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Digital
Sovereignty: The Immaterial Aristocracy of the World Wide Web
by Harry Halpin
[University of Edinburgh]
Summary: The
World Wide Web, built upon the foundations of the Internet, has been the most
significant technological development within recent history, sparking a
reformulation of capitalism and resistance. The Web is defined as a
"universal information space" by its inventor Tim Berners-Lee of the
W3C, paralleling the universal scope of politics today. While its effects have
been scrutinized, the Web itself has received little inquiry. The composition
of the governing networks that control the infrastructure of the Web have only
recently been engaged with by activists with ICANN affair and the WSIS
protests.
The Web is governed by a network that is
composed of an "immaterial aristocracy" of radical democratic
"hackers", corporations such as Google and Microsoft, and
non-governmental organizations such as the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF) and World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). These networks continually
negotiate between the needs of global capitalism and the desires of immaterial
labour on the Web. We explore the evolution of these governing networks,
including the recent hegemony of Google and Tim Berners-Lee's vision of the
Semantic Web (a term first used by Foucault), and present strategies for
autonomy beyond the immaterial aristocracy.
CV:
Harry Halpin is a researcher at the
University of Edinburgh, working with Henry Thompson of the World Wide Web
Consortium (W3C), the leading international consortium for Web standards like
HTML, and currently engaging the W3C to create a logical foundation for the
"next-generation" Semantic Web. He has in the past published work on
Web architecture and artificial intelligence, and the social implications
thereof. His work has been presented at both Cambridge and Google. He
co-founded Scotland Indymedia, and is involved in the anti-capitalist Dissent!
network, including their forthcoming book: Shut Them Down: The G8,
Gleneagles, and the Movement of Movements.
E-mail: [email protected]