Sean Parker, Co founder of Facebook, Speaks at SXSW about SOPA

Al Gore and Sean Parker took the stage at SXSW this afternoon. They said that the democratic system has been broken by a flood of special interest money, and that the Internet could be the way to fix it.  Sean Parker says, “To the extent that these new mediums and new media are going to have a role in reforming politics, it’s going to happen because … those systems will make politics more efficient,” said Parker. Sean Parker being most famously known for Facebook and Napster. Specifically, he says "the Internet could lower the barrier to entry into politics, so people could run effective campaigns without raising vast amounts of money".

Gore was seemingly excited about the internet's future,  but he also mentioned the criticism from writer Malcolm Gladwell that getting someone to “like” a candidate or a cause on Facebook results in connections that are, in his words, “much weaker and less durable” than those formed by old-fashioned organizing. Parker admitted that Causes and other organizations have been “much too focused on short-term viral acquisitions without building the deeper interactions that are necessary.” Still, he added that these trends make up the “first step in the growth of any platform.”

"One of the biggest challenges to reforming the system is overcoming apathy", Parker said. "People need to realize that they have incredible power and that the power is multiplicative, is exponential.” Parker said, “We need a set of wins.”The defeat of SOPA and PIPA was one such win, which first awakened the Internet community to the power that it has". He called it, the "Nerd Spring".

Parker went on to talk about how much the internet has influenced his life, the ups and downs. Talking about his success with Napster and Facebook, and how the internet is "endless with possibility".