E-democracy

E-democracy (a combination of the words electronic and democracy), also known as Digital Democracy or Internet democracy, incorporates 21st-century information and communications technology to promote democracy. It is a form of government in which all adult citizens are presumed to be eligible to participate equally in the proposal, development, and creation of laws. E-democracy encompasses social, economic and cultural conditions that enable the free and equal practice of political self-determination. According to Sharique Hassan Manazir , Digital Inclusion is an inherent necessity of E-Democracy/Digital Democracy just like Social Inclusion is the need of Democracy. The spread of free information through the internet has encouraged freedom and human development. The internet is used for promoting human rights—including free speech, religion, expression, peaceful assembly, government accountability, and the right of knowledge and understanding—that support democracy. An E-democracy process has been recently proposed in a scientific article for solving a question that has crucial importance for all humans in the 21st century: 'As planet Earth citizens, will you stop the climate from warming?' The author proposes to use a cell-phone for answering this question during the Olympic Games in Pyeongchang 2018 and Tokyo 2020. The Internet has several attributes that encourage thinking about it as a democratic medium. The lack of centralized control makes censorship difficult. There are other parallels in the social design in the early days of the internet, such as the strongly libertarian support for free speech, the sharing culture that permeated nearly all aspects of Internet use, and the outright prohibition on commercial use by the National Science Foundation. Another example is the unmediated mass communication on the internet, such as through newsgroups, chat rooms, and MUDs. This communication ignored the boundaries established with broadcast media, such as newspapers or radio, and with one-to-one media, such as letters or landline telephones. Finally, because the Internet is a massive digital network with open standards, universal and inexpensive access to a wide variety of communication media and models could actually be attained. Some practical issues involving e-democracy include: effective participation; voting equality at decision stage; enlightened understanding; control of the agenda; and inclusiveness. Systemic issues may include cyber-security concerns and protection of sensitive data from third parties.