The Big Question: Does the internet liberate or undermine democracy?

Why are we asking this question now?

The Government's plan to make motorists pay as they drive, through road taxes, has been hit for six by a protest organised from a sitting room in Telford, Shropshire. A petition on the Downing Street website opposing road taxes attracted 1,802,175 signatures. It was arguably the most effective protest against any government policy since the demonstrations against fuel duty nearly six years ago, and it was entirely online.

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Another powerful institution, the high street banks, has also felt the power of the internet this week, with thousands of disgruntled customers visiting the website Moneysavingexpert.com to find out how to contest their bank charges. In the corridors of Westminster, and perhaps in the boardrooms of a few banks, they are now asking themselves whether the internet is an asset, or a pain in the neck.

Is the internet democratic?

A fundamental rule of democracy is that everybody who is qualified to vote must have the opportunity to vote. That is why a lot of money is spent before council or general elections on compiling an accurate electoral roll, and offering postal votes, or arranging transport for those who are unable to get to the polling booth. All properly run democratic organisations go to similar lengths. The obvious limitation to any form of e-democracy is that its participants must have access to the internet.

That may not be a problem at the top end of the income scale, in what is known as socioeconomic group AB, where more than 90 per cent have home computers, and nearly all of that 90 per cent are online, while most of the rest probably have internet access at work. But at the other end of the income scale, in socioeconomic group E, only half have home computers, and barely one-third have internet access at home, and not many will be online at work either.

In formal elections, care is also taken to make sure that people do not cheat. Multiple voting or impersonating other voters is a criminal offence. If you are running an online vote, you can prevent the same email address from being used twice, but you have no way of checking who is actually using that address, or whether one person is using more than one address. For both these reasons, internet voting is not an ideal form of democracy.

Has the internet spread freedom of speech?

When the internet arrived, it was seen as a the great liberator that would allow anyone with something to say to speak out, uncensored and without fear. For some, it has undoubtedly brought a kind of freedom they never experienced before. A celebrated example was Slam Pax, the "Baghdad Blogger" who published a vivid daily account of life in Iraq during the final days of Saddam Hussein's rule.

At a more everyday level, thousands of teenagers have enjoyed the freedom of chatting to one another on or in chat rooms. On the other hand, it has also become a sounding board for bores and time wasters. And the idea that the internet is free of censorship took a major knock when Google agreed to censor its search and news webites in China, to avoid offending the Chinese government. In Google's defence, they did not bring censorship to China, they made a pragmatic decision in answer to a difficult problem. For more information, all you have to do is Google the words Google+censor+China.

Has the net brought power to the people?

Moneysavingexpert.com is one of many examples of the internet giving power to people who would have found very difficult to exercise in pre-internet days. It can be lonely for an ordinary customer facing the power of a bank. A well-run website like Martin Lewis's tips the balance a little in the customer's favour. Being the mother of a new baby, stuck at home, can also be lonely - but a lot less so, if you have logged on to a website called netmums.

Unfortunately, like any other form of power, the net is open to abuse. It can be used by people with evil intentions, such as the gangsters who trade in guns online, or the trio of paedophiles jailed recently for using the net to make contact and plot the murder of two children. Franco Frattani, vice-president of the EU, who was in London yesterday, points out the internet has been a handy tool for terrorists.

Is it having any effect on the Government?

The facility on the Downing Street website that allows anyone with a computer to launch a petition on any subject has provoked a mixed reaction in government circles. Some people at the Department for Transport were less than thrilled when the petition against road pricing took off. Charging motorists by the mile was to be a major instrument of policy for cutting congestion and carbon emissions. It will be more difficult to introduce it now.

Most of the major petitions on the website are in direct opposition to government policy. One exasperated minister - unnamed - has described the political adviser who created the facility as a "prat". But Tony Blair's view, shared by the Labour Party chairman Hazel Blears and many others, is that if a policy is controversial, it is a good idea to use the net to test the strength of the opposition.

There is no inevitability that a petition alone, even an e-petition with 1.8 million signatures, will redirect government policy. After all, more than two million people took to the streets in 2003 in the hope of preventing Britain from getting embroiled in the Iraq war, and they were ignored.

Does the internet accurately represent public opinion?

The internet can be an accurate instrument, if used properly. Firms such as YouGov.com have worked out how to conduct opinion polls wholly online, but as with any sampling exercise, they have to keep a careful watch on how their sample is made up. This means they have to search hard for that elusive single mother on income support living in a sink estate who can answer questions online.

But the net also has the capacity to mislead. It takes much less effort to sign an e-petition than to go on a demonstration, or even to walk to the polling booth to vote. We know from that petition that 1.8 million people care a little bit about road pricing. And, from another petition on the Downing Street website, that 31,162 want the country to go on funding the Red Arrows. But how much do they really care? It may be no more than the effort it takes to click the mouse. And we don't know what the millions who did not sign these petitions think.

The internet's great strength is also its great weakness - no one is in control. It offers vast opportunities, but experience tells us that for a real democracy to function, somebody has to make, and enforce, the rules.

Is the internet a liberating force in a democracy?

Yes...

* There has never mean a better form of mass communication, free from central control

* Anyone who believes they have something important to say can publish it on the internet

* A good website provides strength in numbers to the isolated

No...

* So-called 'e-democracy' automatically excludes those who cannot afford computers

* Online petitions and blogs provide a lazy form of political activism, much loved by cranks

* Terrorists and other sinister groups enlist through the internet