Digital dictatorship and democracy through digital public infrastructure and Web3. Where is your country now?
At the beginning of the 21st century, there is a rapid development of digital technologies, which can be used both for the benefit of the majority of the population and for harm.
A New Look at the Future of Digital Democracy1it should use decentralized digital public infrastructure (DPI) tools2 to achieve universal progress and development. These tools should be decentralized voting, digital identification, digital money. Each of these categories is interconnected in real time with the other categories. These technologies are also collectively called Web3.
The enemy of digital democracy is a dictatorship, which can use the same digital tools, but created in a different way, through centralization. At the same time, freedom and justice cannot be achieved with the usurpation of power through the centralization of new digital tools. A digital dictatorship, where the majority of citizens are exploited to improve the welfare of a narrow group of people through fear and coercion, should not be the goal. The digital dictatorship must be rejected by the current generation.
50-In-5 Initiative
At the end of 2023, with the support of the UN, the 50-In-5 initiative was launched, involving large-scale digitalization of 50 countries over 5 years3. As part of the digital public infrastructure (DPI), it is planned to introduce three components: digital identification of citizens, digital payments, data exchange. Yes, these are the same new tools that can lead to either a digital dictatorship or democracy, depending on how they are created. The initiative will reportedly first be rolled out in low- and middle-income countries.
Unfortunately, the 50-In-5 initiative does not include decentralized digital voting, without which digital democracy is not possible. However, the initiative looks friendly for now, since it is based on the open source code of all digital tools. However, it was not possible to make a clear conclusion about whether the new digital tools in this initiative will be centralized or decentralized. It was not possible to find explicit and clear information about this. But what is certain is that the initiative will be implemented by the current authorities of the countries.
Centralization and decentralization of public administration
According to the authors of the work “What is decentralization?”4, considering the issue from the point of view of public administration and economics: “Centralization and decentralization are not “either-or” conditions. In most countries, an appropriate balance of centralization and decentralization is essential for the effective and efficient functioning of government. Not all functions can or should be financed and managed in a decentralized manner. Even when national governments decentralize responsibility, they often retain important policy and oversight functions.”
Yes, we can agree with this, but this approach is valid for yesterday, for management in times before the digital era. Now states have the very new digital tools with which they will dramatically increase centralization in all areas. It seems that if the authorities want to build a digital dictatorship, they will limit information about the centralized nature of the digital tools being created. At the same time, the decentralization of public administration itself, the economy and public life will decrease, including by reducing the participation and influence of citizens in these areas.
In this context, the issue of trust between the authorities and citizens becomes important. Leaving the answer to control over new digital tools vague can make people reluctant to use them.
State central bank digital currency CBDC
Apparently, the issue of trust between government and citizens is acute in Nigeria. In Africa’s largest country with a population of 214 million, attempts are being made to launch eNaira (government digital currency CBDC)5, faced constant problems. It seems that the idea of a centralized CBDC has been abandoned, as an attempt is now underway to launch a new cryptocurrency, cNGN, pegged to the national currency.6. While the Central Bank of Nigeria solely controlled eNaira, the cNGN cryptocurrency will be managed by the African Stablecoin Consortium7.
In the article “Beware of CBDC!”8 author N.S. Lyons reports: “Unless CBDCs are deliberately and carefully limited by law in advance, they may even become more than a technocratic central planning dream. They may represent the greatest expansion of totalitarian power in history. Never before has there been a regime with such comprehensive knowledge and control over every transaction of its people as digital money may soon make possible. And yet, this technology looks set to be misused in our societies in the name of convenience, social justice and patriotism.”
This opinion is fully shared in the work “CBDC Digital Currency for a Digital Dictatorship”5, which explains how the centralized nature of CBDC will lead to widespread human rights abuses. An alternative and democratic solution is a state-owned decentralized cryptocurrency.
N.S. Lyons also makes an interesting suggestion: “One can imagine the charge that is expected to be leveled (in the West) against those in the West who oppose CBDC: it is playing along with the enemy.”
The enemies are those countries that, before Western countries, are rapidly introducing CBDC for use in international trade, bypassing the sanctions of Western countries.
According to the creator of the Ethereum cryptocurrency, Vitalik Buterin, the worst-case scenario for the future of cryptocurrencies is that blockchain technology ends up in the hands of dictatorial governments. The prospect of governments using the technology to suppress dissent is one reason Buterin is adamant that cryptocurrency remain decentralized. He sees this technology as the most powerful tool to counterbalance surveillance technologies used by both governments and powerful companies.9.
