1. As Jimmy Wales says, democracy is all about people deciding. He also says that it is the process of coming together to discuss things and figure out what we want to do. I agree with this completely, and I believe that this is one of the reasons why our reliance on networked technology is steadily increasing. We like to be connected now all the time, we like to be in contact with people all over the world, and it makes sense. This is why it's becoming so integrated in our society. So in the end, I think that Jimmy Wales' definition of democracy is most fitting to use in conjunction with where technology stands in the world today.
2. I believe there are two areas of my first answer that fit into the unchecked nature of Web 2.0 technologies, and those are "all about people deciding" and "what WE want to do." This means that we are not checked, we decide to do what we want on the internet and hopefully use discretion while doing so. I believe it's fine if the web is checked in certain areas, and only for certain things, and my example for this would be Wikipedia since I have talked about Jimmy Wales. This is a great concept and is most likely the largest source of information on the internet. However, I believe it is acceptable for this to be checked for fact, by other people. I don't believe that the internet should be filtered or checked for opinion. I do believe that the internet does cause many problems due to the fact that people feel invincible behind a computer screen, but I don't think this freedom should be taken away for that. If it were possible I would recommend banning idiots and people who take part in cyberbullying from the internet, but there is no way that would ever be possible.
3. The phenomenon of media echo-chambers, or silos, is when people only talk to others who already agree with their ideas and beliefs, causing them to actually become more narrow-minded as opposed to less narrow-minded. This creates a lot of bias for obvious reasons. For example, if someone doesn't like Obama they may only look for news about mistakes he made written by other people who don't like Obama. I do believe it is an issue that needs to be addressed because proper research is research that is conducted from many different sources with many different backgrounds and views on important issues, and this is slowly being forgotten. People get information where they want to get information, and then spread that biased information further. It's a bad situation in general.
4. I think that there should be no universal rules for the internet, and that each website should create their own guidelines and be used accordingly. For example, Wikipedia is excellent for what it is; a user-edited encyclopedia, but people should use it accordingly, knowing that every fact hasn't been checked. On the other hand, you do need expertise to contribute to research libraries and government and organization websites, which are all fact checked and official.
6. There are no specific examples because in reality every single business is almost required to use the internet for some aspect of their business now in order to stay afloat. This can include video conferences as opposed to actual travel to save a great amount of money, spreadsheets and database organization, data storage, advertising and websites, and many other uses. These are all improvements in my opinion.
7. I believe that democracy is actually strengthened due to the fact that anyone can communicate with anyone or access any information they desire. It's a "Wild West" of sorts and a lawless outlet for anyone to express their opinions and converse with anyone else along with many other things.
