filter bubble, had a staggering 74.5% of the online search market share in 2017. If you are looking for information online, there is a good chance you are using Google and there is a good chance that you will have a hard time finding all the information there is to find. Not at least without putting up a good fight.

If you are a fan of seeing only content that is directly tailored to your interests, then perhaps this is not so bad. But for democracy as a whole, this is bad, bad news.

Measuring the strength of democracy is tough. At its core, democracy is held up by free and fair elections. While at face value this may seem like a simple binary measurement, it turns out that the matter is incredibly nuanced. What makes for an election that is truly free and fair? A crucial component, per several scholars, involves citizens having access to numerous sources of information. Which, while technically provided by the internet, is severely hampered by the existence of the filter bubble.

Furthermore, what makes for fairness itself is a muddy subject. Per principles of liberalism a relatively common approach is that of equality. According to scholar . Where is our agency when we do not get to choose the information we are receiving?

And when you mix the filter bubble with the toxic combo that is Facebook and its recent plague of fake news – news intentionally fabricated to mislead or deceive the reader, usually with political aims in mind – our democracy is at risk. In a recent blog post, .

An echo chamber, we choose to be in. A filter bubble is chosen for us.

This is the crux of the issue. Our ability to seek out our own information, on our own terms, is being hampered. What is a free and democratic society without citizens who have the agency to find information as they please? Perhaps it is time for the government to take a hard look at regulations. Until then, especially as we approach the upcoming Ontario provincial election, try to make sure you have popped your own bubble before making any decisions.

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by Jansen Allen

You wake up in the morning, while still lying in bed you leisurely scroll through your feed and check T for the latest radical tweets from today’s celebrity politicians. Your morning ritual continues, as you sip your daily double-double and pull your car out of the parking space, your favourite playlist blares on . Lunchtime rolls around and you snap a picture of your meal to share with all your friends on . After a busy day at work, you come home to cuddle up to your significant other and ask Alexa to play a feel-good movie on your smart TV. It’s just you, your partner, and nearly every tech company whose apps you’ve downloaded onto your devices.

Privacy has been brought to the forefront of the global conversation in recent years. Individuals are outraged at the lack of privacy, and they have been losing it at an exponential rate. In this day and age privacy is no longer a given, privacy is a luxury that not many do not have the option to retain. And there are two domains in which privacy is being lost, the web and the actual physical world.

While on the web, using social media, downloading apps and engaging in many more day-to-day online activities, individuals agree to numerous ludicrous terms of service that strip their rights to privacy. In the offline world everyone should be aware that they have an online dossier which anyone can view anytime. This all means that privacy is a thing of the past for most people. At this point in time your whole life is online data, a series of number which are shared publicly; because of this privacy is virtually extinct.

With technology constantly evolving, companies have been quick to jump on the opportunity to harvest data from millions of individuals and use it for profit, many of whom have no idea. It is extremely important to read the terms of service for online services, as with any product, as they do carry weight. Many of the terms of service of social media platforms mention the collection of data and content. This content collection can include ownership rights. With respect to platforms like, any picture you post becomes the company’s property. They could mass produce a picture without the permission of the user who posted it, and they would not be able to do anything as they already agreed to it within the terms of service.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, in you agree to keep all your personal information up to date, you agree to allow the site to use cookies, you agree to grant them use of your pictures, name and information for commercial use and much more. If you allow a site to use cookies, this allows them to monitor you Internet usage even while not on that site. This includes seeing what you’re buying on , seeing what education or occupational content you’re looking at, and much more, they can see everything.

Agreeing to allow to use your picture, name, and data for commercial use could play out in a number of ways. The simplest is that they could sell a picture of you to a company who would then use that picture in order to make a banner for a website. It doesn’t end there, they are allowed to sell your data to companies for profit.

As was mentioned earlier, it’s not just a lack of privacy online, now individuals have full digital dossiers. Facebook accounts that were opened ten years ago, Twitter, Google Plus, Instagram, all of it. Your whole life can be read and observed via the Internet by examining your digital dossier.