It looks like there is a new “arms race” going on and everyone wants to have a new weapon – CBDC. However, these weapons will come back to haunt the peoples of those countries where they will be introduced. The consequence of implementation could be a digital dictatorship. Most likely, pressure on decentralized cryptocurrency will increase to prevent new projects in this area that will interfere with the implementation of CBDC.
Fears for the future
As reported in the UN Development Program “Digital Strategy for 2022-2025”10, UNDP recognizes that while there are benefits that digital technologies can bring, there are also potential risks and challenges, especially for vulnerable populations. These risks can take many forms, but the most serious are risks to human rights.
Together with the Institute for the Future, UNDP examined several digital technology scenarios and reports that “from this work, there is a sense that digital technologies are at a crossroads. The utopian vision of a “connected world” has begun to fade in the face of troubling and increasingly pressing problems that are increasingly difficult to ignore.”
UNDP reports that “Digital-enabled changes in information ecosystems have led in many contexts to the near-total collapse of public interest media, rampant “information pollution”, declining trust in governance institutions and serious challenges to both democratic political processes and governance. evidence-based policy.”
As stated in Closing the Trust Gapeleven According to political scientist Fergus Neilson, in democratic Australia there is a decline in trust between the expectations of voters and satisfaction with the work of politicians and government institutions. Thus, in 2007, 86% of citizens were satisfied with the way their democracy was working, but by 2017 this figure had fallen to 41%. However, 74% of Australians still believe that democracy is preferable to any other type of government. The study also reports that both Australian and UK respondents place a high priority on the need for anti-corruption initiatives, greater donation transparency and easier voting. Respondents also suggest introducing forms of direct democracy or at least increasing the level of citizen participation.
Fergus Neilson writes that frustration stems from the decline in the effectiveness of democracies and a distrust of politicians who have failed to keep their promises and who appear open to all forms of corruption, including sleaze, expenses scandals, second jobs and inappropriate lobbying. The most intense moments of civic disillusionment with the political class lie in the perception of its vicious character and its bias towards protecting its own interests and the interests of the already rich and powerful.
Significantly, Fergus Neilson’s research found a wide gap between politicians and voters in assessing the importance of the need for better access to voting (digital voting). This position received high praise from voters and low ratings from politicians. The author concludes that until politicians recognize that their prospects for re-election depend, at least in part, on increasing trust between themselves and the electorate, and on preserving the independence of those institutions that support democracy, there is a risk of slipping into “illiberalism.” are saved.
UN Secretary General in his call to action for human rights12 raises the issue of emerging technological developments in the context of human rights, highlighting that new technologies are too often used for surveillance, repression, censorship and harassment on the Internet, especially against vulnerable groups and human rights defenders, and draws attention to the need to use such technologies to ensure new means of supporting, protecting and implementing human rights.
In the report of the UN Secretary-General “Roadmap for Digital Cooperation: Implementing the recommendations of the High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation”13 stresses that it is critical for governments and the United Nations to implement appropriate safeguards as part of their efforts to realize the full useful potential of digital identity systems and strengthen user trust in such systems. This could include, for example, elements such as decentralized data storage, identification and authentication, encrypted communications, and consideration of the use of built-in privacy algorithms.
The UN report also states that there are reports of targeted interception and facial recognition software, the use of which can lead to human rights violations and arbitrary arrests and detentions and violations of the right to peaceful protest.
As stated by the English historian and economist Robert Skidelsky in the collection of works “From Past to Future: Ideas and Actions for a Free Society”14: “A society in which the “dangerous actions” of governments become continuous will lose the understanding of why these actions are dangerous, that is, the sense of how a society should be free. And this happened to some extent. To give just one example, we today accept a level of government oversight that would have been unthinkable even twenty or thirty years ago, comforting ourselves with the thought that the overseers are men and women of good will. It’s quite a sinister slippery slope…”
The UN’s concern about the development of digital technologies is not accidental. The sense of crossroads arises because, in the wrong hands, new digital technologies could become tools for human rights oppression on a scale never before seen. But by using these tools for the benefit of the majority of people, progress and development can be achieved for all.
