page_title: Internet
section_title: Politics and political revolutions
hierarchical_section_title: Internet / Social impact / Politics and political revolutions
caption_attribution_description: English: Banner instructing residents not to 'like' or 'share' non-mainstream views (that 'insult the institution', i.e. the monarchy) on social networks under direct threat of prison observed near Chit Lom, Bangkok, Thailand on 2014-06-30. The woman in the picture on the right is Chatwadee Amornpat, known as 'London Rose'. Bahasa Indonesia: Banner menginstruksikan warga untuk tidak 'like' atau 'share' pandangan non-mainstream (yang 'insult the institution', yaitu monarki) di jejaring sosial di bawah ancaman langsung dari penjara yang diamati dekat Chit Lom, Bangkok, Thailand pada 2014-06-30 . Wanita dalam gambar di sebelah kanan adalah Chatwadee Amornpat, yang dikenal sebagai 'London Rose'.
context_page_description: The Internet is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite to communicate between networks and devices. It is a network of networks that consists of private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope, linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless, and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries a vast range of information resources and services, such as the inter-linked hypertext documents and applications of the World Wide Web, electronic mail, telephony, and file sharing.
  The origins of the Internet date back to the development of packet switching and research commissioned by the United States Department of Defense in the 1960s to enable time-sharing of computers. The primary precursor network, the ARPANET, initially served as a backbone for interconnection of regional academic and military networks in the 1970s. The funding of the National Science Foundation Network as a new backbone in the 1980s, as well as private funding for other commercial extensions, led to worldwide participation in the development of new networking technologies, and the merger of many networks.
context_section_description: The Internet has achieved new relevance as a political tool. The presidential campaign of Howard Dean in 2004 in the United States was notable for its success in soliciting donation via the Internet. Many political groups use the Internet to achieve a new method of organizing for carrying out their mission, having given rise to Internet activism, most notably practiced by rebels in the Arab Spring. The New York Times suggested that social media websites, such as Facebook and Twitter, helped people organize the political revolutions in Egypt, by helping activists organize protests, communicate grievances, and disseminate information.
  Many have understood the Internet as an extension of the Habermasian notion of the public sphere, observing how network communication technologies provide something like a global civic forum. However, incidents of politically motivated Internet censorship have now been recorded in many countries, including western democracies.
caption: Banner in Bangkok during the 2014 Thai coup d'état, informing the Thai public that 'like' or 'share' activities on social media could result in imprisonment (observed 30 June 2014).
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