viewpoints

VDOI:10.1145/3213766; 10.1145/3231050 Ehud Shapiro/Douglas Schuler Point/Counterpoint and E-Democracy A discussion of the possibility of supplanting traditional representative democracy with e-democracy.

DOI: 10.1145/3213766 Point: Foundations of E-Democracy Considering the possibility of achieving an e-democracy based on long-established foundations that strengthen both real- world and virtual Internet communities. Ehud Shapiro

HE INTERNET REVOLUTION of democracy, which will trans- form earthly representative democracies by employing the communication and col- Tlaboration capabilities of the Internet, has yet to come. For this Communica- tions Point/Counterpoint discussion, I enlist the wisdom of our forefathers to lead the way. By consulting the 1789 calamities and of the corruption of E-democracy has at least two mean- Declaration of the Rights of Man and of .”4 ings: Using the Internet to strengthen the Citizen,4 I distill core values of de- The Internet, on the other hand, is real-world democracies,1,14 and demo- mocracy and derive from them require- revolutionizing industry after industry, cratic conduct of virtual Internet com- ments for the foundations of e-democ- leaving older ways of human conduct munities.3 When viewed as objectives racy. Building on these foundations can in the dustbin of history. Yet, it has not they coalesce, as one entails or requires usher in the urgently needed revolution changed the basic workings of democ- the other. of democracy. racy: Representative democracy today Amalgamating “Internet” and “De- Representative democracy is in re- functions essentially as it did 200 years mocracy” presupposes universal Inter- treat worldwide,1,5,6 as many democ- ago (Internet-enabled disruptions of net access as well as Net neutrality and racies transform into , notwithstanding). freedom; their absence undermines , or even . How could this be? Why has an Inter- the legitimacy of e-democracy, as a A key reason is lack of respect of de- net revolution of democracy not yet oc- regime can exclude an oppressed mi- mocracy’s basic tenet—equality of curred, despite the pressing need for it nority, or a service provider can make rights—as the rich, the powerful, and and the apparent clear ability of the In- e-democracy a super-premium service, the connected increasingly dominate ternet to deliver it? I believe a key reason excluding the poor. who gets nominated, who gets elect- is that amalgamating “Internet” and Even if the Internet infrastructure is ed, and what the elected do. The fore- “Democracy” into an Internet democ- universally accessible, neutral, and fair, fathers of democracy have identified racy, or e-democracy, is more difficult utilizing an existing Internet applica-

IMAGE BASED ON PAINTING BY JEAN-JACQUES-FRANÇOIS LE BARBIER, 1789 (PUBLIC DOMAIN) (PUBLIC DOMAIN) 1789 LE BARBIER, JEAN-JACQUES-FRANÇOIS BY ON PAINTING BASED IMAGE this to be “... the sole cause of public than it seems. tion such as Facebook and its siblings

