#the reason I use the pet store analogy is because I also have strong opinions about pet stores

[artykyn]

When will you share that rant about Claire's and piercings? I am very invested

The Long Version

The Short(...er) Version:

Disclaimer: Most of my gripes apply to pretty much any shopping-mall piercing kiosk. Claire’s is not the ONLY place I have an issue with, they’re just the best known.

1. There are two main piercing methods: a hollow needle, or a piercing gun. Piercing guns are objectively in every way worse than a needle. But Claire’s, which uses the gun, markets it as “No Contact! 😃” and “Needle Free! 🥰” while failing to mention that also means it is a “Higher Infection Risk! 😉” and “More painful! 😇”

2. It’s okay to use cheap low-grade jewelry in a piercing that is already healed. But using low-grade metal in a fresh piercing increases your risk of healing and health problems (and can even put you at risk of developing metal allergies that will last the rest of your life!). Claire’s sells both cheap and high-grade metal, but fails to properly counsel customers on what metals are appropriate for a first piercing, and ultimately lets you pick whatever you’re willing to pay for. 

3. Claire’s employees are not professional piercers. They are retail workers with basic piercing training. Trusting them to give you good piercing advice and sell you appropriate products is like trusting a pet supply store cashier to give you good animal care advice and appropriate products. There are always better people to go to, and they might be more expensive, but ultimately, you are getting exactly what you pay for. Make your own choices, at your own risk.

4. General gripe about piercing culture: there are mothers out there who are so obsessed with enforcing gender roles that they will get their infant baby girl’s ears pierced. Piercings are a type of body modification and you should not be forcing that upon someone without their consent. Let your kid grow up and choose to have a piercing. It’s exciting to go out and get pierced! Why rob your child of that fun experience?

Piercings also are an open wound which needs special care, which babies do not comprehend, leaving them at high risk of accidental infection and even permanent scarring and disfiguration in some cases. A lot of professional piercers have age restrictions for this very reason. But Claire’s (among others, whom I take issue with) will gladly pierce your infant’s ears.

Having metal allergies is relatively common. Interestingly, the percentage of the population with metal allergies is noticeably skewed towards women. Gee.... perhaps it might be related to so many women getting cheap piercings in order to fulfill gender expectations.

[orangepunkwitch-blog]

Not dead!  Not an abandoned blog, either!  This kinda happens from time to time, so lemme explain myself:

Did the read-more page-breaking thing so nobody has to scroll for eons if they don’t care to read...

Anyway, my absence.  My mental and physical health have been absolute shit, and I’m starting to think I may have seasonal depression on top of situational depression as well since every damn winter I have no energy to do much of anything.  But as this year progresses, I’m finding myself perking up some.  My physical health is largely due to flare-ups (I haven’t been diagnosed but it’s strongly considered that I may have endometriosis; I need to get a laparoscopy to find out and currently cannot afford that, etc. etc. long story for another time) and lack of proper dieting and exercise.  The flare-ups and shitty periods are why I can’t exercise when I’d like to, and we can’t always afford healthy food for strength and energy I need to do things (my metabolism is high enough to where gaining weight isn’t exactly an issue with me despite being almost 30).  The worst of my pain occurs the first couple of days on my period, to which I have ultimately resorted to smoking marijuana which helps tremendously.  The only time I use it off the rag is during an extremely bad flare-up, which are thankfully rare.

‘Kay... mental health...  My husband and I still live with my parents here on the farm and it’s been stressful to the point where I’m getting anxiety-related chest-pains from time to time lately (long story-short: my parents---especially my dad---are assholes and even Loki said that no amount of magick can help them so I just rely on my wards in my room to have a safe haven).  This and the fact that we may have a lack of proper oxygen in this house might be contributing to it.  I plan on beginning my luck at growing pet-safe indoor house plants such as succulents and aloe vera to help with this after visiting a friend’s house whose mom pretty much has an indoor garden and realizing how much better I feel just being there for a few minutes.

With that out of the way, let’s talk about a topic relating to what this blog is about: Paganism, witchcraft, and being a Lokean.

Nope, still a solid Pagan with Druid beliefs and such, still a Lokean, but I haven’t practiced entirely too much witchcraft because there haven’t really been ways for me to use it where it’s needed.  You can’t expect certain spells to work if you’re not doing anything to help it along (such as a job wouldn’t just fall into your lap because you still have to apply for a job).  Money spells can get expensive if you’re doing it constantly for your spouse or parents because you’ll eventually run out of candles and such (I can’t do it without ingredients because I’m scatterbrained and need a damn decent point of focus and stuff).

I’ve got plans, though!  I still haven’t invoked Loki for practice (which he’s cool with) so there’s that; I need to work out a ritual, and Loki says that for me, being short, sweet, and too the point is the best way to go.  So I’ll be working something out with him in the (hopefully) near future.  There’s also the fact that I plan to try out my green thumb and see about growing pumpkins and sunflowers.  The sunflowers are to help with luck or prosperity or something on the property (honestly, I really wanna grow some out front to make the place look nice and having half a field of these flowers will be great for the faeries living there).  The pumpkins are because I fucking love Halloween and love pumpkin pie and have a few recipes involving pumpkin I wanna try.  I’d also like to try my luck at selling some, too.

While Loki tells me he isn’t associated with pumpkins, he sure as fuck likes to press the whole “come on, you know you wanna” bit onto me with growing them, and I’m getting this feeling that he’ll show up presence-wise whenever I go out to the pumpkin patch, so...  Whatever, I’m gonna grow pumpkins because pumpkins are fucking awesome.

I’ll be asking the neighbor that owns the property across the street from us if I can do some bone-hunting and maybe a little bit of fossil-hunting.  I still have the deer bones that my friend gave me that I need to wash, plus a dead young skunk I’m trying to decompose for bones, but winter makes this shit hard, so that’s part of my spring/summer activities.  Loki wants me to try and articulate the skunk and have it mounted on a wooden platform and put onto his altar and I’m sitting here like: uuuuhhhhhh you don’t have much in a way of room...  Regardless, articulating a mammalian skeleton will be beneficial in starting myself out in first-hand osteological studying, which is something you kinda have to know if you wanna be a paleontologist (which I do).  I’m also interested in creating a staff involving animal bones, but I’m not sure what I’ll be using it for.  If not for magick use, then it’d make for a great bring-along prop for a future druid character for D&D night (my husband and friends and I are just starting out with D&D because we haven’t been able to afford the books to play in the past, so we’re real excited about this).

Speaking of osteology, I plan on going to the museum with my husband and some friends in Pittsburgh and taking as many reference photos of all the fossil skeletons as I possibly can so I have decent and varied angles of the animals for reference when I practice to better my paleoart.  I don’t wanna keep on using artistic renditions or limited angles of the same damn pics of fossils on the internet for references.  I just need a decent camera, and I’m hoping my mom will stop acting immature and demand from a supposed friend that they give her her camera back.  She has more authority to demand it back than I do, and I never talk to those people anyways, so it would make sense if she tried getting the damn thing back.  Even though it’s sort of old, it’s still very high quality even for today’s standards and cost my parents nearly a grand to purchase.  If not, my husband (who is extremely knowledgeable in technology and quality) can help me get a new decent camera (because my iphone sucks and his samsung phone can only hold so much memory for the amount of pictures I wanna take).

I do plan on doing more magick this summer, largely to help with learning a new instrument.  While I do wanna properly learn the French Horn since I simply have the instrument, I need the proper mouthpiece (not sure if I’ve bitched about this in past posts), but every damn time I try to get the proper mouthpiece that I need, shit happens and I never get it.  However...  There’s a very strong possibility I could be learning how to play drums.  I’ve always wanted to play but my parents did their damnedest to keep me from that thinking I’d just be annoying on drums.  Turns out I’m quite proficient in terms of knowledge on how to play after a clerk at the local music store permitted me to play around on a drum set in one of the tutoring rooms because I paid very close attention to my band teacher helping the percussion section back in middle school.  That knowledge stuck with me because I wanted to play drums so damn bad.  So as it turns out, looks like I’ll be a drummer after all!  It’d be a great way to help me stay in some upper-body shape and help relieve stress through movement while creating music.  I’ll worry about starting a band later once I’ve actually become proficient in actually playing the drums, though.

Loki has made sure I stayed on the right path to where I don’t completely go on hiatus regarding creativity.  I have a deviantART now if anyone is interested, and I’ve been working on some DIY punk clothing for myself.  I’ll also be working on getting my hair how I want and learning how to apply makeup.  It’s apparently time that I start expressing myself how I want now that I know what I’m doing.  I’m going to go for a goth-punk look that I’ve always wanted since forever, just didn’t know how to achieve the look without spending a fuck ton of money (turns out that I never needed to in the first place).

