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Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom [Hardcover]

Evgeny Morozov
3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (42 customer reviews)

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Book Description

13 Jan 2011
The revolution will be Twittered! declared journalist Andrew Sullivan after protests erupted in Iran in June 2009. Yet for all the talk about the democratizing power of the Internet, regimes in Iran and China are as stable and repressive as ever. In fact, authoritarian governments are effectively using the Internet to suppress free speech, hone their surveillance techniques, disseminate cutting-edge propaganda, and pacify their populations with digital entertainment. Could the recent Western obsession with promoting democracy by digital means backfire? In this spirited book, journalist and social commentator Evgeny Morozov shows that by falling for the supposedly democratizing nature of the Internet, Western do-gooders may have missed how it also entrenches dictators, threatens dissidents, and makes it harder-not easier-to promote democracy. Buzzwords like 21st-century statecraft sound good in PowerPoint presentations, but the reality is that digital diplomacy requires just as much oversight and consideration as any other kind of diplomacy. Marshaling compelling evidence, Morozov shows why we must stop thinking of the Internet and social media as inherently liberating and why ambitious and seemingly noble initiatives like the promotion of Internet freedom might have disastrous implications for the future of democracy as a whole.


Product details

  • Hardcover: 432 pages
  • Publisher: PublicAffairs,U.S. (13 Jan 2011)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1586488740
  • ISBN-13: 978-1586488741
  • Product Dimensions: 15.5 x 3.8 x 23.5 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (42 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 712,630 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Review

Michael Walzer, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton
"Evgeny Morozov is wonderfully knowledgeable about the Internet--he seems to have studied every use of it, or every political use, in every country in the world (and to have read all the posts). And he is wonderfully sophisticated and tough-minded about politics. This is a rare combination, and it makes for a powerful argument against the latest versions of technological romanticism. His book should be required reading for every political activist who hopes to change the world on the Internet." Thomas P.M. Barnett, author, "The Pentagon's New Map," and senior managing director, Enterra Solutions LLC"Evgeny Morozov has produced a rich survey of recent history that reminds us that everybody wants connectivity but also varying degrees of control over content, and that connectivity on its own is a very poor predictor of political pluralism.... By doing so, he's gored any number of sacred cows, but he's likewise given us a far more realistic sense of what's possible in cyberspace--both good and bad--in the years ahead. Morozov excels at this sort of counter-intuitive analysis, and he instantly recasts a number of foreign policy debates with this timely book." Stephen M. Walt, Belfer Professor of International Affairs, Harvard University
""Net Delusion" is a brilliant book and a great read. Politicians and pundits have hailed the Internet as a revolutionary force that will empower the masses and consign authoritarian governments to the ash-heap of history, but Morozov explains why such naive hopes are sadly misplaced. With a keen eye for detail and a probing, skeptical intelligence, he shows that the Web is as likely to distract as to empower, and that both dictators and dissidents can exploit its novel features. If you thought that Facebook, Twitter, and the World Wide Web would trigger a new wave of democratic transformations, read this book and think again."
Malcolm Gladwell"Evgeny Morozov offers a rare

About the Author

Evgeny Morozov is a contributing editor to "Foreign Policy "and "Boston Review" and a Schwartz Fellow at the New American Foundation. Morozov is currently also a visiting scholar at Stanford University. He was previously a Yahoo! Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University and a fellow at the Open Society Institute in New York, where he remains on the board of the Information Program. Morozov's writings have appeared in the "Economist," "N""ewsweek," the "Wall Street Journal," the "International Herald Tribune," the "Boston""Globe," "Slate," "Le Monde," "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung," the "San Francisco""Chronicle," "Prospect," "Dissent," and many other publications.


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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
By The Guardian TOP 100 REVIEWER VINE™ VOICE
Format:Kindle Edition
Evgeny Morozov's `The Net Delusion' is an informative and wide-ranging essay on the growth and increasing power of the internet as an agency of global change, with some less than optimistic conclusions. Taking as a start-point the way in which political-interest websites and blogs have been created by dissidents in an attempt to organise and focus opposition to less democratic regimes such as those in China, Iran and elsewhere, he broadens out his thesis to examine ways in which entrenched political interests have started to use the most successful spin-offs of the new technologies (facebook, twitter) to identify, keep track of and arrest dissenters; and that these developments of internet technologies now enable the exercise of a degree of social control far greater than was previously possible.

The author knows his subject, and utilises plentiful and relevant citations from the enormous academic bibliography listed in the index to support his argument. It is recognised that people the world over seek entertainment and frivolity from the net far more often than they engage in political or philosophical discourse; extrapolating from this data Morozov makes a convincing case that the new technologies may therefore be exploited as a more insidious agency of social control and management. He compares the 1948 totalitarian vision of Orwell's Stalinist surveillance society in `1984' with Huxley's earlier but far more seductive and ultimately more accurate vision of the future in `Brave New World' where the status quo is maintained by giving people what they want and keeping them happy on the farm. The work of Kern and Heinmuller (`Opium for the masses: how foreign media can stabilize authoritarian regimes') demonstrated the narcotizing function of unfettered access to entertainment media, in that youth in the old GDR who were able to see western TV broadcasts were overall found to be more satisfied and comfortable with the regime, whereas those in the eastern part of the state who were unable to view western TV were more politicized and critical of the regime (cited on p65). Control exercised through narcotizing entertainment is cheaper and easier than repression and brutality, so it's obvious which way a dictator determined to retain power and control would choose.