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as a foundation for e-democracy is a of the natural and imprescriptible non-starter: They are prone to dupli- rights of man: liberty, property, safety cate and fake accounts and, crucially, to The prospective and resistance against . nondemocratic oversight, control, and “customer” for This can be ascertained in an ecosys- arbitrary intervention by their owners. tem of e-democracies only if the deci- Even Wikipedia, a hallmark of Internet e-democracy is sions of each are transparent to the participation, is governed neither by its humanity at large. others. readers nor by its editors, but by an ap- 5. Property and Privacy: A17 recog- pointed board that has full legal author- nizes the right for property and its pri- ity to shut it down, for example, to avert vate use, which, extended to our times, bankruptcy. resides essentially in the incorporates the right for the ownership Hence, new foundations for e-democ- Nation. No body, no individual can ex- and privacy of information. The right to racy are needed. I envision these foun- ert authority that does not emanate ex- safety and resistance against oppres- dations to simultaneously support the pressly from it.” We interpret this prin- sion (A2) entails voter privacy to resist democratic conduct of all types of com- ciple to mean that the members of an coercion. munities: Associations, clubs, unions, e-democracy are its sovereign. 6. Justice: Revolt against unjust rul- cooperatives, organizations, move- 2. Equality: A1 states that “Men are ers was crucial to the emergence of de- ments, and political parties; and at all born and remain free and equal in mocracy, and justice is the focus of early levels—local, national, transnational, rights. …”. Together with A3 they imply charters of democracy such as the Eng- and international; eventually including that sovereignly must be equally shared, lish Magna Carta12 and the French Dec- cities, states, and ; and, ulti- often stated as one person-one vote. But laration. Indeed, A1 and A4–13 address mately, uniting the entire humanity in a there is more to equality than the right the equal and just conception, applica- global e-democracy. to vote. A4 states that the law is the ex- tion, and enforcement of the law. Fur- Among these communities, the pivot pression of the general will and that all thermore, A16 states that a for revolutionizing earthly democracies people have the right to contribute to is needed to guarantee the rights of citi- may be Internet-resident democratic its formation; and equally so, according zens and the separation of the powers of political parties, or e-parties. Only by to A1. A6 further states that all people, . winning real-world elections, e-parties being equal in the eyes of the law, are can export the participatory practices equally admissible to all public posts. Requirements of Foundations of e-democracy from their inner work- Equality extends not only to rights but of E-Democracy ings to real-world governments, enact- also to obligations: A12–14 ascertain I now aim to derive from these core ing legislation that gradually supplants the need for public services and for democratic values requirements for the traditional representative democracy by equally sharing their financing among foundations of e-democracy. e-democracy. members, but progressively, according 1. Sovereignty: Internet communi- But what are these foundations? to their ability to pay. ties today, from the local bulletin board Who could guide us in their construc- To summarize, all members of a de- to almighty Facebook, are dictatorial, tion? A standard method in require- mocracy must have equal capacity to act with an omnipotent administrator who ments engineering is to interview the as voters, discussants, proposers and determines who gets in, who is thrown prospective customer. The prospective public delegates, as well as share pro- out, and what actions each member may “customer” for e-democracy is human- gressively the burden of public expen- take. The administrator also has the ca- ity at large. Hence, in lieu of an inter- ditures. pacity to shut down the community and view, I enlist one of humanity’s most 3. Freedom: A1 states that “men are annihilate its recorded history at will. inspiring documents: The 1789 French born and remain free.” The nature of Furthermore, communities like Face- Declaration of the Rights of Man and of this freedom is further elaborated in book employ rule-by-decree like bygone the Citizen4 (henceforth: Declaration), other articles: A10–11 espouse the free- Middle Ages fiefdoms. The owner, like a which offers a concise, clear, and bold dom of expression within the limits if feudal lord, sets the rules (sometimes in expression of the essence of democracy. the law. A5 proclaims the freedom to secrecy), tries members for breaching I study its Articles, extract from them take any action that is not harmful to them, and executes the punishment. core democratic values, and derive from others. Among those implied freedoms The members, like serfs, toil for the fi- these values requirements for the foun- I note the freedom of assembly3 grant- nancial benefit of the lord while having dations of e-democracy. ing any group of people the freedom to no (intellectual) property, civil rights, or assemble, and the subsidiary principle, rights. They have no say on their Core Values of Democracy granting such a group the freedom to remuneration or tax, on community Here, I list the core democratic values make decisions that pertain to them. rules of conduct or their enforcement, extracted from the Articles (marked 4. Transparency: A14–15 require or on the of community lead- by A) of the Declaration (Interpreting that the conduct of public agents and ership. In the event of a bankruptcy or Man→Person, Citizen→Member, and the collection and expenditure of pub- hostile takeover, the entire community Nation→Community): lic funds be transparent. Furthermore, and its recorded history may be anni- 1. Sovereignty: The Declaration’s Ar- A2 states that the goal of any political hilated, with community members be- ticle III (A3) states “The principle of any association must be the conservation ing helpless bystanders. All this clearly

