By RAMIT KHURANA

Registration Number 11602558

Ethics Project
‘Digital Democracy’

Democracy is a form of government in which the people exercise

the authority of government. Who people are and how authority is shared
among them are core issues for democratic development and constitution.

Some features of these issues are freedom of assembly and speech inclusiveness
and equality, membership, consent, voting, right to life and minority rights.
Generally there are two types of democracy; Direct and Representative. In a
direct democracy the people directly deliberate and decide on legislature. In a
representative democracy the people elect representative to deliberate and
decide on legislature, such as in parliamentary or presidential democracy.
Liquid democracy combines elements of two basic types. The most common
decision making approach of democracies has been the majority rule.

In short Democracy is a form of government which is of the people, for the

people and by the people.

Time as changed a lot and if we see modern era which is full of people who are
educated and are well known about their rights and this has resulted in
digitalization of globe, economy and not less the democracy also.

In 1970s-1990s the rule was in hands of government only but after digitalisation
now the power is in the hands of common people. Today everything is
digitalised and so is India also more or less digitalised now with help of our
Prime Minister whose mission is to make India Digital.

And not only Digitalisation means paperless economy but this digitalisation has
also changed the way of Democracy seen from both end of people and
government.
Now people are educated and don’t believe in the fake promises of the
government but they actually see the results and actions performed by the
government.

Because of the increase trend in social media in today’s world even a common
person is aware of his rights and power and social media is such a platform
which is accessible by everyone and is not just a platform but act as a court
where right judgement is done. And this court solely belongs to the public and
people where they can raise their voice against any UNETHICAL practice
performed by the government or any person.

Yes I am talking about Digital Democracy and what is digital democracy in a

lay mans language?

E-democracy (a combination of the words electronic and democracy), also

known as digital democracy or Internet democracy, is the use of information
and communication technology (ICT) in political and governance processes. It
incorporates 21st-century information and communications technology to
promote democracy;such technologies include civic technology and government
technology. It is a form of government in which all adult citizens are presumed
to be eligible to participate equally in the proposal, development and
creation of laws.

E-democracy encompasses social, economic and cultural conditions that enable

the free and equal practice of political self-determination, moreover in today’s
world digital inclusion is an inherent necessity of an e-democracy.

Need for Digital or E-Democracy:

Human Right is the spread of free information through the internet has
encouraged freedom and human development. The internet is used for
promoting human rights-including free speech, religion, expression, peaceful
assembly, government accountability, and the right of knowledge and
understanding which is called the supporting digital democracy. 

Expanding Democracy is the Internet has several attributes that encourage

thinking about it as a democratic medium.

The lack of centralized control makes censorship difficult. There are other

parallels in the social design in the early days of the internet, such as the
strongly libertarian support for free speech, the sharing culture that permeated
nearly all aspects of Internet use, and the outright prohibition on commercial
use by the National Science Foundation. Another example is the unmediated
mass communication on the internet, such as through newsgroups, chat rooms,
and MUDs.This communication ignored the boundaries established
with broadcast media, such as newspapers or radio, and with one-to-one media,
such as letters or landline telephones. Finally, because the Internet is a massive
digital network with open standards, universal and inexpensive access to a wide
variety of communication media and models could actually be attained.

Some practical issues involving e-democracy include: effective participation;

voting equality at decision stage; enlightened understanding; control of the
agenda; and inclusiveness. Systemic issues may include cyber-security concerns
and protection of sensitive data from third parties.

Improving Democracy in modern democracies are generally the representative

democracies where citizens elect representatives to manage the creation and
implementation of laws, policies, and regulations on their behalf, in contrast to
direct democracies in which citizens retain that responsibility. They may be
referred to as more or less "democratic" depending on how well the government
represents the will or interest of the people. A shift to E-democracy would in
effect devolve political power from elected representatives to the individual.

If we see case of America where politics have become reliant on the Internet
because the Internet is the primary source of information for most Americans.
The Internet educates people on democracy, helping people stay up to date with
what is happening in their government. Online advertising is becoming more
popular for political candidates and group's opinions on propositions.

For many the Internet is often the primary resource for information. The reason
for this, and especially among younger voters, is that it is easy and reliable
when used correctly, thus lowering an individual's workload. The innate
usability of search engines, such as Google, results in increased citizen
engagement with research and political issues. Social networks allow people to
express their opinions about the government through an alias, anonymously and
judgment-free. Due to the Internets' size and decentralized structure, any
individual has the potential to go viral and gain influence over a large number of
others.

