(I posted these remarks almost a week ago to the nettime list but for some (technical?) reason it didn’t get through)

We, The Web Kids
Freedom of Speech – Piotr Czerski

http://falkvinge.net/2012/02/25/we-the-web-kids/

Dear Nettimers, this piece has been praised across the Web because it catches a certain Lebensgefuehl of a generation that grew up with the internet and now has to find out the hard way that society isn’t interested in all these worthy values. This feeling of misunderstanding and bewildering why the institutional reality of economics and politics doesn’t want to move on with the times (that are not a changing) is an interesting possible starting of something–or nothing. Either this situation translates itself into new movements (for instance against ACTA) and political expressions such as the Pirate Party, or leaks away, is crushed and the hearts are hardened. Will the Web generation be ready to defend their ‘freedom’? Can we expect a Long Marsh Through the Institution or rather a Fall of the Berlin Wall 2.0 (read: sudden implosion of power structures)? Or will nothing happen and are we in for a Long Recession in which masses of people will be forced to spend an undefined amount of time in the Parking Zone of History? Geert