....yay tangents.

Loki’s basically been trying to teach me to stop relying on the pendulum so damn much.  Basically I have to accept that I’m not going to know everything and find some other coping mechanism unless I absolutely have to consult with a pendulum, otherwise he’s just going to lie to me to hammer the lesson into my head.  I mean, his opinions?  Fine, sometimes I can’t take a hint on my own, he knows it, and sees the pendulum being something that could work.  But other stuff I won’t get into, he’s like, “Okay look...”  He’s also apparently preferring that I use tarot readings in general divination than runes.  I think it’s because the runes were a nice beginner’s way of helping me figure out the whole divination thing.  I’ll Sometimes combine tarot with the pendulum if I’m not sure and very damn confused on certain things, but other than that, I’ve been getting the hang of it.  I still need the handbook because holy dumbfuck, I can’t remember every little thing about every damn card.

Actually, this one tarot spread tried to basically tell me to compare what I’m going through to a caterpillar’s life and I’m currently in the pupa stage.  Meaning: I’m working on the appearance that I want, and when I finally achieve it, something something butterfly/moth analogy.  Of course, it isn’t narrating my whole damn life, just a part of my life.

Regarding art, I’ve been working with Kenaz, and that’s the rune I have on the Loki painting I may or may not have shared here sometime ago (I’m pretty sure I did but I’m too lazy to go get it so...)  The painting has now been moved to a new part of my room (after rearranging shit for the millionth time) and it’s lined up to where it’s directly across from where I sit to do art.  Ever since then, I’ve been able to dish out projects with higher quality than what I usually do at a faster rate.  It’s just that lately, thanks to precipitation, I can’t do charcoal drawings for a while.  Reason being is that I have to go to the outer garage to spray fixatif on it when I’m done and I need proper air circulation for that, and my windows aren’t meant to be opened... the architect of this house was a fucking idiot.

I am not entirely sure if I’ll be purchasing and reading anymore Pagan/witchcraft books for a good while, especially after being better informed, checking my amazon wish list, and finding out that some of the stuff I wish-listed is empty garbage because a lot of crud cranked out by Llewelynn tends to be garbage for money (note: I said “a lot,” not “all.”)  But I do make purchases of incense from a small business witchy shop (they make their incense sticks).  Lately, I’ve been focused on finding affordable boxes suitable for Bast’s, Thoth’s, and Cernunnos’ altars because my asshole cat likes to knock only the tiny shit off them.  I’d also like to get proper statues for Bast and Thoth, too.

I’m also interested in making a smaller besom for general workings, and putting my bigger one up above the front door for protection purposes.

I don’t know how to end a ridiculous post like this, so that’s all I’ve got for now.  I’m not disinterested, it’s just I don’t have a whole lot going for me, plus my health isn’t entirely the best right now.  Take care, everyone!

[bluewatsons]

Andrea Simoncini, The Constitutional Dimension of the Internet: Some Research Paths, EUI Department of Law Research Paper No. 2016/16  (2016)

Abstract

The advent of Internet, as a new super-powered communication technology, has a huge impact on human thinking, therefore, on social relationships and, at the end, on law. Specifically, Internet plays a double interaction with the realm of constitutional law: on the one hand, it is a new powerful tool to pursue constitutional aims (a new way to define, control and regulate power); on the other, it is a new object of the constitutional law (a new power to be defined, controlled, and regulated). This phenomenon has been acutely defined as the ambivalence of “technocratic paradigm”. The initial hypothesis of the relation Internet-Constitutional Law has been that of a “linear” proportion, that is: the more Internet grows, the more Democracy and Citizenship equally grow. The paper suggests some research paths - both on “Internet-Democracy” and on “Internet-Citizenship” sides - proving the inconsistency of that hypothesis. “Constitutional crowdsourcing” experiments, web tools for participatory democracy; social- media as factors of political mobilization, are all cases showing ambivalent/ambiguous results: technology can be a strong growth factor for democratic advancement and constitutional participation, but it triggers equally strong counter-forces. The rise of the doctrine of “cyber-sovereignty”, as a reaction to the freedom of cyber space, the powerful constitutional resilience of the “classical” representative institutions when challenged by new Internet-based participatory channels (whether through constitutional crowdsourcing or participatory democracy), the compound nature of the new “Right to Internet” and, finally, the shifting role of social media in the political mobilization, are as many good examples of a “non-linear” relation between Internet and Constitutional Law. This ambivalence of technology requires a new reasonable and precautionary regulation, beyond the binary option: absolute prohibition/absolute freedom. The paper claims for a different multidisciplinary research approach, able to combine traditional legal tools with ethical guidelines and moral directions (“normative crescendo”).

The “Internet revolution”

Trying to evaluate the impact the Internet1 may have on constitutional law is extremely difficult, if not impossible. Since law is a form of social organization, in order to determine the exact legal magnitude of the Internet’s advent it should be first necessary to define and measure the impact it is having on the nature of human thinking, therefore, on social relationships and, eventually, on human anthropology itself. And this effort lies clearly beyond the scope of the present paper.

What we can certainly say is that, beginning in the 1970s, the telecommunication “network of networks” that today is called the “Internet”, has grown at a dizzying rate2.

Over the past twenty years, the number of the world’s Internet users rose from 25 million users in 1994 to around 3 billion in 20153.

Today 40% of the world population uses the Internet with a percentage of users that reaches as high as 78% of the population in developed countries and 30% in so-called developing countries4.

Perhaps surprisingly, the language most often used by Internet users is Chinese5, and Asia has long been the region of the world where the Internet is most widespread6. It is also interesting to note that, the three places in the world with the highest degree of Internet penetration in the population (that is, the percentage of a country’s population having Internet access) include Qatar and Bahrain, where more than 97% of the population has Internet access.

The Internet’s diffusion could not be fully explained, nor the depth of its impacts understood, without taking into account another phenomenon, which has spread at the same wildfire pace: the phenomenon commonly called the “Internet of Things”7 (IoT). IoT refers to the fact that many commonly used “items” today are actually computerized devices (or have computerized components), which are connected, or have the ability to connect to the Internet. Consider the most common of these: the mobile or cellular phone. With the advent of so-called “smart phones,” the potential to connect to the Internet, producing and transmitting data, has increased exponentially. In the world today there are 6.9 billion cell phones, a number expected to surpass the world’s population of 7 billion in 20158, and not surprisingly the category of countries with the most internet users match up with those countries that have the most cellular telephones.

But telephones are not solely responsible for the increase in IoT: myriad other appliances and commonly used instruments are also able to produce data and facilitate its circulation on the Internet (from GPS navigation systems to video surveillance apparatuses, from automobiles to credit cards, from smart parking systems to public Wi-Fi hot spots, and from microchips injected in pets to robots).

This latest Internet evolution has produced the most recent wave of the ICT revolution in which we are living, and which comes under the name “Big Data”9.

The diffusion of IoT is producing an unprecedented quantity of data (“Big Data”), both personal and not, that is quickly exceeding our storing and, moreover, processing capacity. Even more importantly, this evolution induces problems of “data mining,” that is, of extracting from “big data mines” information that can be used for decisions. In many cases data are collected and processed with neither knowledge nor consent of the individuals who generated it. The Snowden-PRISM and Assange- WikiLeaks affairs brought this latest evolution into the public domain.

With these few brushstrokes, I wish to merely give a sense of the context surrounding the topic of the “rise of the Internet.”

The impact of the Internet on law in general, and on constitutional law in particular, happens as a reflexwirkung: the principal impact is on the very nature of human thinking and, consequently, on human relationships and, only as a third level causation, it affects the legal systems.

To find an analogous precedent we must probably look back at the very origin of politics10, when the invention of writing and the extra-somatic extension of the abstract thought transformed the “pre- historic” linguistic communication, in the “historic” creation of the first urban order and therefore the invention of political relations11. The ambivalence of the technocratic paradigm

One insightful category, firstly focused by the seminal work of Zygmunt Bauman, that may help to understand this sweeping technical evolution, is that of “ambivalence”12.

Post-modernity is characterized by a growing moral and cognitive indetermination as a consequence of our increased technical power. Pope Francis’ recent Encyclical Laudato Si is an evocative expression of this ambivalence. I refer to this document, obviously, not as the expression of a particular religious vision of the world, but because it seems to me that it represents today a sort of “global ethical awareness” which is shared at a worldwide level.

The Encyclical focuses on the ambivalence of the “technocratic paradigm” that is progressing in our societies.

“Science and technology are wonderful products of a God-given human creativity”. (...) Technology itself “expresses the inner tension that impels man gradually to overcome material limitations”. (...) How can we not feel gratitude and appreciation for this progress, especially in the fields of medicine, engineering and communications? (...)

