"Who has the power on the Internet?"
According to Kettemann, the lecture, which posed the equally timely and difficult question of who holds power on the Internet, first looked at the nature of power on the Internet. The 'usual suspects' were also examined for their role as rulers of power on the Internet: the companies - the Googles and Facebooks of our time - and the large states with their surveillance capacities. However, it was also shown why no single actor can be powerful and, finally, that a great deal of (emancipatory) power remains with the people - especially in the active aggregate. Power is, of course, not everything, which is also a central conclusion: according to Pascal, power without law is tyrannical, meaning that any power order on the internet must be underpinned by a legitimizing legal system.
About Matthias C. Kettemann
Matthias C. Kettemann studied law in Graz and Geneva and was a Fulbright and Boas Scholar at Harvard Law School (LL.M. 2010). In 2012, he received his doctorate from the Karl-Franzens-University of Graz with a thesis on the future of the individual in international law. From 2006 to 2013 he was a university assistant and lecturer at the Institute for International Law and International Relations at the University of Graz. He is Co-Chair of the Internet Rights & Principles Coalition, has conducted research for the Council of Europe, the European Parliament and the Internet&Society Co:llaboratory and regularly publishes on legal issues relating to the internet. In 2013, he published The Future of Individuals in International Law (Utrecht) and (co-)edited European Yearbook on Human Rights 2013 (Vienna), Grenzen im Völkerrecht (Vienna) and Netzpolitik in Österreich. Internet. Power. Human Rights (Vienna).