Re: publica conference: The Internet scene between utopia and reality - STERN.DE

itemprop=”caption”> re In the seventh edition of the conference publication discusses the Internet community about the possibilities and limits of the interent © Joerg Carstensen / DPA

W as a “family meeting” started by bloggers, has become the largest meeting of the Internet scene in Germany. About 5,000 internet enthusiastic people discuss three days about the drastic change that the network has launched in all areas of society. The seventh edition of re: publica consists of 8,000 Papphockern that are designed to stalls, booths and stages – and lots of idealism. To start on Monday we went to the German Telekom and its plan for a tempo throttling to Africa and internet campaign in the U.S. to the Constitution in Iceland and the literature in times of interaction between man and machine. The Internet scene has become self-aware, the conference has grown again this year. In the beginning, co-organizer Andreas Gebhard reads several minutes before the various sponsors.

After the jubilation great when re: publica-founder Markus Beckedahl wrapped in cool blue on the main stage formulated the lowest common denominator of the scene, “the core principle of a free and open Internet.” Addressed to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, he exclaims: “Now is the time to act Prevent Telekom introduces a second-class Internet.”

net neutrality is paramount

So much pathos is not without contradiction. The former IBM strategist Gunter Dueck scoffs: “Telekomgesellschaftserdrosselung is now the major current issue.” And asked the participants: “Can not you take it a little telecom empathic?”

For Internet activists, the announcement of Deutsche Telekom was a stab in the hornet’s nest: you adhere to the principle of net neutrality high, which requires non-discriminatory transport of all data packets on the Internet. Now they want to cheer on the discussion further and contribute in the election campaign. “We are aware that residents are becoming increasingly network electorate that for many network policy increasingly becoming an important topic,” says Beckedahl. It should also be clear that the parties were keen to have a campaign on the Internet. But they also need the appropriate people. “This run here at the re: publica around and if you make a bad network policy, you can get much worse mobilize online.”

campaign digitally

how this works using the example explained Betsy Hoover of the campaign strategy of U.S. President Barack Obama. Hoover directed the online department in 2012 Election Campaign, alone in the Obama headquarters, 200 employees took care of the digital campaign. “We were able to reach people online, offline we could not reach,” she says. Hoover was also the very first presidential campaign of Obama going back then Facebook was one-tenth as large as today. 25 million people in Germany now have a Facebook profile. “It was a different world,” she says of the campaign just five years ago. This time, Obama was present everywhere, the campaign team collected e-mail addresses of supporters and sent vast amounts of digital information. Hoover led the campaign in the network is essential that he should be put together perfectly with the actions on the road.

any good as the model for Germany, where in the fall pending the election? The doubt even the pirates who embrace the possibilities of the network else happy. “That can not be transferred to Germany,” the Berlin Pirate MEP Martin Delius said at the conference. “Experience has shown that elections are not won on the internet and social media, but on the road.” The evidence of Hoover are of interest rather for humanitarian organizations or action groups than for politics. Again, the utopia comes to their limits.

“You gotta get out!”

bursting at the seams from the stage 2, where the writer Kathrin Passignano on the conditions of their literary work reflect. If they write down a sentence on the computer, they do that as a writer, but look at him afterwards the same with the eyes of readers to explains the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize winner and speaks of a further improvement in the collaboration between man and machine.

thinkers Dueck speaks to the conscience of the Internet scene: When all discussed only within their own thinking and value systems, the fruitful discourse would be lost. “Here you are many, but not out there,” Dueck warns in an unconventional presentation. He advocates a “ethno-cultural empathy” that. Well as the cultural values ??of others sympathize This attitude is part of a new image of man, which had yet to be developed during the transition to the knowledge society. Dueck says he was pleased at the re: publica to be back with his “family reunion”. But that was of little help if the family always stay together: “We must go!”