The
language of the social economy helps us describe a
diverse system of institutions and financial flows. The language of civil
society helps us articulate the purpose of the social economy and its role in
democratic systems. Digital civil society encompasses all the ways we
voluntarily use private resources for public benefit in the digital age.
The hallmark feature of civil society in a democracy is its (at least, theoretical) independence from governments and markets. Civil society is meant to be a “third space” where we voluntarily come together on the proverbial (or literal) park bench to take action as private citizens for the public good. Our use of digital data and infrastructure blurs these distinctions and complicates these relationships for a simple reason: Most of “digital space” is owned or monitored by commercial firms and government.
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| Illustration by Ben Crothers |
The conditions that support civil society’s independence have
been weakening for a long time and for many reasons. Support for research from
conflicted interests has tainted universities and nominally independent
research centers for years. News organizations sustaining themselves via ad and
subscription revenue are mostly a thing of the past. A small number of big donors
have been shown to shape political campaigns, legislative and legal strategies,
and the charitable nonprofit landscape. While crowdfunding and crowdsourcing get a
lot of press attention, the other end of the scale is shaped by large
concentrations of money from a few interests.
Today we must attempt to understand both the analog and
digital relationships between these actors. We must examine how these
relationships shift when organizations and individuals become dependent on
digital tools, data, and infrastructure. These dependencies do much more than
accelerate and expand the reach of individuals and organizations. They
introduce new forms of activism such as hacking and raise new questions about
authority and control between individuals and the companies that run the
digital platforms.
Most important, these dependencies bind traditionally independent civil society
organizations and activities closely to marketplaces and governments in complex
and problematic ways.
Our daily use of the
most basic tools of the digital age, such as cellular phones, email, and
networked printers, means that our activities are bounded by and reliant on the
rules and tools of the companies that make the gadgets and wire the world. As
we use these tools, our activities are also monitored by the governments that
surveil the digital spaces in which our tools operate. Our actions in this
space are shaped by the values of the companies that make the tools (even as
the companies seek to deny this) and by the way we respond to being watched by
both corporations and governments.
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| Illustration by Ben Crothers |
These digital dependencies significantly
challenge civil society’s independence. This matters to how individuals and
organizations work within the sector. And it matters to democracies that have
long relied on the “immune response” provided by a diverse and fractious space
where minority demands, rights, and ideas could thrive with some degree of
independence.
It is no coincidence that experts see signs that the space for
civil society is closing, that those monitoring Internet freedom see rising
threats, and that those monitoring the health of democracies fear for the
future. We can’t decouple these pieces. Efforts to “save democracy” will depend
on understanding how digital technologies have changed the relationships
between sectors. I discuss this in more depth in the section on digital
dependencies.
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