32 COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM | AUGUST 2018 | VOL. 61 | NO. 8 viewpoints violates all of democracy’s core values: with democratically instituted taxes and number of fake national identities and sovereignty, equality, freedom, trans- budgets9,15 to operate the e-democracy. use them (in a Sybil attack6) to sway the parency, property, privacy, and justice. In summary, a distributed public vote of a global e-democracy in favor of First, I consider the question of ledger employing a democratic crypto- their national interest. ownership. Any seemingly sovereign currency and programmed to adhere A trustworthy notion of global citizen- e-democracy that resides on comput- to democratic control could ensure the ship; a mechanism to endow each glob- ers operated by a third party could be members of an e-democracy are its sov- al citizen with a truthful, persistent, and unplugged at its will, or its default, ren- ereign and owner. globally unique global digital identity; dering sovereignty meaningless. Hence, 2. Equality: Equality entails one per- and a global judiciary empowered to in the context of an e-democracy, sover- son–one vote. Yet e-democracies consist revoke fake or duplicate global digital eignty requires ownership. of digital identities, not people. Requir- identities and to transfer stolen identi- How can the members of an e-de- ing one digital identity–one vote is not ties back to their rightful owners, as well mocracy be the sovereign and hence enough, as most existing systems allow as to prosecute the perpetrators of these necessarily the owner? Advances in a person to create as many digital iden- crimes, are all needed to ensure equality cryptocurrencies and blockchain tech- tities as one wishes. in a global e-democracy. nology provide the first example. In a To support equality in an e-democracy, 3. Freedom: As freedom of expres- DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Or- a new notion of digital identity must be sion is granted within the limit of the ganization),3 built on top of Ethereum, devised that is truthful, unique, persis- law, its realization requires a constitu- the dictatorial system administrator is tent, and owned by the person it repre- tion that determines these limits and a replaced by a smart contract, namely an sents. Otherwise, if fake—the owner may judiciary that enforces them, discussed autonomous, incorruptible, transpar- vote on behalf of a non-existent person; here. Freedom of assembly can by real- ent, and persistent software agent, pro- if non-unique—the owner may cast mul- ized by a software architecture that al- grammed to obey democratic decisions tiple votes; if not persistent—the owner lows the unhindered formation of one (albeit with one coin–one vote, not one may terminate and shed an obligated e-democracy within another. To uphold person–one vote). The DAO operates on identity and acquire a fresh one clear the subsidiary principle, each subsid- a distributed computer network with no of obligations, eluding accountability; iary democracy should be able to under- central ownership. A few caveats: First, and if not owned by the person it repre- take decisions that pertain to it, within an early DAO venture capital fund had sents—it grants its owner an extra vote at the law. a bug that allowed a malicious mem- the expense of the person it represents. 4. Transparency: The structure of an ber to syphon its funds. Smart-contract While truthfulness is a common re- e-democracy, its rules of conduct, its un- programming in general and the DAO quirement, for example in credit card derlying technology, the source code of architecture in particular have yet to and mobile phone contracts, unique- its software, as well as the decisions of mature to offer a sound foundation ness and persistency are not, as a per- its communities, the actions of its pub- for e-democracy. Second, Ethereum son may obtain numerous credit cards, lic delegates and its finances must all be and Bitcoin, while having distributed mobile phones, and email accounts and transparent to all. (It is acknowledged control in theory, have a core group of terminate them at will. Government- that in an extreme scenario, resisting miners that could control and subvert issued identity numbers, often comple- an oppressive regime may necessitate them should they decide to join forces, mented with biometric attributes and compromised transparency.) a risk that a future e-democracy at the incorporated in digital identity cards 5. Property and Privacy: The owner- national or global scale cannot afford. (such as e-Estonia or ’s Aadhaar) ship of private data and its measured Third, current proof-of-work consensus may serve as a unique and persistent disclosure to third parties only as need- protocols of public blockchains incen- digital identity attribute. ed can be supported with self-sovereign tivize inconceivable and unsustainable However, e-democracies may tran- identities.11 Ensuring privacy of vot- waste of energy, which cannot be en- scend national boundaries, for example, ers and avoiding coercion require ad- dorsed by any moral person or organi- in regional and international organiza- vanced cryptographic techniques such zation. Fourth, a replicated ledger such tions. Realizing equality in global e-de- as anonymous credentials2 and coer- as Ethereum and Bitcoin could not sup- mocracies is a bigger challenge: First, cion avoidance. port the high-throughput transaction unhindered Internet access should be a 6. Justice and Accountability: To ad- rate and response time required by a na- recognized basic civil right and be pro- vance from the Internet Middle Ages tional or global e-democracy; a distrib- vided universally. Second, some people, and supplant Internet fiefdoms with uted ledger architecture is needed. Fifth, notably refugees, may have no verifiable e-democracies, we must offer justice— to foster participation rather than greed, national identity, yet should be granted subject to democratic amendment, and a democratic cryptocurrency should re- participation in a global e-democracy. a democratically elected judiciary that ward participation,8 rather than capital- Third, people may have multiple citi- rules according to the constitution. intensive coin-mining; the globally zenships, and without an additional no- E-democracies will come under unique digital identities required for tion of “global ” with an as- criminal attack through identity forg- e-democracy, discussed later, may af- sociated globally unique digital identity, ery and theft, voter coercion, misin- ford an egalitarian cryptocurrency.4,8 one may have multiple votes, violating formation, hate crimes, and other of- The economy of a democratic crypto- equality. Fourth, malicious nondemo- fenses. They can be redressed by the currency could be programmed cratic regimes may produce an arbitrary judiciary via a public warning, public

