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Dissertation by Dan O'Maley

This ethnographic study examines the pioneering tactics Brazilian Internet freedom activists have... more This ethnographic study examines the pioneering tactics Brazilian Internet freedom activists have used to defend what they refer to as the Internet livre – a free and open Internet. In particular, it explores how the concept of participatory democracy – a governing philosophy that strives to broaden opportunities for citizens to make meaningful contributions in policy decisions beyond voting in elections – has uniquely informed Brazilian activist initiatives. Fighting for more participatory democracy was a hallmark of left wing social movements and labor unions working in the 1970s and 1980s to end the military dictatorship (1964-1985) as they sought to radically challenge elite control of the state by incorporating previously marginalized groups into the political system. Thus, Internet freedom activists are now applying this philosophy to the development of Internet policy and governance. Specifically, this study examines the crowdsourcing of a national Internet rights law, the Brazilian Internet Civil Rights Framework (Marco Civil da Internet), and the institutional structure of the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee (Comitê Gestor da Internet no Brasil). However, while proponents of participatory democracy contend that increased citizen participation leads to more socially equitable policy, scholars have also noted how participatory initiatives that do not actually redistribute power have frequently reproduced the preexisting socioeconomic inequalities of the larger society. This research substantiates this claim and exposes the many shortcomings of participatory initiatives in light of powerful corporate interests that continue to dominate the development of Internet policy in Brazil. This study is based on more than 20 months of multi-sited ethnographic research conducted over four years in the Brazilian cities of Porto Alegre, São Paulo, and Brasília between 2010 and 2014. The methods used were long-term participant observation, semi-structured interviews with activists and policymakers, and in-depth analysis of activist publications and official documents.

Blog Posts by Dan O'Maley

Once a shining example of the power of socioeconomic inclusion and the effectiveness of strengthe... more Once a shining example of the power of socioeconomic inclusion and the effectiveness of strengthening civic participation, the political upheaval in Brazil over the past two years has destabilized democratic gains once thought to be well established. As a researcher who was first drawn to Brazil because of its trailblazing digital rights movement that achieved momentous gains, like the first-of-its-kind Internet Bill of Rights, the unraveling of truly representative democratic representation at all levels has been distressing. But recent moves by the government of Michel Temer that would potentially disfigure the institutions that fostered Brazil’s digital rights leadership are even harder to watch.

On August 8 the Brazilian Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovation, and Communication announced the launch of a seemingly mundane month-long public online consultation on the structure of Brazilian Internet governance. The stated objective was to get feedback on the “adequate representation of different sectors that are part of the value chain of the Internet in Brazil and equilibrium among the represented sectors” on the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee (Comitê Gestor da Internet no Brasil, or CGI). However, hidden between the lines of this bureaucratic jargon was an unstated intention to fundamentally undermine one of the most successful examples of pluralistic, multistakeholder Internet governance in the world – the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee (CGI).

Increasingly, our lives are mediated by the Internet and other digital technologies. For anthropo... more Increasingly, our lives are mediated by the Internet and other digital technologies. For anthropologists like myself, this presents new opportunities for research, but the digitization, exchange, and storage of personal data also generate new privacy concerns for our participants. During my research on Brazilian Internet freedom activists, I learned about both the potentials of the Internet, as well as the way that digital technology can, and is, being abused to violate civil liberties. What I call the “privacy paradox,” refers to the situation in which the U.S. government at once defends research participants’ privacy through Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) while it simultaneously violates their privacy on a massive, global scale through mass surveillance national security apparatus.

Conference Presentations by Dan O'Maley

In this paper I argue that the history of Brazilian Internet Steering Committee (Comitê Gestor da... more In this paper I argue that the history of Brazilian Internet Steering Committee (Comitê Gestor da Internet) demonstrates how Brazilian Internet freedom activists have successfully negotiated the neoliberal restructuring of the state during the 1990s in such a way as to create an institutional mechanism to defend against corporate capture of Internet governance. The creation of the semi-autonomous, multi-stakeholder organization in 1995 was undertaken in the lead up to the privatization of the telecommunications sector in 1998, but it was done so at the insistence of the country’s Internet pioneers in order to prevent telecommunications corporations from dominating Internet policy. Institutional reforms implemented in 2003 at the behest of activists created positions on the committee for elected representatives from non-profits, NGOs, and social movements and exemplify an effort to further democratize Internet governance. In recent years, the committee has become a leading proponent of policies that are fundamental to Internet freedom, such as net neutrality – a technical rule that prevents telecoms from filtering Internet traffic in order to increase profits. Thus, whereas neoliberal policies tend to increase the role of corporations in social life by privatizing public resources and diminishing state regulatory powers (Harvey 2005), this case demonstrates how in the face of these dynamics Brazilian activists have creatively fashioned an institutional platform not dominated by corporate interests from which to defend the Internet as an open, public platform for creative and civic engagement. This historical and ethnographic research illuminates the individuals and processes that shaped this unique arrangement.