There is an opinion that any technology is neutral and its benefit or harm depends only on who uses it. But this is not the case with digital technologies. These technologies can be created in different ways. If an instrument of digital public infrastructure is created on the basis of centralization, then it is an instrument of dictatorship. If such an instrument is created on the basis of decentralization, then it is an instrument of democracy. This applies to digital money, digital identity and voting.
Decentralized Autonomous Organization
Developing the idea of digital democracy, it follows that public administration in digital democracy should be carried out on the basis of a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO)15, where a digital system of rules and laws is carried out automatically. Three new decentralized Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) instruments would be linked in real time within the DAO: voting, identity, money. All of these open source tools are owned by DAO. Every citizen is a member of the DAO.
If DAO laws contain structures inherited from previous hierarchical systems of government, then within the DAO citizens can elect representatives and delegate power to them while the government representatives act in the interests of the majority of citizens. Otherwise, by withdrawing their votes in a continuous referendum, citizens immediately deprive any elected government officials of power and access to the budget.
To avoid voting permanently, citizens can anonymously delegate their voting mandate to someone they deem a worthy delegate. These activists, accumulating mandates, can vote with them on various issues. The election cycle can be started automatically if there are vacancies.
Thus, society becomes Big Brother, which looks after the authorities. In this case, there is a positive selection into power and the majority there becomes men and women of good will.
Talking about a decentralized autonomous organization, the author of the DAO idea and the creator of the Ethereum cryptocurrency Vitalik Buterin says9: “Leadership has to rely more on soft power rather than hard power, so leaders have to really consider the feelings of the community and treat them with respect. Leaders’ positions are not fixed, so if leaders stop acting, the world will forget about them. Conversely, it is very easy for new leaders to rise up.”
The movement to create a DAO has already begun. CryptoFed DAO, which is probably the prototype of the state one, was officially created in the USA, Wyoming. It is expected that the decentralized cryptocurrency Ducat will operate within its framework for payments by the population and organizations within the state. The launch of the currency was planned for the end of 202316.
It is worth noting that the existence of a DAO of this type is impossible in states moving towards a digital dictatorship and will be hindered and suppressed by the authorities in every possible way.
Web3
The set of digital technologies such as open source code, decentralization, blockchain, cryptocurrency, digital voting, digital identification, decentralized autonomous organization is called by many experts as Web3. The impact of Web3 on the relationship between state and society in a world where these technologies are developing could be enormous. Apparently, it is the combination of Web3 technologies that can lead to digital democracy. Government actions aimed at restricting Web3 technologies while simultaneously developing centralized digital tools could lead to a digital dictatorship.
Analysis of digital dictatorship and democracy
The following is an analysis and category analysis of the features of new digital technologies, which clearly indicate two completely different approaches to the relationship between the state and society.
You can look at an analysis of what two different sustainable systems – digital dictatorship and democracy – look like, from the perspective of new digital tools included in the Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), which can bring both oppression and freedom. You are encouraged to think and draw your own conclusions about where your country is now and what digital future it is heading towards.
Digital | Digital | |
Target | A good present and future are only for the minority associated with power. Suppression of civil rights and freedoms for the majority of the population. Exploitation of the majority of citizens to improve the welfare of a narrow group of people. Fear and Coercion | A good present and future for the majority of the population, including people associated with power. Respect for human rights. Progress and development. Freedom and Justice |
The basis | Centralization All information about digital passports (biometrics), money, elections is accumulated in data centers controlled by the authorities | Decentralization All information about digital passports (biometrics), money, elections is stored distributedly and is not under the control of the authorities |
Public administration | Centralized management Classic hierarchical governance using new centralized digital public infrastructure tools to strengthen the power of the few over the many | Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) |
Control | The majority is controlled by the authorities The minority that holds power controls the majority of citizens. Big Brother is a state that can monitor and manipulate every citizen. Surveillance using cameras with facial recognition, Internet control | Power is controlled by the majority The majority of citizens control the minority, which they allow to power through elections. Big Brother is a society that keeps an eye on government officials, including through the media. |
Mass media | State media Suppression of all independent media. Propaganda in state media. Censorship | Independent media Prohibition of propaganda.