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condemnation, temporary gag, and ple’s opinions may not immediately re- National (1789); English translation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_ fines. As suspension or, worse, expul- sult in decisions that accommodate such of_the_Rights_of_Man_and_of_the_Citizen sion, violate the basic civil right to swings. Examples include minimal peri- 5. . Wikipedia, 2017; https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index vote, it may be considered too extreme. ods for proposal making and delibera- 6. Foa, R.S. and Mounk, Y. The danger of deconsolidation. Imagine a future in which a person is tion; minimal endorsements for propos- The Democratic Disconnect 27, 3 (2016). 7. Gilad, Y., Hemo, R., Micali, S., Vlachos, G. and a member of multiple e-democracies, als to be considered; minimal quorum Zeldovich, N. Algorand: Scaling Byzantine Agreements which have a joint judicial system. A for a decision to be binding; and special for Cryptocurrencies. Cryptology ePrint Archive, Report 2017/454 (2017). temporarily limit on participation in majority needed for certain actions, for 8. Jeffries, D. Why Everyone Missed the Most Mind- all these democracies simultaneously, example, change of constitution. Blowing Feature of Cryptocurrency. Hacker Noon, 2017. 9. Lee, D. T., Goel, A., Aitamurto, T. and Landemore, H. analogous to jail time in the real world, Crowdsourcing for participatory democracies: Efficient Conclusion elicitation of social choice functions. In Proceedings of may be severe indeed. But for such a the Second AAAI Conference on Human Computation punishment to be effective, account- It is my opinion that representative de- and Crowdsourcing (HCOMP-14) (Pittsburgh, PA, 2014). AAAI Press, 2014. ability must be ensured: it is not suffi- mocracies are in dire straits because of 10. Levine, B.N., Shield, C., and Margolin, N.B. A Survey cient that the offending digital identity their failure to uphold core democratic of Solutions to the Sybil Attack. University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA, 2006. be truthful; it has to be unique and per- values, notably equality and transpar- 11. Lewis, A. A gentle introduction to self-sovereign sistent, lest the offender sheds the pun- ency, and that e-democracy may offer identity (2017). 12. Magna Carta Libertatum, 1215; https://en.wikipedia. ishment by abandoning one identity in the only feasible remedy. I have derived org/wiki/Magna_Carta favor of another. requirements for the foundations of e- 13. Mill, J.S. On Liberty. Longman, Roberts & Green, Bartleby.com, 1859, 1999. 7. Hysteresis: Democracy’s forefa- democracy from the 1789 French Dec- 14. Schuler, D. Creating the world citizen parliament: thers did not foresee the immediacy laration of the Rights of Man and of the Seven challenges for interaction designers. Interactions 20, 3 (Mar. 2013), 38–47. with which the general will can be ascer- Citizen. The next urgent step is to build 15. Shapiro, E. and Talmon, N. A Condorcet-Optimal tained on the Internet. Eventually, the such foundations so the desperately Algorithm. arXiv (2017). general will must prevail lest we violate needed Internet revolution of earthly Ehud Shapiro ([email protected]) is the sovereignty. But it should go through democracies would commence. incumbent of the Harry Weinrebe Chair of Computer reasonable checks and balances until it Science and Biology, Department of Computer Science does, lest mob dynamics prevail. To this References and Applied Math, Weizmann Institute of Science, 1. Anttiroiko, A.-V. Building strong e-democracy: The Rehovot, Israel. end we enlist hysteresis, a characteristic role of technology in developing democracy for the of systems in which the output is not an information age. Commun. ACM 46, 9 (Sept. 2003), The author thanks Ofir Raz, Amos On, Luca Cardelli, 121–128. Jeffrey Sachs, Stan Letovsky, Yaniv Erlich, Benny Daon, immediate function of the input. 2. Camenisch, J. and Lysyanskaya, A. An efficient Shani Gershi, Nimrod Talmon, Ariel Procaccia, Liav While a multiyear election cycle con- system for non-transferable anonymous credentials Orgad, and Raffaele Marchetti for discussions and helpful with optional anonymity revocation. Advances in comments and Michal Golan-Mashiach and Ouri Poupko fers natural hysteresis on earthly democ- Cryptology—EUROCRYPT 2001 (2001). for their help. 3. Create a Democracy contract in Ethereum, 2017; racies, e-democracies require hysteresis https://www.ethereum.org/dao to be engineered, so that swings in peo- 4. Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen; Copyright held by author.

