The Internet is a Tool to Bring About Socio-economic Changes Through the Government

The Internet can be used as a tool to bring about socio-economic changes through the government. Obama during the time of his campaign and afterwards has been calling for use of technology to make the government and its functions more transparent allowing for more participation from the people. Without the new technology such a thing could not have been imagined couple of years ago.

The basic idea is to use this technology for creating "a transparent and connected democracy". This idea led to the appointment of Vivek Kundra as the Chief Information Officer – the post being the first of its kind, by President Obama. data.gov has been launched by Kundra based on the principle "that government agencies shouldn’t just provide web sites, they should provide web services."

Government has at its disposal a staggering volume of information. The point is to share it with innovators by bringing down the barriers that prevent access to it. The Internet was a government project – this point should be noted said Tim O’Reilly who first coined the term Web-2.0 five years back and is today leading a step to enforce this plan in the way democracy can operate – Government 2.0. The platform was built by the government and the innovators began to build the pyramid on it.

O’Reilly cites many other instances of innovators building empires on the foundation provided by the government as regards information together with services. He cited two sites EveryBlock and StumbleSafety that note statistics of public crime and transform these into applications related to public safety.

By using government as a foundation or platform the line of thinking about legislation is altered. O’Reilly notes "Government 2.0 requires a new approach to the design of programs; not as finished products, perfected in a congressional bill, executive order, or procurement specification, but as ongoing experiments."

It is of little surprise that quite naturally these innovations are being introduced at the local level and being and welcomed with open arms by Newark Mayor Cory Booker – among others. He commented, "We are one part of a larger democracy that is learning how to master media drive to social change. Social media is a forum where people can come together to connect, talk, mobilize and create a larger sense of community."

Booker has already to his credit over a million followers on his Twitter. Using this together with Facebook and YouTube he has opened up lines of communication with members of his constituency and feeling their pulse.