Yet it must also be recognized that nuclear energy, biotechnology, information technology, knowledge of our DNA, and many other abilities which we have acquired, have given us tremendous power. More precisely, they have given those with the knowledge, and especially the economic resources to use them, an impressive dominance over the whole of humanity and the entire world. (...)

Each age tends to have only a meager awareness of its own limitations. (...) “The risk is growing day by day that man will not use his power as he should”; in effect, “power is never considered in terms of the responsibility of choice which is inherent in freedom” since its “only norms are taken from alleged necessity, from either utility or security”13.

“Technology’s ambivalence” well captures the impact that information and communications technology has had and is having on human life14 and, consequently, on constitutional law.

On the one hand, technology is the expression of humanity’s free creative capacity; on the other, it produces a new form of power that, like all (technological) powers, does not in and of itself contain the criteria for its usefulness for humankind.

There is, therefore, a “risk/opportunity” trade-off (in law and economics terms) or one might say a “freedom/power” relationship (in political philosophy terms) that cannot be resolved through either absolute prohibition or absolute freedom, but, echoing the precautionary principle doctrine, it calls for a “reasonable regulation” 15.

Consider, for example, one of the areas in which this trade-off is most evident: that of personal data protection.

Web technology is a great occasion for expanding individual freedom: it entails new opportunities for gathering data on persons and things; new opportunities to view, choose, and purchase items or services; new opportunities to exchange opinions; new opportunities to preserve data; and new opportunities to develop and analyze such data, and all of this at unthinkable speed.

But at the same time these very opportunities can be turned – sometimes involuntarily, but very often intentionally – into unprecedented opportunities to violate the most basic human rights16.

A clear consequence of that ambivalence, is what we may call a “crescendo” in the attempts to set limitations upon the human free choice as far as technology is concerned.

The normative17 “crescendo”

The normative landscape surrounding technology is multilayered. First, there is what we may call the subjective/moral level.

This level is traditionally out of lawyers’ reach, nevertheless it is critically important and must not be overlooked because, by its very structure, cyberspace is extremely resistant to “classical” regulatory instruments. The most effective way to make the Internet a better place is making Internet-users better, that is to say, the most successful way to affect the cyberspace “code” - in Lessig’s words18 - is through the “moral code” of the users19.

Then there is the “middle-earth” of the collective-ethical level, which does not have direct legal or binding force. An increasingly large number of research programs, international conventions, and EU legislation demand for “ethical requirements” or call for the adoption of “ethic codes”, guidelines, best practices and so, on trying to bridge the gap between moral, legal and technological rules. This middle normative level of practical legal reasoning - often carried out through soft-law instruments, self- regulation, voluntary agreements or private (or quasi-private) authorities regulations (such as ICANN) - should be studied more closely.

Finally, there is a third, public-legal level, which involves legal regulation in the strict sense, and which materializes in the form of local, national, domestic, constitutional, supranational, international, technical regulations.

This paper will deal mainly with the third level, particularly taking into consideration its constitutional subset; however, it would be a very interesting research perspective to study how the borders among the different scales of the “normative crescendo” are becoming less and less stable and certain and more and more permeable and connective.

The constitutional dimension of the Internet: a “linear” hypothesis?

The advent of a new, super-powered communication tool like the Internet has a deep impact on constitutional law.

Indeed, the purpose of constitutional law lies precisely in its function of imposing limits on power (both individual and social) through law20.

From ancient to modern constitutionalism and up until the contemporary constitutionalism, law has sought to control power by either establishing a set of inalienable and fundamental rights, or by establishing certain rules of organization of the public powers. Constitution as “Bill of Rights” and Constitution as “Rule of Law” are two sides of the same contemporary Constitutional coin.

For that reason, it is doubtless that a phenomenon like the Internet plays a double interaction with the realm of constitutional law: on the one hand, it is a new powerful tool to pursue the constitutional law aim (a new way to define, control and regulate power); on the other, it is a new object of the constitutional law scope (a new power to be defined, controlled, and regulated).

Today, the most extensively explored side of the Internet-Constitutional law interaction is that of fundamental rights, especially from the viewpoint of the freedom of expression and personal data protection (privacy rights)21.

Following the prompt of the “ambivalence” of the technocratic paradigm, I would try to outline some possible research paths on another side of the relation between ICT and Constitutional Law: Democracy and Citizenship.

These two fundamental dimensions of Constitutional law have one point in common, as far as Internet is concerned: they both share the same initial theoretical assumption of a linear relation.

That is: the more Internet grows, the more Democracy and Citizenship equally grow22.

We have to consider that a key factor in this “linear” description is that technology and ICT are not only social facts but profitable services produced by industrial corporations23; technology today is one of the most important driver in the global economy. Consequently, market economy has put a strong bias in favor of the ‘linear-proportionality’ hypothesis.

However, as soon as we enlarge and deepen, in space and time, our observation, we must register a lot of non-linear inconsistencies or, to follow our “ambivalence” suggestion, a lot of ambiguous results.

Internet and democracy

The birth and growth of Internet has been hailed from the outset as a great advance for democracy24. The hope was that Internet be a natural driver and facilitator of democracy. The “digital democracy” project still aims at enabling people from either developed25 or developing26 countries or, generally speaking less favored people (minorities, marginalized and peripheral inhabitants of megalopolis, etc.) to improve their interaction with political institutions.

In most recent times, many observers of the so-called “Arab Spring” pointed to the positive role played, above all, by so-called Web 2.0 and social media providers like Twitter and Facebook, as both triggers and organizational tools in the protests that led to revolt and, in some cases, to the fall of many North African governmental regimes. When web technology increases the possibility for dialogue and communication, it necessarily increases the pluralism and freedom of opinion that make up the foundations of democracy.

And yet, even here we must register the ambivalence of technological progress described above.

If we consider data concerning internet usage during Egypt’s Tahrir Square revolution, from January 25 to 28, 201127, while we can, on the one hand, acknowledge the positive role played by the web (supported by data showing extremely high network usage28), on the other hand, heavy intervention by Hosni Mubarak’s regime is equally clear, shutting the telecommunications networks down to stifle the protest. In addition, during the very same days, the government used the Egyptian branch of the telecommunications company Vodaphone to send text messages to all Egyptians urging people not to join in the revolt and threatening heavy sanctions29.

The Egyptian example is not an isolated case; many countries took steps to shut down the Internet as a form of repression leveled against democratic movements30, and many other countries (for example China and Russia) have recently passed cyber-security laws that allot to their governments greater power to filter communications, censure their contents, and even shut down the network as a defense measure.

How democratic is Cyberspace today? The answer is more dilemmatic than we may think.

In response to the spread of the Internet use, we see the parallel growth of the “cyber-sovereignty” doctrine31, an expression that often hides what we should rather call “cyber-totalitarianism”.

If we take a look at the indicators of democracy in the world and we compare them with data about the diffusion of the Internet, we see that, contrary to what one might expect, there is no correlation between the two32. Many non-democratic states – according to the indicators commonly used to identify democracies – have high numbers of Internet users.

But, if we turn our attention to democratic states, the situation doesn’t look better.

Great public cases - as the “Snowden” affair in the United States - demonstrated that even democratic countries used ICT to violate constitutional and democratic principles.

In most recent times, a growing number of democratic states (England, France, Spain) and EU itself approved “cybersecurity strategies”, meaningfully impacting on the freedom on the Internet33; the dark scenario behind those documents is dominated by two growing “fears”: on the one hand, governments’ fear of rising global terrorism34, on the other, corporations’ fear of rising global cybercrime35.

From “We the People” to “It the Crowd”: towards the “constitutional crowdsourcing”

Another interesting lens for analyzing the impact of Internet technology on democracy is that of democratic participation in collective decision-making.

Parallel to the growth of the Internet itself, it has been the use of the web in participatory processes and the practice of deliberative democracy. Web is increasingly used in administrative and political decisions, especially at the level of local authorities.

Nevertheless, I would like to highlight the “constitutional” dimension of those practices, given that in recent times the use of web technology has been extended to constitution-making or -amendment processes36.

Let’s consider some recent cases as: the Sudanese Initiative for Constitution Making to revise Sudan’s Constitution following the 2011 secession of South-Sudan; the amendment of the Irish Constitution through its Constitutional Convention formed in 2012; the proposal to reform the Italian Constitution launched by the Letta Government in 2013 that was followed by an online, public consultation; and the process that led to the approval of the new Tunisian Constitution in 2014, and which earned the so- called “Tunisian quartet” the Nobel Peace Prize in 201537. But what has probably been the most significant and interesting endeavor, from a constitutional perspective, was the procedure used to amend the Icelandic Constitution, launched in 2010.