In this paper I examine the battle in the Brazilian legislature over the pioneering Internet free... more In this paper I examine the battle in the Brazilian legislature over the pioneering Internet freedom bill the Marco Civil da Internet, commonly referred to as the Internet Bill of Rights. The bill was the result of years of mobilization by an emergent techno-political Internet freedom movement in Brazil that is working to preserve the Internet as a public space for creative and democratic engagement. Importantly, at the behest of activists, the bill’s language was developed collaboratively by citizens via an online website and thus represented a novel experiment in participatory democracy in the digital age. However, once the bill reached the congress for debate it met unyielding opposition, particularly by legislators with close ties to telecommunication corporations. Drawing on the work of Santos and Avritzer (2007), I argue that liberal representative democracy as currently constituted worldwide is overwhelmingly dominated by elites and is closely linked to neoliberal globalization because of the tremendous influence corporations have in the governance process. In other words, the open, transparent method of policy elaboration that encouraged citizen participation that was employed to draft the Marco Civil da Internet bumped up against the traditional legislative process that includes back-room deals, political favors, and corporate lobbying. Ultimately, the sustained work of Internet freedom activists over a period of 3 years to promote the bill along with startling revelations about the US’s National Security Agency’s mass surveillance programs and direct spying on President Rousseff that generated a new political context in which the pioneering Internet freedom bill pushed through congress in spite of opposition.

I ethnographically examine one of the most high-profile examples of so-called “digital democracy”... more I ethnographically examine one of the most high-profile examples of so-called “digital democracy” – the drafting and passage of a pioneering Brazilian Internet freedom law dubbed the Constitution of the Internet. Engaging with literature on the changing shape of sovereignty in a neoliberal period marked by advancements in information technology (Castells 2003; Humphrey 2004; Ong 2006), I explore how these new, “transparent” legislative methods aimed at empowering civic participation potentially alter notions of state sovereignty and representative democracy. At the behest of Internet freedom activists, the law’s text was drafted in 2010 using a Wikipedia-inspired public web platform before being presented to the Brazilian legislature. At this point the logic of transparency embodied in the law’s drafting bumped up against the traditional legislative process that includes back-room deals, political favors, and corporate lobbying. After years of intense advocacy by activists, the law passed the lower house in May 2014 largely intact and will pass in the upper chamber shortly. Activists have discursively employed the fact that the law was “crowdsourced” to argue that it more faithfully represents the will of the Brazilian people than their elected legislators. I argue that the way Internet freedom activists inserted themselves in the legislative process by participating in the law’s drafting and their arguments about the purer form of democracy enabled by digital platforms expands our understanding of how technology potentially alters notions of sovereignty. It also demonstrates the limits of “digital democracy” by showing the continued importance of political movements to affect change.

Book Reviews by Dan O'Maley

Papers by Dan O'Maley

The digital convergence means that how the Internet develops going forward — both in terms of pol... more The digital convergence means that how the Internet develops going forward — both in terms of policy and technology — will shape the very environment in which all other media operate. This report makes the case to this community that they can, and must, engage in the decision-making bodies that are shaping Internet governance (IG) to ensure that the Internet — and the growing media sphere it sustains — remains open, pluralistic, and democratic.

In many countries, mobile operators have teamed up with social media platforms to offer free acce... more In many countries, mobile operators have teamed up with social media platforms to offer free access to specific websites or internet services—including news websites. The most well-known of these offerings, Facebook’s Free Basics, has been explicitly pitched as a way to give citizens in developing countries greater access to news, but Facebook is not the only company touting these so-called “zero-rated” arrangements as a bridge across the digital divide. This report examines whether these arrangements are broadening access to diverse sources of news, as promised, and whether they might have broader consequences for the news market.