DOI: 10.1145/3231050 More obstacles to engagement would Saving Democracy Counterpoint: E-Democracy be erected by those who make the deci- Shapiro observes that “many democra- Won’t Save Democracy. sions. And so on in a downward spiral. cies transform into oligarchies, plutoc- Democracy Will Save Democracy I agree with Ehud Shapiro’s - racies, or even kleptocracies” because Increased technology is not the ment in his “Point” column, “Founda- they are dominated by “the rich, the solution to the fundamental issue tions of e-Democracy,” that democracy powerful, and the connected.” Beyond of declining democratic culture. worldwide is threatened and degraded. that there are is little analysis of the Douglas Schuler Many countries are becoming less dem- problems that could help us see the ocratic and citizens around the world benefits of his prescriptions. His sup- EMOCRACY IS RADICAL. It ex- are losing confidence in democracy.5 port for e-democracy seemingly rests on ists when people are involved I disagree, however, with many of his the Internet’s near-magical properties. in their own governance: par- prescriptions including the assertion In building a case for an “Internet revo- ticipating in public problem- that “e-democracy may offer the only lution of democracy” he asserts “the solving and checking power. feasible remedy.” Declining democratic pressing need” for it and states there DIt entails awesome responsibilities culture—not lack of technology—is the exists “apparent clear ability of the In- that citizens don’t always embrace. But best indicator for declining democratic ternet to deliver it.” A variety of other shirking these responsibilities invites participation. When people see gover- critical questions are begged by the catastrophe: decisions would be made nance as irrelevant and unresponsive, presumption that e-democracy is neces- by the most powerful to enrich the few they become cynical and withdrawn sary—even inevitable. at the expense of the many and the natu- and the general ability to help address The big problems we face including ral environment. Also, as the trend per- shared challenges withers. Moving the lack of government leadership, media sisted, the ability for citizens to engage mechanics of democracy to the Internet freedom, and critical civic education, wisely and effectively would degrade. ignores these core realities. are problems that technology alone

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