Many observers consider Iceland’s procedure to be the most advanced model of web designed Constitution, as it sought to directly and personally involve citizens in the discussion and decision- making phases of forging the new constitution, especially through web technologies. For this reason, it has been also defined as a constitutional crowdsourcing experiment.

The Icelandic law of constitutional amendment provided for the creation of a web site and the activation of ICT tools that made the work of the Constituent Assembly public and favored popular participation. Later, the proposed constitution was drafted by Constitutional Council made up of twenty-five drafters who decided

“to use social media to open up the process to the rest of the citizenry and gather feedback on 12 successive drafts. Anyone interested in the process was able to comment on the text using social media like Facebook and Twitter, or using email. In total, the crowdsourcing moment generated about 3,600 comments for a total of 360 suggestions. Among them was the Facebook proposal to entrench a constitutional right to the Internet, which resulted in Article 14 of the final proposal.”38

The resulting constitutional proposal was approved by two-thirds of voters in an October 2012 referendum.

However, the constitutional bill ultimately stalled in Parliament until the new 2013 general elections, which were won by the opponents of the new constitution; therefore, despite such a wide and crowdsourced procedure, the proposal is still “frozen” in the Icelandic Althingi39 and didn’t gain the political majority necessary to be approved. Again we have a remarkable case of “ambivalence” of the impact of web technology on constitutional procedure.

EU participatory democracy and the ECI

Along the same line (that is, web technology as facilitator of democratic participation) we find another relevant constitutional innovation, this one coming from within EU Law.

As we know, the democratic principle underlying the framework of the EU Treaties plays out in two ways today: alongside the “classical” dimension of representative democracy has grown up the newer dimension of participatory democracy40.

This second dimension of European democracy has been officially recognized as a constitutional feature of the Union by the Lisbon Treaty, within the Article 11 TEU.

In this article the principle of “participatory democracy” is defined as the possibility for European citizens, associations, and civil society to engage in effective interaction (an open, transparent and regular dialogue) with European institutions. This interaction aims either to debate, criticize, and amend proposed European actions, or to stimulate new actions.

Obviously, the very notion of “open, transparent, and regular dialogue”, naturally evokes web technology as a dynamic infrastructure of participatory democracy41.

One of the most innovative applications of the participatory democracy principle within the European system, centered on the use of web technology, is the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI)42.

The ECI, enables European citizens to ask the Commission to bring forth legislative proposals supported by at least one million signatures, coming from a significant number of Member States.

As the European Council officially stated on the occasion of the adoption of the regulation implementing the ECI in February 201143:

“[t]he Treaty of Lisbon introduced a new dimension of participatory democracy, alongside that of representative democracy on which the EU is founded, with the aim of bringing the EU closer to its citizens by encouraging more cross-border debate about EU issues.”

Obviously, given the number (at least 1 million), the timeframe (12 months) for the collection of signatures and the variety of Member States required (at least 7), this new constitutional tool for democratic participation wouldn’t be practically possible without Internet technology.

So, what are the results of this new participatory procedure? From April 2012 to November 2015, 50 ECI proposals have been officially presented to the Commission44.

Around half of those - 26 - were unsuccessful45 and, out of the remaining 24, the Commission refused 20 proposals before their registration and only 4 proposals collected the required 1 million signatures46.

Therefore, 40% of all ECI proposals have been rejected by the Commission47 because - as provided by article 4 of the ECI Regulation - they fell outside the areas of EU competence48.

It will be an interesting study to analyze how correct has been the reasoning of the Commission in those rejections and to deepen the causes of such a low success rate49, but in any case, this simple evidence is sufficient to confirm, again, the ambivalence of the technological paradigm.

Internet and citizenship

The second perspective I would like to suggest as possible research path focuses on the impact of web technologies on the constitutional regulation of citizenship.

Just as it is for democracy, the Internet is considered a powerful agent of transformation of citizenship. If by citizenship we mean, in its most basic definition,50 “a certain sort of membership in a political community,” associated with the ability to be a holder of rights and duties in a certain legal order, there is no doubt that the Internet network and its spread entail tremendous potential to shore up citizen membership and increase their sense of “ownership of the polity”51.

The Internet, by multiplying the occasions for relationship, knowledge, information access and action (not forgetting that the web has a both a cognitive and also a performative52 value) is a key condition for the “quality of citizenship” and for citizens’ empowerment.

This is the reason why Internet access has become a new “citizens’ right” - to use the definition of the Chapter V of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights –; a kind of “hybrid right” that sums up the characters of both classic civil liberties (classical “negative freedoms”) and “social rights” (when certain external conditions are required to effectively exercise the right: access to the net, digital education, etc.).

An interesting example of this re-definition of citizenship in connection with digital technologies53 is the recent Italian Law n. 124/2015 on the reform of the Public Administration, Article 1 of which introduces the concept of “digital citizenship” which consists of

“(...) guaranteeing to citizens and businesses, including through the use of information and communications technologies, the right of digital access to all data, documents, and services in which they have an interest, for the purpose of guaranteeing the simplification of access to personal services, reducing the need to physically access public offices.”

The Internet is a tool that can undoubtedly change the relationship between citizens and the public administration in a profound way and this area of policies and regulations comes under the definition of “e-government”.

One observation brings us back to the topic of ambivalence: it is indisputable that the use of web technologies – or, as they are often called, “smart” technologies – increases the efficiency of the relationship between users and administration services, bringing the public administration closer to citizens.

It is equally true, however, that digitalization of functions is, at the same time, an extremely powerful factor of “centralization” (because of the size required for storing capacity and the necessity of setting common regulation standards). Therefore, in federal or decentralized states, e-government policies, digitalization standards and coordination of telecommunication networks are usually carried out by the central authorities (Federation or National government) to the detriment of States or Local Autonomies.

In any case, viewed through the lens of citizenship, we cannot deny that the Internet is a determinative factor in the effective quality of membership in one’s own community.

Internet as a (fundamental) right

An interesting way to measure the Internet’s “attraction” within the area of citizenship, is to observe the national and international legislation in which Internet is classified as a “right.”

The classification of Internet access as a “civil right” or “right of citizenship,” or as a “fundamental right” or “Human Right” is growing in the sphere of legal tools both at the national and international levels, and is a phenomenon that should be closely studied54.

The well-known Brazilian “Marco Civil da Internet”, approved in March 2014, regulated access to the Internet as “essential to the exercise of citizenship,” and guaranteed that access as a “civil right.”

Italy saw the recent approval by a Study Commission of the Chamber of Deputies of a proposal published last July entitled “Declaration of Internet Rights”55.

This sort of emerging “Transnational Internet Law” bears certain common features that can be summarized as the recognition of the ambivalent nature of the “right to Internet”.

The same variability of the definition (be it “fundamental”56, “civil”57, “human”58, “social” or “civic”) well expresses the multiple dimensions of this new right which, in some cases, is considered a “civil liberty” – protecting freedom from external interferences – and in other cases a “social right” - dictating the elimination of the so-called digital divide59 - or which requires, alongside the “freedom to Internet”, the “freedom from Internet,” including the “right to be forgotten”, so advancing a new dimension of the “freedom of self determination”: the “digital self-determination”, that equally includes the right to enter as to exit the Internet.

Internet and political mobilization

Indeed, also theories of citizenship vary, some models being more markedly liberal-individualist, while others are more civic-republican. The first set favor a more self-centered conception of citizenship as the possibility for the person to have direct, stable and transparent interactions with public institutions; the second set are chiefly oriented in favor of the autonomy of self-organizing civil society. Obviously the Internet’s impact is not neutral as far as these theories are concerned60.

According to certain political science literature, Internet’s produces a growing emphasis on single-issue politics61 and more individualistic forms of political engagement62. The binary “like/dislike” approach typical of social media, indisputably generates strong polarization of public opinions and a radicalization of extremes in the public square63. This makes the search for areas of “overlapping consensus” (in Rawlsian terms) much more difficult. The history of the most relevant opposition party today in Italy (the “5 Stars Movement”) is a clear example of how important is the Internet in political communication and mobilization for protest parties.

On the other hand, social science literature equally shows that the Internet is actually a key tool of social self-organization, capable of offering citizens the relational empowerment essential in order to keep civil society vital and active. The Internet effectively affects human behavior only when, in addition to online relationships, there are also relationships offline. Virtual “friendship” is not enough to change someone’s mind; a real “friendship” is necessary. While “knowledge” can be digital, “trust” still requires a physical touch.

One among the most relevant scientific studies on this topic has been carried out during the 2010 US midterm elections, using an extremely representative sample of nearly 63 million Facebook users64.

The purpose of the study, was to analyze the influence of social media on voting, both in terms of turnout rate and of political preference.