The Internet enables citizens to get and post information about politicians, and it
allows those politicians to get advice from the people in larger numbers. This
collective decision making and problem-solving gives more power to the
citizens and helps politicians make decisions faster. This creates a more
productive society that can handle problems faster and more efficiently. Getting
feedback and advice from the American population is a large part of a
politician's job and the Internet allows them to function effectively with larger
numbers of people's opinions. With this heightened ability to communicate with
the public, the American government is able to function more capably and
effectively as a Democracy

In order to attract people to get involved in online consultations and discussions,

the government must respond to people and actively demonstrate that there is a
relationship between the citizen's engagement and policy outcome. It is also
important that people are able to become involved in the process, at a time and
place that is convenient to them but when their opinions will count. The
government will need to ensure that the structures are in place to deal with
increased participation.
In order to ensure that issues are debated in a democratic, inclusive, tolerant and
productive way, the role that intermediaries and representative organizations
may play should be considered. In order to strengthen the effectiveness of the
existing legal rights of access to information held by public authorities, citizens
should have the right to effective public deliberation and moderation.

There are different ways in which government try to interact with the public are:
E-democracy has the potential to overcome the traditional trade-off between the
size of the group that participates in the democratic process and the depth of the
will expression. Traditionally, large group size was achieved with
simple ballot voting, whereas the depth of the will expression was limited to
predefined options while depth of will expression was achieved by limiting the
number of participants through representative democracy.
The social media Web 2.0 revolution has shown to achieve both, large group
sizes and depth of will expression, but the will expressions in social media are
not structured and it is difficult to make sense of them.
New information processing techniques, including big data analytics and
the semantic web have shown ways to make use of these possibilities for the
implementation of future forms of e-democracy.
The process of E-Democracy or Digital Democracy is carried out by
technologies such as electronic mailing lists, peer-to-peer network,
collaborative software and apps like GovernEye, Countable, VoteSpotter
wikis, Internet Forums and blogs.
Social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, WordPress and BlogSpot, are
playing an increasingly important role in democratic deliberations.

The role of social media in e-democracy has been an emerging area for e-
democracy, as well as related technological developments, such as argument
maps and eventually, the semantic web. Another related development consists
in combining the open communication of social networking with the structured
communication of closed panels including experts and/or policy-makers, such
as for example through modified versions of the Delphi method , to combine
the open communication of self-organized virtual communities with the
structured communication of closed panels, including members of the policy-
community.

This approach addresses the question of how, in electronic democracy, to

reconcile distributed knowledge and self-organized memories with critical
control, responsibility and decision. The social networking entry point, for
example, is within the citizens' environment, and the engagement is on the
citizens' terms. Proponents of e-government perceive government use of social
networks as a medium to help government act more like the public it serves.

Ethical use or Benefits of Digital Democracy:

Digital Inclusion is essential for citizen participation in public policy

formulation for a healthy Digital Democracy through equal participation of all
section of society in any democracy irrespective of citizen's income level,
education level, gender, religion, colour, race, language used, physical and
mental health etc. Any public policy formulated without including any specific
section of society will always remain non-inclusive by nature which will go
against the ethos of democracy.

E-Voting, Polling and Participation- Digital participation is unlikely to lead

anywhere without the ability to easily vote on topics. For citizens to be more
active in participating in government there needs to be the ability to engage
directly and more frequently. Online voting is the only realistic method with
which citizens could consistently and easily participate. Online voting for
companies, unions, cooperatives and professional associations have consistently
received higher voter turnout for their respective elections.
When online voting is introduced for political elections, it will be combined
with traditional voting procedures. Postal voting provides the best comparison
for online elections, but online is safer, more efficient, much faster and far
better for the environment. Indeed, voting online has shown to have saved up to
70% of the costs of traditional voting methods owing to reduced shipping,
printing, and material costs. In terms of digital participation, however, the
increased turnout will boost the legitimacy of any government and help
strengthen modern democracy.

E-Participation strengthens the political Debate- E-Participation aims to enable

a more advanced political debate through digitalization. The main methods are
sites where citizens can address and solve issues but also, forums or sites where
citizens can raise concerns with the government directly. 

