I personally think that the "internet" does need to learn about Congress, or at least be aware of what is going on. ICANN controls the root DNS servers for TLDs, and before ICANN, the US government did.
(addressing both you and waqf, bringing up the same point: The US is in control of some nice part of the internet infrastructure):
You are right, of course. That means that I care about a world-wide disruption caused by (local) laws in the US. I read about those and follow the development of these laws to a point.
The article addresses the internet first (me included) and then talks about educating the US congress and throwing money at US lobbyists, while fixing the US system so that it doesn't _need_ this kind of involvement anymore.
I'm sorry, but that leaves me out.
- I cannot take part in the education of statesman overseas/abroad and doubt that they'd listen to me
- I certainly won't (especially on an individual level, but even corporate that would be waaaay weird and wrong) throw money at lobbyists in another country
- I'm not allowed to take part in the political system in the US, so I cannot realistically help with any systematic change
I think while you are, as I already admitted, entirely correct about the fact that Congress might affect the whole world, the article is still wrong in calling out to 'The Internet' to fix it. The issues have to be resolved locally. My way of influencing it _might_ be voting for a party that wants to wrangle for informational freedom in the EU and more independence from the US, but that's about it.
You are right, of course. That means that I care about a world-wide disruption caused by (local) laws in the US. I read about those and follow the development of these laws to a point.
The article addresses the internet first (me included) and then talks about educating the US congress and throwing money at US lobbyists, while fixing the US system so that it doesn't _need_ this kind of involvement anymore.
I'm sorry, but that leaves me out.
- I cannot take part in the education of statesman overseas/abroad and doubt that they'd listen to me
- I certainly won't (especially on an individual level, but even corporate that would be waaaay weird and wrong) throw money at lobbyists in another country
- I'm not allowed to take part in the political system in the US, so I cannot realistically help with any systematic change
I think while you are, as I already admitted, entirely correct about the fact that Congress might affect the whole world, the article is still wrong in calling out to 'The Internet' to fix it. The issues have to be resolved locally. My way of influencing it _might_ be voting for a party that wants to wrangle for informational freedom in the EU and more independence from the US, but that's about it.