The study concluded as follows:

The data “suggest that the Facebook social message increased turnout directly by about 60,000 voters and indirectly through social contagion by another 280,000 voters, for a total of 340,000 additional votes” (that is, the 0,0054% of the turnout referred to the sample)

Strong ties between friends proved much more influential than weak ties: “Close friends exerted about four times more influence on the total number of validated voters mobilized than the message itself.... Online mobilization works because it primarily spreads through strongtie networks that probably exist offline but have an online representation.”65

A recent analogous meta-study conducted by the Pew Research Institute in 201566 confirmed that the Internet plays a major role in consolidating local civic engagement more than in election/campaign participation.

The conclusion from these studies seems to be that while Internet alone, is a quite weak factor of political mobilization, when it is coupled with a real life relationships, it can play a big role either in terms of turnout rate and of shifting political preferences.

It is clear, again, that we are facing a non-linear result.

The constitutional dimension of the Internet’s impact on citizenship will depend on the intrinsic ambivalence of this new technological paradigm (on one side, it can be a tool for enhancing individual participation in the public discussions and decisions or, on the other side, it can reinforce social bonds and collective engagement).

Conclusions

We are at the outset of a new era for Constitutional Law. After the first constitutional “wave” of XVIII century liberal constitutions, after the second “wave” of the post-World War II national and supranational constitutionalism, we are entering today a new phase in human history in which the new rising super-power is Technology.

Technology is deeply transforming people’s way of thinking, their daily life and traditional social dynamics, and the Internet represents one of the most decisive features of that shift.

In this paper we analysed some of the impacts of the Internet technology on Constitutional law under the dimensions of Democracy and Citizenship, looking for cutting-edge research paths. The cases examined confirmed the general assumption of the “ambivalent nature” of the technological paradigm, that is, the “non-linear” relation between the rise of the Internet and the growth of Democracy and Citizenship as Constitutional law core dimensions.

Web technology can be a strong growth factor for democratic advancement and constitutional participation, but it triggers equally strong counter-forces.

The rise of the doctrine of “cyber-sovereignty”, as a reaction to the freedom of cyber space, the powerful constitutional resilience showed by the “classical” representative institutions when they are challenged by new Internet-based participatory channels (whether constitutional crowdsourcing or participatory democracy tools), the multiple nature of the new “Right to Internet” and, finally, the shifting role of web social media in the political mobilization, are as many good examples of the “non-linear” relation between Internet and Democracy as interesting research perspectives for Constitutional studies.

What makes these research perspectives even more attractive (and complicated) is that they evoke a “precautionary-like” scenario, that is, a condition in which the players of Global Constitutional Law67 have to balance the freedom of the technological evolution with the protection of human fundamental values, in a condition of substantial uncertainty about the possible adverse effects of both technology and regulation; This is a normative dilemma which cannot be solved through either absolute prohibition or absolute freedom. The practical search for a “reasonable” regulation created what I called the “normative crescendo”, that is, on the one hand, a more and more combined use of different levels of “behavioral” tools - starting from the subjective/moral level, to the collective-ethical, to the public/legal - and, on the other, the increasing permeability among the margins of the different normative levels.

The distinctive feature of those research efforts, therefore, should be a multidisciplinary approach, meaning, for Constitutional law scholars, a strong invitation to put the “law in its context” again.

Footnotes

According to the Oxford English Dictionary: (originally internet with lower-case initial) a computer network comprising or connecting a number of smaller networks, such as two or more local area networks connected by a shared communications protocol. In later use (usually the Internet): the global network comprising a loose confederation of interconnected networks using standardized communication protocols, which facilitates various information and communication systems such as the World Wide Web and email. In this paper I will use in a basically equivalent way terms like “Internet” - “ICT” (acronim for Information and Communications Technology) - “Web” (contraction for World Wide Web) or “Cyberspace” - even if each of the four words has a specific technical meaning - as indications of that network of networks allowing people to exchange informations thorugh specific communication technologies. 

M. Castells, A Network Theory of Power, in International Journal of Communication, no. 5, 2011.

Measuring the Information Society Report 2015, International Telecommunication Union (Geneva), 2015, p. 15-16. Other data are reported on Internet Live Stats (http://www.internetlivestats.com/internet-users/).

Ibidem.

The World Fact Book - Country Comparison: Internet Users, CIA Publication, (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2153rank.html).

Measuring the Information Society Report 2015, International Telecommunication Union (Geneva), 2015, p. 63-65. Other evidences reported on Internet Live Stats (http://www.internetlivestats.com/internet-users/).

R. H. Weber, R. Weber, Internet of Things - Legal Perspectives, Berlin, Springer, 2010.

J. Poushter, Smartphone Ownership and Internet Usage Continues to Climb in Emerging Economies, Pew Research Center, February, 2016.

P. A. Chow-White, S. E. Green Jr, Data Mining Difference in the Age of Big Data, in International Journal of Communication, no. 7, 2013.

G. Buccellati. Alle origini della politica. La formazione e la crescita dello stato in Siro-Mesopotamia, Milano, Jaca Book, 2013, pp. 35-46;

For this analogy, see G. Buccellati, The Question of Digital Thought, in Studies in Linguistics and Semiotics, A Festschrift for Vyacheslav V. Ivanov Nikolaeva, Moscow, 2010; Id. Alle origini della politica...cit., p. 45.

Z. Bauman, Modernity and Ambivalence, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1991.

Pope Francis, Laudato Sí, Ch III, 1, 81, 82, 83, 101-103, 104, 105.

It’s impossible to synthesize the debate on the antropological impact of technology,only for a general view see M. Heidegger, The question concerning technology, and other essays, (W. Lovitt, trans.), New York: London, Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., 1977; H. G. Gadamer, Reason in the Age of Science, (F. G. Lawrence, trans.), Cambridge (MA), The MIT Press, 1983. G. Aylesworth, Postmodernism, in E. N. Zalta (ed.) Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2015 (http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2015/entries/postmodernism/); Von Schomberg, A vision of Responsible Research and Innovation, in R. Owen, M. Heintz and J. Bessant (eds.), Responsible Innovation, London, John Wiley, 2013.

R. Andorno, The Precautionary Principle: A New Legal Standard for a Technological Age, in Journal of international biotechnology law, vol. 1, Issue 1, 2014, (http://estudijas.lu.lv/pluginfile.php/311686/course/section/28374/Andorno-Precautionary_Principle.pdf); C. Som, L. M. Hilty, and T. F. Ruddy, The Precautionary Principle in the Information Society in Human and Ecological Risk Assessment, no. 10, 2004, 787–799; A. Stirling, Risk, precaution and science: towards a more constructive policy debate, European Molecular Biology Organization, EMBO reports, vol. 8, no. 4, 2007.

O. Pollicino e G. Romeo (eds.), The Internet and Constitutional Law. The protection of fundamental rights and constitutional adjudication in Europe, London: New York, Routledge, 2016.

I use the word “normative” as it sounds familiar to a continental-Europe-trained lawyer, that is, as “related to a legal norm”, thus, not following the anglo-american-social-sciences lexicon.

L. Lessig, Code and the other laws of the Cyberspace, New York, Basic Books, 1999.

N. Doorn, I. van de Poel, Editors’ Overview: Moral Responsibility in Technology and Engineering in Science and Engeneering Ethics, no 18(1), 2012, 1–11; D. Ruggiu, Responsibilisation phenomena: the EC code of conduct for responsible nanosciences and nanotechnologies research in European Journal of Law and Technology, vol. 5, no 3 2014; R. Von Schomberg, A vision of responsible innovation, in R. Owen, M. Heintz and J. Bessant (eds.), Responsible Innovation, London, John Wiley, 2013.

M. Fioravanti, Constitutionalism, in E. Pattaro (ed.), A Treatise of Legal Philosophy and General Jurisprudence, Dordrech: New York, Springer, 2009.

See European Court of Human Rights, Research Division, Internet: case-law of the European Court of Human Rights, June, 2015; O. Pollicino and G. Romeo (eds.) The Internet and Constitutional Law...cit.

It would be interesting to observe, but I can’t expand on that, how this linear relationship, in philosophical-anthropological terms, is nothing other than the application of the broader “linear” law of post-modernity: technology-individual freedom.

In 2016 Alphabet Inc. (ex Google.com) surpassed Apple Inc. as the largest company by market capitalization in US Stock Market; ExxonMobil Co. - oil company - is (at november 2015) only in the third position.

M. Margolis, G. Moreno-Riaño, The Prospect of Internet Democracy, Farnham, Ashgate, 2009.

See, UK Parliament, House of Commons Digital Democracy Commission Open Up! Report on Digital Democracy, June 2015 (http://www.parliament.uk/business/commons/the-speaker/speakers-commission-on-digital-democracy/ddc-news/digital-democracy-commission-report-publication/).

