Facebook Governance?

Sometime around 1980, the morning papers in Hungary reported on the government meeting in the following style: The government held a meeting, general economic and political issues were on the agenda. Perhaps not quite so briefly. The morning papers and the evening TV news provided the opportunity for current political information to reach those whom it concerned.

Since then, the world has changed greatly. Not only the speed of information but also its quantity is a multiple of what was customary in previous decades.

Technology puts a real information superhighway into our hands in the form of smart devices that are capable of a multiple of the performance of computers that once occupied entire rooms. Every moment is spent picking through crumbs of information. We check the home camera status, we remotely turn on the air conditioning, the washing machine. Meanwhile, we write and receive e-mails and scroll through the content of social media sites, maybe quickly share what lunch was like. Quickly, quickly, we cannot fall behind in the global circulation. No wonder that the mass of information is becoming shorter and more superficial, because we have no time for long reading. The presence has been liked by political actors too, as they can share their day and thoughts directly with their followers for pennies.

The new Hungarian government is accused of “Facebook governance” by its opponents. Indeed, we can meet them in the latest posts in almost every case, sometimes they report on their work, sometimes we can feel like we are having coffee with them. They seemingly share their troubles with us widely.

The young prime minister, at the peak of his digital capabilities, exists in almost multiple copies on media sites and social media sites. He holds long press conferences, seemingly having time for everything, including to indicate what a difficult thing governance is.

We feel like we are viewers of a one-man show and we see a magician who conjures up all sorts of things for us, we suspect this is just a stunt.

But we do not only see a stunt, since the parliament was formed and the government was set up in record time, full of renowned experts, and countless important draft laws were presented in the parliament.

We see and hear that the new government, the prime minister has a vision for Hungary.

Since the elections, the forint has started an unprecedented strengthening, inflation is low, the central bank has just modified the GDP growth forecast in a positive direction. The question is, however, whether the improvement of economic indicators is the result of excellent digital communication or induced by real economic processes.

The draft of the latest constitutional amendment is available on the government’s website and can be commented on via message.

Perhaps we should get used to the possibility of the new democracy, perhaps we should use the smart devices in our hands for good.

We have already written about a possible new democracy model in this article of ours.

The possibilities of technology do not only allow one-way information flow, but we can also form an interactive democracy. We can immediately review a plan, join it, oppose it, or raise new possibilities.

We must break away from the instinct that we are voters only every 4 or 5 years and between the two periods the political elite does what it wants. We must break away from the political elite altogether. Although the time limitation of the political career may raise the lack of long-term commitment, it must still be avoided that someone enters a political career for 15-20 years just to make a living. When the allotted time expires, let them return to their life, so perhaps they will never want to break their direct connection with the citizens.

The experience and knowledge must be the property of the supporting civil service, not the politician.

In any case, a difficult path lies ahead of us, it can be easier if we are not afraid of new methods, if we have a voice again in the questions of the community. Perhaps we can be the shapers and enjoyers of a real, living, breathing democracy.

By Viktor Szentkiralyi