Black Hat Asia: ‘If democracy is to survive, technology will have to be tamed’
Indian tech policy expert Samir Saran says it’s not too late to ‘course-correct’ after a ‘challenging decade’ for liberal democracies
The internet is not currently, as its earliest advocates foresaw, “a great liberator of human expression and catalyst for pluralism and democratic thought”, reflects tech and geopolitics expert Samir Saran.
Delivering a keynote on day one of Black Hat Asia 2022 yesterday (May 12), Saran urged governments to course-correct on regulating the online world after a challenging decade for liberal democracies.
Saran, president of Indian think tank the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), said countries like India are caught between the corrosive digital ecosystem built by Silicon Valley’s tech giants and an even more damaging alternative constructed by China.
While the US model champions openness and (relative) freedom of expression, China lures countries into its technological orbit with the promise of low prices, external investment, and an apparatus of control and surveillance.
