Virtual Revolution BBC

1. What is nowadays the role of the
Internet in politics?
Presented by
Valentin LECOCQ

2. 1. History
1. Before the web
2. In the 50-60’s (the hippies)
3. In the 80’s (the WELL)
2. Politics on the web now
1. Twitter and politics
2. Twitter and US Elections 2016
3. How the web breaks governements’ censorship
4. How the web affect people’s opinions
5. Internet arguing
3. End
1. Bonus

3. • Politics has always been a very risky subject
• Before the web, people weren’t talking much
about politics
• Candidates had to win the trust of the
electors with the TV and the newspaper

4. • In the 50’s, everything was white or black:
• Or you’re a « good capitalist american » or a « nasty communist »
• There was no intermediary
• Then came the hippie culture
• This culture was fighting against that
• You can think what you want, the world is not binary

5. • The WELL is a community that started in the 80’s
• People could speak anonymously about what they think, politics
included
• There were channels about politics where people were speaking
freely
• It was there that the web started to influence politics and
how people think, act, and speak about it

6. • If at first Twitter was not meant that way, Twitter has
today a highly partisan political talk
• This is due to the #hashtags that allow and pushes people to join
communities, political views and share their ideas
• It’s mostly used by young people who want to promote their
ideologies, even if they’re not « politically correct »
• It also helps to share information about something bad or good a
politician or a governement did, for example:

7. • Twitter played a lot in the US Elections of 2016
• One of the reason is because Donald Trump uses a lot Twitter and
his Tweets are known to cause a lot of controversy, some
examples:

8. • Even Twitter founders recently reacted and said he was
feeling in trouble because of Trump’s tweets:
• But despite being against Trump, he said that’s fascinating how his
social network played a big role in his election

9. • Google DNS:
• It doesn’t look like it has something to do with politics but 8.8.8.8 is
a fight for freedom.
• Google’s DNS often allows to bypasses blocked websites
• Governements often censors websites via ISPs’ DNS
This picture was taken in Trukey, in 2014

10. • The thing to understand is that whatever you try to
censor on the Internet, can be kept censored forever.
• There’s always a way to find the censored information.

11. • A list of studies made between 2008 and 2013 show that:
• People feel more engaged in their opinions and don’t hesitate to
show them on social networks
• Arguments on social networks are most of the time about politics
• Social networks gave much more voice to the « politically
incorrect »
• Activism has aslo a bigger importance thanks to the web
• Politicians who use social networks frequently are more likely to
win

12. • When people started to argue about politics on the
internet, a lot of terms appeared:
• « Troll »  person who only want you to get mad, whatever his
opinion is
• « Godwin point »  moment of an argument when you start
speaking about Holocaust
• « Danth’s Law »  « If you have to insist that you've won an
internet argument, you've probably lost badly”
• “Pommer’s Law”  “A person's mind can be changed by reading
information on the internet. The nature of this change will be from
having no opinion to having a wrong opinion.”
• And many others…

13. • There’s a lot of politically incorrect threads/websites on
the net and they’re growing fast:
• /pol/ on 4chan
• Hiddenlol
• /r/politicallyincorrect
• Example: « Can’t Stump the Trump » (started on 4chan
/pop/):

14. • As you can see, politics have been affected a lot by the
internet
• If the internet gives free advertising to the politicians, it
also gives more voice to the electors

15. • Here’s a bonus:
• Abraham Lincoln’s speech on the ERB about the last US Elections
showing how politics became important on the social networks:
• https://youtu.be/Kbryz0mxuMY?t=2m58s