Theme GrunnMUN

GrunnMUN theme 2012

Politics 2.0; Individual Freedom or Global Control?

In the beginning of 2011 a wave of protest shocked the Arab world. The so called ‘’Arab Spring’’ brought worldwide attention to a phenomena which is becoming increasingly more important; the use of the internet to influence politics. Iranian nuclear power plants are sabotaged by computer viruses, Arab revolutionaries organize themselves with Facebook and Twitter, Chinese hackers spy other states online and the NATO prepares for cyber warfare. These are only some examples for the increasing use of the internet to pursue or oppose state interests. In the same time regimes all over the world are improving the censorship instruments with modern technologies. In several nations the flow of information’s on the internet is heavily restricted. Can the internet be used to promote a borderless global civil society or will it be another instrument in the arsenal of power politics?