See, non profit organizations as: http://www.digitaldemocracy.org or http://www.digital-democracy.org.

Z. Tufekci, C. Wilson, Social Media and the Decision to Participate in Political Protest: Observations From Tahrir Square, in Journal of Communication, no. 62, 2012; N. Eltantawy, J.B. Wiest, Social Media in the Egyptian Revolution: Reconsidering Resource Mobilization Theory, in International Journal of Communication, no. 5, 2011.

Ibidem.

Ibidem.

Freedom on the Net. A Global Assessment of Internet and Digital Media, Freedom House (Washington) 2009. G. Wolfsfeld, E. Segev, T. Sheafer, Social Media and the Arab Sping: Politics Come First, in The International Journal of Press/Politics, vol. 18, no. 2, 2013. Other examples of Internet Shutdowns: Lybia Jan. 2011, Sudan Sept. 2013, Syria Nov. 2012, China jan. 2014, for a deeper analysis of Internet shutdowns in Egypt and Lybia, see Dainotti et al., "Analysis of Country-wide Internet Outages Caused by Censorship", ACM, 2011.

On the cybersoverignty movement, see Schneier B., Data and Goliath, New York, 2015, pp. 187-188.

Compare - for example - the indicators produced by Freedom House (https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2016) and data from Internet Live Stats (http://www.internetlivestats.com/internet-users/).

Almost all the European States adopted their own National Cybersecurity Strategy, some examples: UK (2011) https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/60961/uk-cyber-security-strategy-final.pdf; Germany (2011) http://www.it-sicherheit-in-der-wirtschaft.de/IT-Sicherheit/Navigation/task-force.html; France (2015) http://www.ssi.gouv.fr/uploads/2015/10/strategie_nationale_securite_numerique_en.pdf; Spain (2013) https://www.enisa.europa.eu/activities/Resilience-and-CIIP/national-cyber-security-strategies-ncsss/NCSS_ESen.pdf. For the EU see Cybersecurity Strategy of the European Union: An Open, Safe and Secure Cyberspace, JOIN(2013) 1 final, February 2013 (http://eeas.europa.eu/policies/eu-cyber-security/cybsec_comm_en.pdf).

N. Lee, Counterterrorism and Cybersecurity: Total Information Awareness, New York, Springer, 2013.

Hanover Research and Indiana University at Bloomington The Emergence of Cybersecurity Law, February 2015 (http://info.law.indiana.edu/faculty-publications/The-Emergence-of-Cybersecurity-Law.pdf).

T. Abbiate, La e-patecipation e i processi di elaborazione e revisione costituzionale, in Ianus, no. 11, 2014; C. Saunders, Constitution Making in the 21st Century, in International Review of Law, no. 4, 2012; S. Suteu, A New Form of Direct Democracy: Constitutional Conventions in the Digital Era, in Research Paper Series, no. 2014/39, University of Edinburgh, School of Law, 2014; D.M. Farrel, E. O’Malley, J. Suiter, Deliberative Democracy in Action Irish-Style: The 2011 We The Citizens Pilot Citizens’ Assembly, in Irish Political Studies, vol. 28, no. 1, 2013; J. Gluck, B. Ballou, New Technologies in Constitution Making, in United States Institute of Peace Special Report, n. 343, 2013.

See T. Abbiate, La e-patecipation...cit.

H. Lademore, Inclusive Constitution-Making: The Icelandic Experiment, in The Journal of Political Philosophy, 2014.

The Althingi is the national parliament of Iceland; see B.T. Bergsson, P. Blokker, The Constitutional Experiment in Iceland, in K. Pocza (ed.), Verfassunggebung in konsolidierten Demokratien: Neubeginn oder Verfall eines Systems?, Baden-Baden, 2013.

On the transformation of European democracy see A. Simoncini Beyond representative democracy: the challenge of participatory democracy and the boundless galaxy of civil society in M. Cartabia, N. Lupo, A. Simoncini (eds), Democracy and subsidiarity in the EU. National parliaments, regions and civil society in the decision-making process, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2013.

M.A.C. Dizon, Participatory democracy and information and communications technology: A legal pluralist perspective, European Journal of Law and Technology, Vol. 1, Issue 3, 2010.

See A. Simoncini, Beyond representative democracy: cit.

Regulation (EU) No 211/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 February 2011.

European Commission, Report on the application of Regulation (EU) No 211/2011 on the citizens’ intiative, 31 March 2015 (COM(2015)145 final, p. 3 (http://ec.europa.eu/citizens-initiative/public/initiatives/open) in addition, 3 proposals are still open to signature (november 2015).

11 proposals were withdrawn by the organizers and 15 did not gather the required number of statements of support within the 1-year time limit, ibidem.

3 have been answered by the Commission, 1 is still waiting for the response, ibidem.

Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/citizens-initiative/public/initiatives/non-registered.

It must be pointed out - but I won’t expand here on this topic - that a lot of these refusals appear to be highly disputable. One of those decisions (the refusal to register the proposal “One Million Signatures for a Europe of Solidarity”) has been challenged before the ECJ, but the First Section of the General Court upheld the decision (Judgment in Case T-450/12 Alexios Anagnostakis v Commission).

For a more detailed analysis, see A. Simoncini, Beyond representative democracy ...cit

A. Shachar, Citizenship, in M. Rosenfeld and A. Sajò (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Constitutional Law, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013.

“Veritable citizenship is not about moving—it is about the ability of citizens to “own” the polity, to gain a real sense that their preferences as expressed through the political process have a meaningful and decisive impact on who governs”: G. Amato, E. Guigou, V. Vike-Freiberga, JHH Weiler, Towards a “New Schuman Declaration”, in International Journal of Constitutional Law, vol. 3, no. 3, 2015.

It allows not only to get information but also to “do things” (consider the acquisition of goods and services via the Internet) according to the famous “performative” idea, expressed by J.L. Austin (How to do Things with Words: The William James Lectures delivered at Harvard University in 1955, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1962).

M. Searson, M. Hancock, N. Sohell, G. Shepherd, Digital citizenship within a global context, in Education and Information Technology, n. 20, 2015.

On the global idea of a “Internet Bill of Rights” see L. Gill, D. Redeker, U. Gasser, Towards Digital Constitutionalism? Mapping Attempts to Craft an Internet Bill of Rights, The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, Research Publication No. 2015-15.

See M. Bassini, O.Pollicino, Verso un Internet Bill of Rights, Roma, Aracne, 2015.

According to a survey promoted by BBC World Service (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8548190.stml) “Almost four in five people around the world believe that access to the internet is a fundamental right”; on Internet and fundamental rights’ protection see O. Pollicino, G. Romeo, Concluding remarks: internet law, protection of fundamental rights and the role of constitutional adjudication in O. Pollicino and G. Romeo (eds.) The Internet and Constitutional Law: The protection of fundamental rights and constitutional adjudication in Europe, New York, Routledge, 2016.

Internet as a Civil Right, see https://www.aclu.org/issues/free-speech/internet-speech.

According to the Report of the UN Human Rights Council (A/HRC/17/27) Internet has to be considered an “enabler of all the human rights”. P. De Hert, and D. Kloza, Internet (access) as a new fundamental right. Inflating the current rights framework? in European Journal Of Law And Technology, vol. 3, no. 3 (2012).

Understood as the socio-economic or educational distance between citizens and the Internet

P. Schmitter, A. Trechsel, The future of democracy in Europe: trends, analyses and reforms. Strasbourg: Council of Europe Publishing, 2004; A. Oldfield, Citizenship and community: civic republicanism and the modern world, in G. Shafir (ed.) The citizenship debates: a reader, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1998.

P. Norris, Democratic phoenix: Reinventing political activism, Cambridge, Cambridge Univ. Press, 2002.

P. C. Schmitter, A. H. Trechsel, The Future of Democracy in Europe, Council of Europe, Green Paper 2004.

C. Sunstein, Republic.com 2.0, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2009.

Aa. Vv., ‘A 61-milion-person experiment in social influence and political mobilization’ (2012) Nature, n. 489 (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v489/n7415/full/nature11421.html)

Ibidem.

A. Boulianne, Social media use and participation: a meta-analysis of current research, in Information Communication & Society, n. 18/5, 2015.

