The future of the Internet – a pessimistic scenario

Mirosław Lakomy, Lilianna Lakomy

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The communist regime, based on repressions was shut down in 1989. The very same moment opened new possibilities for freedom, democracy and pluralism. Political and economic transformation after 1989 was accompanied by the birth of the 1st generation Internet, an innovatory medium. Its original character was based on the hypertext and WWW technologies, allowing new forms of freedom of expression. Later on however, globalisation processes changed the nature of the Internet. At the end of the first decade of the 21st century, such pro-libertarian features of the Internet became problematic not only for the authoritarian but also democratic states. In this context, the evolution of the 2nd generation Internet became unsettled by its dystopia.

KEYWORDS

dystopia, PRISM, balkanization, panoptization, democracy 2.0