|
Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) | Closed source Closed source systems for identification of citizens, currency and voting. | Open source Open code for citizen identification, currency and voting systems. Open source avoids manipulation by those who create it and have access to digital tools. Open source code can be analyzed by any specialist to look for fraud. |
Vote | Centralized voting Elections are organized by those in power. The elections are held under the control of the current authorities. Votes are counted centrally | Decentralized voting Elections can be triggered automatically when vacancies in government appear or when the term of office of government officials ends. |
Election fraud | Possible Fraud of elections due to their complete centralization and closed voting platforms is a way to seize and retain power | Not possible Thanks to a decentralized and open voting platform, elections are fair and transparent |
Revocation of votes | No votes recalled Traditional concept that the people should tolerate elected representatives until the end of their term, even if they are incompetent or lying | There is a review of votes Real-time recall of votes through continuous referendum1 to recall elected representatives |
Responsibility of the authorities for promises | No responsibility It is impossible to recall deceitful and incompetent government officials acting in their own interests | There is responsibility Recall those government officials who lie and do not keep their promises. Support those representatives who act in the interests of the majority |
Legitimacy of power | Minimum Power is based on control and fear. The government acts in its own interests | Maximum Power is based on real delegation from the people to their representatives. The government acts in the interests of the majority |
Trust between government and society | Minimum trust Peaceful protests are suppressed. Activists Harassed Using New Digital Technologies | Maximum trust Protests are not necessary, since all problems can be resolved in advance. Activists become elected delegates |
Involvement of the electorate in politics | Minimum Atomization of society. Disunity. Division into layers and small groups. “Nothing depends on us. Everyone around is lying. It’s not clear what’s true and what’s false.” | Maximum The feeling of responsibility of every citizen for the voting result. Visible result of voting. Actively search for information to be sure of the correctness of your choice when voting |
State institutions | Dependent institutions All institutions are built into the vertical of power. There are no independent institutions. The system of checks and balances does not work | Independent institutions Independence of the judiciary. The system of checks and balances works |
State currency | CBDC Central bank digital currency is not owned by the people. | Decentralized cryptocurrency The budget and government currency belong to the people under the DAO. Every citizen has a personal digital wallet, which is stored in his gadget |
Attitude towards non-state cryptocurrencies | Prohibitive Maximum prohibition of the use of cryptocurrencies in payments | Neutral, positive |
Sources:
1) “Digital Manifesto”, 09/22/2022, https://habr.com/ru/articles/689636/
2) World Economic Forum Davos Agenda “Top 5 ideas for leveraging digital public goods for development”, 2022. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/01/5-lessons-digital-public-goods-development/
3) “Implementing digital public infrastructure, securely and inclusively” https://50in5.net
4) “What is decentralization?” https://www.ciesin.org/decentralization/English/General/Different_forms.html
5) “CBDC digital currency for a digital dictatorship”, 01/19/2024, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4698922
6) “Nigerian stablecoin cNGN will not launch in February, consortium confirms”, 01/12/2024, https://www.ledgerinsights.com/cngn-stablecoin-nigeria-no-february-launch/
7) “Consortium delays cNGN stablecoin launch date in Nigeria to comply with regulations”, 01/09/2024, https://techpoint.africa/2024/01/09/consortium-postpones-nigerias-stablecoin-cngn-launch/
8) “Be careful CBDC!”, 05.22.2022, https://www.city-journal.org/article/cbdc-caution
9) “The man behind Ethereum is concerned about the future of cryptocurrency”, 03/18/2022, https://time.com/6158182/vitalik-buterin-ethereum-profile/
10) UN Development Program “Digital Strategy for 2022-2025” https://digitalstrategy.undp.org
11) “Closing the Trust Gap”, Fergus Neilson, 11/24/2023, https://journals.aau.dk/index.php/BESS/article/view/8137
12) “Highest Aspiration: A Call to Action for Human Rights” www.un.org/sg/sites/www.un.org.sg/files/atoms/files/The_Highest_Asperation_A_Call_To_Action_For_Human_Right_English.pdf
13) Report of the UN Secretary-General “Roadmap for Digital Cooperation: Implementation of the recommendations of the High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation”, https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N20/102/53/PDF/N2010253.pdf
14) “From Past to Future: Ideas and Actions for a Free Society”, Robert Skidelsky, Keynes W. Hayek, 01/15/2020, https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/finalmpsbook.pdf
15) “Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO)”, 01.2023, https://www.techtarget.com/searchcio/definition/decentralized-autonomous-organization-DAO
16) “Wyoming can still meet deadline to issue digital stable token by end of year,” 10/24/2023, https://cowboystatedaily.com/2023/10/24/wyoming-could-still-meet-deadline-to-issue-digital-stable-token-by-end-of-year/
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