With the expression “Global Constitutional Law” I mean that complex of super-legislative regulations and legal doctrine emerging both at international and national level and both from legal acts and (international-national) constitutional courts’ case-law; for a definition, see E.-U. Petersmann, Global constitutional law?: why cosmopolitan 'aggregate public goods' must be protected by cosmopolitan conceptions of international law in Bassiouni, Gomula, Mengozzi, Merrills, Nieto Navia, Oriolo, Schabas and Vigorito (eds), The global community yearbook of international law and jurisprudence: global trends, 2013, pp. 535-562; I. Pernice Global Constitutionalism and the Internet. Taking People Seriously, HIIG Discussion Paper Series, Discussion Paper Number, 2015-01, 2015.

[fmservers]

The best and worst April Fools’ jokes from around the web

The tech world sure does love a good prank.

While some sat out on April Fools’, a number of big tech companies embraced the opportunity to waste time this way.

So without any further ado, here are the April Fools’ pranks from around the web:

The good

1) Google Tulip

Google Tulip, in my humble opinion, is Google’s best April Fools’ joke this year. It’s a product that lets you communicate with tulips (they’re making progress with cacti, which just want to be left alone, it would appear).

The premise itself is par for the course on April Fools’ day — the perfect mix of mildly plausible and “but why?” — but a few of the comedic touches on the video really make this prank shine.

If the bit at the :54 mark doesn’t tickle you, then I fully respect your opinion but we are very different people and I doubt we could ever be real friends.

  2) Shutterstock stock IRL

This happens to be one of my favorite April Fools’ jokes from a tech company this year. Shutterstock is unveiling ‘plans’ to build the world’s largest physical library, called stock IRL, which would host “shelves upon shelves upon shelves” of stock photos, watermarked videos and music tracks.

Best line: “Because sometimes innovation means moving backwards.”

Sometimes, the idea itself can be an obvious prank as long as it’s executed well. It doesn’t hurt that Shutterstock does a pretty solid job marketing its actual product here, either.

  3) Spotify Discocover Weekly

Spotify’s April fools prank is pretty good tho pic.twitter.com/yTSdvzJdtS

— Christopher Mims (@mims) April 1, 2019

This one is elegant and delightful. Spotify has transformed your Discover Weekly playlist to feature disco hits, or disco takes on non-disco hits. I’ve been listening to mine this morning and it’s solid. Oh, and the playlist is called Discocover Weekly.

Lovely.

  4) Duolingo Push

The best way to learn a language is to practice every day. So Duolingo is introducing a more effective way to remind you with Duolingo Push.

“We’re taking push notifications out of your phone and into the real world! Duo the Owl will literally show up to remind you to practice. It’s the green-glove treatment you’ve always wanted.”

  5) Google Maps Snake

If this is a prank, it’s an incredibly generous and sweet prank that never hurt anyone. Google has put the classic Snakes game into the Google Maps app, for both iOS and Android, as well as on a standalone site for folks who don’t have the app.

It’s fun and simple and makes me wonder why this nostalgic little Easter Egg can’t live in the Google Maps app forever and for always.

(I died for that ^^ screenshot. You’re welcome.)

  6) ProductHunt IPO

ProductHunt joked that it’s going public simply as a result of peer pressure. It also highlighted some of the April Fools’ pranks coming through on its own platform, including a SideDoor into college admission and a monstrous USB hub.

7) Waymo Pet

It’s exactly what you think it is. Waymo Pet is an autonomous car service exclusively for pets. The real beauty in this April Fools’ joke is in the details — the idea of Waymo employees overthinking the interior of a car based on the type of pet that may be riding in it is relatively humorous.

Best line: “Research shows us that cats love laser pointers.”

  The not so good

1) Adobe Capture

Adobe wonders what would happen if designers could spark a memory through the smell of a particular ad or logo. Heralding the arrival of this hellscape is Adobe Capture, which uses Adobe Scent-sei technology to give users the ability to capture scents in the real world (through the camera?) and preview scents via the phone’s charging port.

Don’t shoot the messenger. It gets both better and worse from here.

  2) General Cat-A-List

General Catalyst has spruced up their landing page with loads of cat gifs, powered by Giphy. Yes, General Catalyst is an investor in Giphy.

“We took this process seriously. To best convey that we sit at the cutting edge of all things new, bright and shiny, we spitballed our way through design-thinking sessions and administered Rorschach tests across the firm. We concluded that our brand should land at the intersection of tech + fun. What could illustrate tech-enabled fun better than the cat gif?”

  3) Google Files Screen Cleaner:

Google is adding a new Screen Cleaner feature to the Files app. To clean it from the inside out. According to the video, the features uses “a smudge detector API” to identify imperfections, along with” geometric dirt models” and a “haptic micromovement generator” to sh-sh-shake it off.

And because they already committed, the team at Google decided to double down and say that the Screen Cleaner also uses micro vibrations to create a non-stick shield around your phone. Cause why not?

    4) NVIDIA GeForce RTX R.O.N.

The NVIDIA GeForce RON AI personal assistant, as the name might suggest, is a classic case of too many pranky ideas coming to fruition at once.

The Echo-like device (but also with a holographic display, for some reason) offers in-game coaching (insults), a rage converter (which translates your screamed profanities into words of encouragement for your inept teammates), and the Troll Destroyer (using internet-sourced facts to take down trolls on forums). Those are just a few of the features of the RON AI personal assistant, which feels a bit too bonkers to be funny.

“A” for effort, though.

  5) 1Password

1Password just went for it today with the introduction of the 1Password Password Book, which is just a journal where you write down your passwords.

The landing page touts the book’s features, vacillating between pros and cons like “It’s Super Private” and “You can share your passwords.” Of course, analog password storage isn’t the worst way to store your passwords, especially if those passwords are strong in the first place and you’re keeping your Password Book in a safe place.

Alas, the Password Book is just a prank.

  6) OnePlus Warp Car

The OnePlus #WarpCar is coming. Are you ready to say goodbye to gasoline? #NeverSettle

— OnePlus (@oneplus) April 1, 2019

For years, rumors swirled that Apple might be working on a car. For April Fools’, the smartphone newcomer OnePlus teased an upcoming electric vehicle called the OnePlus Warp.

Shrug.

  7) Razr Ping

Gaming hardware company Razr took some inspiration from Apex Legends, the hottest new game on the market. Razr Ping hypothetically lets people ping real-world objects with their smartphone, similar to the non-verbal comms system in Apex Legends.

Low-key, though, that comms system may very well be the exemplar for other games and even non-gaming platforms. Just not in the way Razr imagines here, obviously.

  8) Roblox Console

I’m not entirely sure what Roblox is doing here with the introduction of the first Roblox gaming console, offering “a new way to make your dreams a reality in stunning, 8K ultra-high definition graphics and at greater than 120 frames per second.”

“Deep underground in a secret laboratory, our engineers developed a groundbreaking processor that could distill imagination into a concentrated source of infinite energy,” reads the blog post. “That energy is what fuels the unbelievable technology in Robox.”

If it’s supposed to be funny, I don’t get it.

9) Roku PressPaws Remote

According to Roku, 72 percent of their users said they thought their dogs would enjoy TV more if they could control what’s on. Thus, the PressPaws Remote.

“This paws-specific remote could be a huge untapped market for us,” says Lloyd Klarke, director of product management for the Roku Pet Division. The remote has shortcut buttons shaped like paws, because the buttons are the only real barrier between a dog’s ability to master the TV remote.

  10) SodastreamME

And then there’s such a thing as trying too hard. Sodastream presents the SodasteamME, which was built in partnership with astronaut Scott Kelly and allows folks to power their Sodastream with their own burps.

We may never know why.

  11) Stack Overflow

StackOverflow also went for a simple prank, taking the entire website back to the early days o the internet, complete with Comic Sans typeface. It’s jarring. You can check it out here.

12) Tinder Height Verification Badge

Introducing the thing you never asked for, but definitely always wanted—Tinder Height Verification. Coming soon. Read more about it here: https://t.co/8MER0L1U6W pic.twitter.com/hZ507zSoic

— Tinder (@Tinder) March 29, 2019

It’s funny because it’s true? On March 29, Tinder teased a new Height Verification Badge (HVB), which would force users to verify their age by taking a photo of themselves standing next to any commercial building. Remember, this is three full days before April 1.

The blog post has at least one typo, and some questionable language. (Exhibit A: “Did it ever occur to you that honesty is what separates humans from sinister monsters? Of course not.”) There is also, however, some hint of truth. (Exhibit B: “Only 14.5% of the U.S. male population is actually 6’ and beyond. So, we’re expecting to see a huge decline in the 80% of males on Tinder who are claiming that they are well over 6 feet.”)

For a minute, we couldn’t decide if it was real or not. But Tinder has confirmed that this is an April Fools’ prank.

  13) T-Mobile Phone BoothE

If you’re still here, we’re done. T-Mobile’s sacrificial lamb in this blood bath of a ‘holiday’ is the T-Mobile Phone BoothE, which is a soundproof phone booth.