Many employers will examine an applicant’s digital dossier, around 70% in fact. Anyone that knows your name can look you up, employers, friends, strangers, and it’s even easier if they know what city you live in. if they individual hasn’t set strict privacy settings, then their information is open the public.

Privacy is a luxury which few of us still have. When your online activity is monitored, and you online profiles can be easily ‘stalked’ by anyone, is anywhere safe, can you even have privacy? Smart TVs, Amazon’s Alexa and Google Home all monitor your activity, they even know what hours in your house are ‘peak hours’, and which are resting hours. Privacy and digital technology cannot coexist. When you’re constantly being tracked online, can privacy ever be reclaimed?

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by Matt Hammar

Since the bulk of our society began adopting the Internet in the 1990s, it has been anticipated as being the most influential innovation to the democratization of authority since the printing press. Through such an evolution it was predicted to bring with it a profound shift from that of vertical to horizontal authority. The main focus of this article will be how social media has not only fulfilled this destiny, but also allows for this democratization of authority even when considering its formable pitfalls.

Social media predominantly are net positive in regard to their impact on the public sphere. The term “net positive” is specifically chosen because social media does foster some negative effects with the way information is created and disseminated, but there are clear and practical benefits that stem from social media. Firstly, there is the new empowerment of the average person for civic action. Essentially, social media is democracy in action as it allows for anyone to now have a voice and influence the discourse within their society the way they see fit.

Communication scholars such as Jürgen Habermas would argue that this is the next major stepping stone to creating a world-wide ‘’ due to instantaneous and undisturbed messages with relatively little ‘noise’ interfering. Social media is this public sphere manifested in a relatively tangible virtual realm—an online coffeehouse of billions, if you will. Social media, and the Internet in general, allow for this because as Kriess (2012) notes, ’’ (Kriess, pg. 197, citing Chadwick, 2011, pg. 3). Further, as outlined by Benkler (2006), .

Additionally, such a medium can—and often does—make the average citizen feel more connected to those in positions of power. Previously, the average person could never conceive of directly communicating with a politician or person of celebrity status until the advent of social media. This may inspire them to be more involved in society where previously they were apathetic about their situation due to the feeling they had no agency in their political or social realm, resulting in no attempts to change the situations they disapprove of. Now, via the Internet, politicians and public figures are held responsible by the wider public on social media, instead of awaiting legacy media to do it for them in the name of the public.

As described by Benkler (2006), each individual contribution to the Internet is “” (pg. 103). As such, the various independent content creators and others that upload information are contributing to the formation of a “” (ibid.). Using the ‘magic’ that are modern search engines, individuals can search the Internet and find what they are looking for in the blink of an eye.

The negative result of such a system, as previously hinted at, is that due to algorithms users of social media tend to be connected to those that hold a similar opinion, causing it to function as an echo chamber. In such an echo chamber, it becomes increasingly difficult for new and differing ideas to be properly introduced and discussed in a rational and practical setting. As such, it extremifies the tribalism that already persisted on a smaller scale prior to the rise of social media and may only function to worsen such negativity. Supplemented by the increasing usage of ‘fake news’, these echo chambers often promote fanaticism and intolerance to those that they see as their opponents based off of misleading and deceitful information.

What many forget though, is that the domains where these individuals voice their opinion (e.g., YouTube) are mediums that rely on the traffic and active sharing of content for it to be seen by others. This means that it is up to a vast amount of people in the public sphere to be sharing this content to disseminate these messages. It is not simply one person forcing everyone to pay attention to their views—it is through simple voluntary action from all of the viewers of a viral video to make it viral in the first place. If we do not believe in the , that “individuals can come together to freely discuss and identify societal problems, and through that discussion influence political action”, then we essentially relinquish hope for our society and accept the .

