Personal Democracy Forum 2011 June 5, 2011

Personal Democracy Forum is the world’s leading conference exploring and analyzing technology's impact on politics and government.

Too often, the discussion of technology and politics employs a kind of lazy shorthand. We say things like "The Internet is revolutionizing politics," or "the Internet is helping dictators," as if a set of network protocols and bits and wires could do anything on its own. Unfortunately, that shorthand often infects our discussion of current events, and we end up debating things like "TwitterRevolution" or "Facebook effect" rather than the real issues, which are what people do with these tools. The Internet, after all, doesn't empower anyone. We empower ourselves.

In that respect, this year's Personal Democracy Forum will be about what happens when the technology itself starts to fade into the background, and what becomes most important is all the new uses people come up with, as well as the policy changes that we may need in order to make such activity safe and productive.

Official Website: http://www.personaldemocracy.com/conference