Of note: T-Mobile CEO John Legere was an active participant in this prank, which raises concerns, but then again that’s sort of his style.

Via Jordan Crook https://techcrunch.com

[toomanysinks]

The best and worst April Fools’ jokes from around the web

The tech world sure does love a good prank.

While some sat out on April Fools’, a number of big tech companies embraced the opportunity to waste time this way.

So without any further ado, here are the April Fools’ pranks from around the web:

The good

1) Google Tulip

Google Tulip, in my humble opinion, is Google’s best April Fools’ joke this year. It’s a product that lets you communicate with tulips (they’re making progress with cacti, which just want to be left alone, it would appear).

The premise itself is par for the course on April Fools’ day — the perfect mix of mildly plausible and “but why?” — but a few of the comedic touches on the video really make this prank shine.

If the bit at the :54 mark doesn’t tickle you, then I fully respect your opinion but we are very different people and I doubt we could ever be real friends.

  2) Shutterstock stock IRL

This happens to be one of my favorite April Fools’ jokes from a tech company this year. Shutterstock is unveiling ‘plans’ to build the world’s largest physical library, called stock IRL, which would host “shelves upon shelves upon shelves” of stock photos, watermarked videos and music tracks.

Best line: “Because sometimes innovation means moving backwards.”

Sometimes, the idea itself can be an obvious prank as long as it’s executed well. It doesn’t hurt that Shutterstock does a pretty solid job marketing its actual product here, either.

  3) Spotify Discocover Weekly

Spotify’s April fools prank is pretty good tho pic.twitter.com/yTSdvzJdtS

— Christopher Mims (@mims) April 1, 2019

This one is elegant and delightful. Spotify has transformed your Discover Weekly playlist to feature disco hits, or disco takes on non-disco hits. I’ve been listening to mine this morning and it’s solid. Oh, and the playlist is called Discocover Weekly.

Lovely.

  4) Duolingo Push

The best way to learn a language is to practice every day. So Duolingo is introducing a more effective way to remind you with Duolingo Push.

“We’re taking push notifications out of your phone and into the real world! Duo the Owl will literally show up to remind you to practice. It’s the green-glove treatment you’ve always wanted.”

  5) Google Maps Snake

If this is a prank, it’s an incredibly generous and sweet prank that never hurt anyone. Google has put the classic Snakes game into the Google Maps app, for both iOS and Android, as well as on a standalone site for folks who don’t have the app.

It’s fun and simple and makes me wonder why this nostalgic little Easter Egg can’t live in the Google Maps app forever and for always.

(I died for that ^^ screenshot. You’re welcome.)

  6) ProductHunt IPO

ProductHunt joked that it’s going public simply as a result of peer pressure. It also highlighted some of the April Fools’ pranks coming through on its own platform, including a SideDoor into college admission and a monstrous USB hub.

7) Waymo Pet

It’s exactly what you think it is. Waymo Pet is an autonomous car service exclusively for pets. The real beauty in this April Fools’ joke is in the details — the idea of Waymo employees overthinking the interior of a car based on the type of pet that may be riding in it is relatively humorous.

Best line: “Research shows us that cats love laser pointers.”

  The not so good

1) Adobe Capture

Adobe wonders what would happen if designers could spark a memory through the smell of a particular ad or logo. Heralding the arrival of this hellscape is Adobe Capture, which uses Adobe Scent-sei technology to give users the ability to capture scents in the real world (through the camera?) and preview scents via the phone’s charging port.

Don’t shoot the messenger. It gets both better and worse from here.

  2) General Cat-A-List

General Catalyst has spruced up their landing page with loads of cat gifs, powered by Giphy. Yes, General Catalyst is an investor in Giphy.

“We took this process seriously. To best convey that we sit at the cutting edge of all things new, bright and shiny, we spitballed our way through design-thinking sessions and administered Rorschach tests across the firm. We concluded that our brand should land at the intersection of tech + fun. What could illustrate tech-enabled fun better than the cat gif?”

  3) Google Files Screen Cleaner:

Google is adding a new Screen Cleaner feature to the Files app. To clean it from the inside out. According to the video, the features uses “a smudge detector API” to identify imperfections, along with” geometric dirt models” and a “haptic micromovement generator” to sh-sh-shake it off.

And because they already committed, the team at Google decided to double down and say that the Screen Cleaner also uses micro vibrations to create a non-stick shield around your phone. Cause why not?

    4) NVIDIA GeForce RTX R.O.N.

The NVIDIA GeForce RON AI personal assistant, as the name might suggest, is a classic case of too many pranky ideas coming to fruition at once.

The Echo-like device (but also with a holographic display, for some reason) offers in-game coaching (insults), a rage converter (which translates your screamed profanities into words of encouragement for your inept teammates), and the Troll Destroyer (using internet-sourced facts to take down trolls on forums). Those are just a few of the features of the RON AI personal assistant, which feels a bit too bonkers to be funny.

“A” for effort, though.

  5) 1Password

1Password just went for it today with the introduction of the 1Password Password Book, which is just a journal where you write down your passwords.

The landing page touts the book’s features, vacillating between pros and cons like “It’s Super Private” and “You can share your passwords.” Of course, analog password storage isn’t the worst way to store your passwords, especially if those passwords are strong in the first place and you’re keeping your Password Book in a safe place.

Alas, the Password Book is just a prank.

  6) OnePlus Warp Car

The OnePlus #WarpCar is coming. Are you ready to say goodbye to gasoline? #NeverSettle

— OnePlus (@oneplus) April 1, 2019

For years, rumors swirled that Apple might be working on a car. For April Fools’, the smartphone newcomer OnePlus teased an upcoming electric vehicle called the OnePlus Warp.

Shrug.

  7) Razr Ping

Gaming hardware company Razr took some inspiration from Apex Legends, the hottest new game on the market. Razr Ping hypothetically lets people ping real-world objects with their smartphone, similar to the non-verbal comms system in Apex Legends.

Low-key, though, that comms system may very well be the exemplar for other games and even non-gaming platforms. Just not in the way Razr imagines here, obviously.

  8) Roblox Console

I’m not entirely sure what Roblox is doing here with the introduction of the first Roblox gaming console, offering “a new way to make your dreams a reality in stunning, 8K ultra-high definition graphics and at greater than 120 frames per second.”

“Deep underground in a secret laboratory, our engineers developed a groundbreaking processor that could distill imagination into a concentrated source of infinite energy,” reads the blog post. “That energy is what fuels the unbelievable technology in Robox.”

If it’s supposed to be funny, I don’t get it.

9) Roku PressPaws Remote

According to Roku, 72 percent of their users said they thought their dogs would enjoy TV more if they could control what’s on. Thus, the PressPaws Remote.

“This paws-specific remote could be a huge untapped market for us,” says Lloyd Klarke, director of product management for the Roku Pet Division. The remote has shortcut buttons shaped like paws, because the buttons are the only real barrier between a dog’s ability to master the TV remote.

  10) SodastreamME

And then there’s such a thing as trying too hard. Sodastream presents the SodasteamME, which was built in partnership with astronaut Scott Kelly and allows folks to power their Sodastream with their own burps.

We may never know why.

  11) Stack Overflow

StackOverflow also went for a simple prank, taking the entire website back to the early days o the internet, complete with Comic Sans typeface. It’s jarring. You can check it out here.

12) Tinder Height Verification Badge

Introducing the thing you never asked for, but definitely always wanted—Tinder Height Verification. Coming soon. Read more about it here: https://t.co/8MER0L1U6W pic.twitter.com/hZ507zSoic

— Tinder (@Tinder) March 29, 2019

It’s funny because it’s true? On March 29, Tinder teased a new Height Verification Badge (HVB), which would force users to verify their age by taking a photo of themselves standing next to any commercial building. Remember, this is three full days before April 1.

The blog post has at least one typo, and some questionable language. (Exhibit A: “Did it ever occur to you that honesty is what separates humans from sinister monsters? Of course not.”) There is also, however, some hint of truth. (Exhibit B: “Only 14.5% of the U.S. male population is actually 6’ and beyond. So, we’re expecting to see a huge decline in the 80% of males on Tinder who are claiming that they are well over 6 feet.”)

For a minute, we couldn’t decide if it was real or not. But Tinder has confirmed that this is an April Fools’ prank.

  13) T-Mobile Phone BoothE

If you’re still here, we’re done. T-Mobile’s sacrificial lamb in this blood bath of a ‘holiday’ is the T-Mobile Phone BoothE, which is a soundproof phone booth.

Of note: T-Mobile CEO John Legere was an active participant in this prank, which raises concerns, but then again that’s sort of his style.

source https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/01/the-best-and-worst-april-fools-jokes-from-the-tech-world-2019/