Works cited:

Benkler, Y. (2006). The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and      Freedom. The Yale Law Journal. Retrieved March 13, 2018, from           

Kreiss, D. (2012). Acting in the Public Sphere: The 2008 Obama Campaigns Strategic Use of        New Media to Shape Narratives of the Presidential Race. Media, Movements, and            Political Change, 33, 195-223. doi:10.1108/s0163-786x(2012)0000033011.            

Public Sphere. (2018, March 03). Retrieved March 13, 2018, from  

Tyranny of the Majority. (2018, February 28). Retrieved March 13, 2018, from      

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by Rachel Farah

The term “digital democracy” has a nice ring to it. It sums up everything that we want the internet to be, and perhaps, what it once was before the emergence of Web 2.0. It denotes a utopian ideal of the possibilities that the internet affords such as open dialogue, free speech, inclusiveness, participation, and knowledge-sharing. But, in many ways, this term could be considered a misnomer, a half-truth, or even a myth in the context of the contemporary digital climate. With earlier versions of the internet, people believed that everyone’s voice equal because everyone had the ability to contribute. However, the contemporary state of the internet more closely resembles real life, where those with the most social capital and money rise to the top.

says that, “when considering political speech online, we must be mindful of the difference between speaking and being heard.” That is to say, we are not all equal just because we have the ability to speak, we are equal when all opinions are heard and given equal consideration. It is easy for those who are already successful to say “anyone can do it,” or “we all have equal opportunities,” but the reality is that those with the most influence in the digital sphere are either similarly influential offline, or they are lucky.

Take for example one of the biggest phenomena of the Millennial generation: YouTube celebrities. Due to YouTube’s open format and access, anyone with internet access can share and comment on YouTube videos. This has lead to seemingly average people reaching celebrity status on a platform that encourages sharing personal experiences, opinions, and creativity. But from a critical perspective, not everyone can reach success or celebrity status as easily as some.

The main reason for this is that most people have to be willing to invest a lot of money into developing your YouTube channel in order to get noticed by viewers. Professional-looking videos which get the most views on YouTube require camera and lighting equipment that can cost in the . And, on top of that, being good-looking gives new YouTubers and even greater chance at gaining a following. Quality and originality of content alone will not do the trick. This means that just like in the real world, those with money and attractiveness already have certain advantages online.

But not everyone cares about becoming a social media celebrity. In fact, most people do not. Most people use the internet to fulfill specific information needs and to stay connected to the world. In this case, it may seem like the internet is democratic, because, supposedly, all the information we need is out there, we need only go looking for it. The problem with this statement is that the “looking for it” is not at straightforward as it seems. Even a simple one-word Google search does not produce the same results for everyone. Search outcomes are algorithmically determined by a number of factors such as geography, demographic and, most importantly, browser history.

 put it best by using the term “filter bubble” to describe the way in which search engines and news feeds filter out information we presumably do not want to see, on the basis of the links that we click or posts that we like. But, the result is the omission of results that could broaden our horizon by providing alternative perspectives, or hard truths that can easily go unacknowledged.

This is especially problematic for online political conversations, because without seeing both sides of an argument, we can begin to have an unrealistic view of how other people see the world. This point came up several times during the 2016 US federal elections and the wave of social media criticisms that followed. Eli Pariser describes how in his Facebook feed, he slowly began to notice that most of the posts about the election were liberal-leaning because those are the kinds of links that he showed interest in. I myself observed the same things start to happen the more articles I clicked or shared which had a partisan leaning. While this may seem like an effective way of sifting through information, it has the adverse effect of placing people in bubbles where we only see what we want to see and, in turn, only those who agree with us will hear what we have to say.

All in all, the question of whether or not we live in a digital democracy is not a simple yes or no answer. There are elements of the digital sphere which are democratic, but their democratic potential is not always optimized. The important thing to keep in mind, is that we should never take what we see or read online for granted. But, moreover, we should not fall for the myth that just because we can speak, people will listen.

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