For example the Petitions website in the United Kingdom. Here any citizen may
create or support a petition. Any petition that gets above a certain number of
signatures must be responded by the UK parliament. Politicians and civil
servants are, in this way, able to track and tackle the most important topics--
stoking the flames of political engagement.

E-Government enables the more efficient management processes-The aim of E-

Government is both the efficient running of government and the promotion
transparency. This is achieved by the digitalization of services and processes
and the increased use and publication of government data. Where more data is
available to the public and other government departments, there is more
accountability. This can range from filling out taxes online, registering to vote
to the publication of national trade statistics and department budgets.  The idea
is, as more services are digitalized, the demand for a digitalized government
grows. This should lead to faster and more efficient governance.

Access to information - new technology widens the citizens' access to

information, making specialist information available to the people instead of
just the government. E-democracy would create a genuine two-way democratic
process, where citizens are active participants rather than passive recipients.

Ease of organisation - the time, effort and resources used in physical

referendums could be saved by the use of online referendums, which would be
cheaper, easier to hold and would be able to be held more frequently.
Power to the people - new technology has helped the developments of social
movements, and has increased their effectiveness and reach. This has given rise
to a new style of decentralised and non-hierarchical politics.

Moreover Digital Democracy is the purest form of Democracy because of full

transparency between public and the government.

Unethical use or Disadvantages of Digital Democracy:

Digital Participation does not reach the whole population

This ultimately lies at the core of the issue with digital participation. Not every
citizen has a Smartphone, computer or even a stable connection to the internet.
Rural areas lack the digital infrastructure necessary for regular digital
participation. While this will change in the future as governments and private
companies invest in infrastructure, it is one of the biggest hurdles that must be
overcome.
It is not only the technical inability to participate that is the problem. Many
people themselves lack the technical knowledge or desire to participate with the
government digitally. While these people remain, there must be non-digital
methods of political participation.

Liquid Democracy or too much participation could lead to voter fatigue.

In terms of liquid democracy, this would hardly matter if individuals do not vote
as their votes are automatically transferred to their elected representative.
Liquid democracy is both a fascinating and bold idea – learn more about
democracy here! In terms liquid democracy, voting on individual bills and laws
would rarely be high, except for occasional issues of national significance. The
true danger is that too much engagement would lead to lower turnout in national
or important elections. Indeed this is a danger but if e-participation is done
correctly, there will be more desire to engage – as well as the ability to do so.
Ultimately, it all comes down to education and continued support of the ideals
of digital democracy.

Online Voting a Security Risk

A clear distinction should be made between voting computers (E-voting)

and online (I-voting). Voting computers have a checkered history and are often
built on legacy hardware. They are also cumbersome, expensive and often
insecure. Online voting, in contrast, has to be built to the latest specifications,
with the latest cryptographic concepts, and on the latest hardware. Staying up-
to-date is vital in order to keep up with the constantly evolving digital market
and security needs. There are a few issues in particular. Ballot secrecy must be
upheld, the vote must be able to be verified and it has to be safe from external
attack.

Electoral malpractice - scrutiny and control over the democratic process

becomes vulnerable to corruption or hacks. Physical voting allows the secret
ballot and one person one vote rule to be properly policed.

Virtual' democracy - e-democracy may turn democratic processes into a series

of push-button decisions rather than a public experience concerning the greater
good of society. E-democracy creates the risk of making democratic citizenship
into a series of consumer choices.

Digital divide - access to new technology and information is not universal, so

using e-democracy would give rise to a pattern of inequality based on the
information rich' and the 'information poor.
Anti-democratic forces - hate groups spreading racial and religious intolerance,
or political extremism, may exploit new technology and spread their own
messages.
Echo chamber - the personalised dimension of social media has already given
rise to a polarised political landscape, as people are no longer exposed to views
that contradict their own.

Conclusion
From the above stated data I come to a conclusion that Digital Democracy is
great tool for India (Government & Public) only if used in an Ethical way which
means usage with fair means and result should be positive off course , will only
be possible if all the necessary information and proper control is taken by the
Rightful Authorities. Unless if any loop-hole is left from the Government and
The Authorities the Digital Democracy may turn into a disaster and has power
to destroy a whole country and economy.

Ramit Khurana

Registration No. 11602558