Morozov points out that the reason most western politicians and political commentators believe in the power of the net as a vehicle of emancipation by making information universally available, is because they have not given the matter much thought: "information does not flow in a vacuum, but in a political space already occupied" (p25). Due to its inherent benefits of mass information pooling and storage, the internet is empowering the secret police, censors and propaganda offices of authoritarian regimes to such a degree that the process of democratization is likely to become more difficult, rather than easier. Similarly, if the alternative to paternalistic authoritarianism is weak government (or worse, a free-for-all of ethnic factionalism and chaos) then people are likely to ultimately choose the certainties and clear boundaries defined by authoritarianism.

Overall this is a valuable and thoughtful essay by an informed writer. He often digresses from his central argument but such digressions (such as for example his analysis of the narcissism-promoting social networking sites and the shallowness with which members embrace `causes' so long as they don't have to actually do anything) are invariably enlightening and poignant. Morozov has a good, easy-to-read writing style laced with occasional dark humour, and his 320-page book is well worth reading as an engaging and radical perspective on the way the technology revolution may be leading us as a global society.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars All The World Loves A Lolcat 13 Jan 2011
By Diziet TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)
Growing up in Belarus and then living in the US, Mr Morozov has had opportunities to view the Internet from 'both sides'. He has seen at first hand both authoritarian attempts at controlling the spread of the Internet and libertarian attempts at maintaining the Internet's growth throughout the world.

This experience has allowed him to develop some useful views. He contrasts attitudes to the Internet basically between 'cyber-utopians' and 'cyber-cons'. The former he defines as those who have:

'...a quasi-religious belief in the power of the Internet to do supernatural things, from eradicating illiteracy in Africa to organizing all of the world's information...Opening up closed societies and flushing them with democracy juice until they shed off their authoritarian skin is just one of the expectations placed on the Internet these days.' (P19)

On the other hand, there are the 'cyber-cons' (an on-line version of neo-conservatives) who still view the world from an essentially Cold War perspective. Thus, they are bound by cold-war metaphors. But, as he points out:

'Breaching a powerful firewall is in no way similar to the breaching of the Berlin Wall or the lifting of passport controls at Checkpoint Charlie...[T]he cyber-wall metaphor falsely suggests that once digital barriers are removed, new and completely different barriers won't spring up in their place' (P44-45)

Between these two extremes, which overlap and inform each other, he analyses the effects of Twitter, Facebook, mobile telephony and the growing belief that all dissidents have to do is set up a Facebook page and the revolution will miraculously occur. He points out, in some detail, just how false these beliefs are and clearly shows that authoritarian regimes are hardly likely to stand back and watch in horror, but are themselves active participants. In fact, organizing demonstrations and the like by mobile phone or Twitter can actually deliver the dissidents into the hands of the authorities.

As stated, China is not going to sit back and simply let lots of people create anti-Chinese Communist Party (CCP) blogs, web-sites and Facebook pages. They can mobilise their own supporters to create the same Internet facilities to actively support the regime (this is neatly confirmed in 'The Party' by Richard McGregor). In many countries, this has been a growing phenomenon with or without active government support. The number of web-sites and blogs promoting Russian nationalism, for example, provide a significant counter to any 'democratising movement'.

Morozov makes some pointed historical comparisons - in the past, it was believed that the telegraph would bring about World Peace, then it was the aeroplane, next radio (remember the BBC's motto 'Nation Shall Speak Peace Unto Nation'), then television. As we can see, none of these previous technologies appear to have enhanced the opportunities for greater international understanding, instead often bringing about a 'tribalism' as groups retreat from the huge volume of information into self-reinforcing cliques - an idea also explored by Jodi Dean in her book 'Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies'. Think here of US talk radio and Fox News.

Morozov challenges the notion that all these disaffected people in authoritarian states are hungry for news from the 'outside', from the liberated West. He's right, of course. As he puts it in a chapter entitled 'Orwell's Favourite lolcat' the vast majority of people are far more interested in funny videos on YouTube and pornography.

He creates a further contrast between Orwellian and Huxleyan visions of the future - 'The Orwell-Huxley Sandwich Has Expired' (P75) and suggests that we are far closer to the Huxley end of this spectrum than the Orwellian. Personally, I'm not convinced. As he says himself, the trouble with metaphor is that it is easy to go from saying that something is 'like' something else to saying it is 'exactly like' and so, to my mind, what we have, what is developing, owes much to both Orwell and Huxley - from 'celeb TV' and 'lolcats' to ubiquitous CCTV and monitored mobile phones (or the two together, in the case of the News of the World).

This is a highly detailed examination of the Internet as it has developed over the last twenty years but, to be honest, it does get rather repetitive. The final chapter attempts to put forward some pointers and some suggestions for maintaining the openness of the Internet. But these are rather rushed and not given nearly as much detail as the exposition of the problems currently faced by the technology.

Still, it is very informative, if not particularly optimistic. Given developments since he wrote the book (the US government's continued attacks on WikiLeaks and, by extension, Twitter, the formation of Facebook groups such as the Gaza Youth Movement, where you can simply link to the page to show your (virtual) support) I think we are seeing the slow end of the 'Adam Smithian' free-range Internet and what develops to take it's place will not be so inspirational.
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43 of 49 people found the following review helpful
By M. Bhangal TOP 500 REVIEWER VINE™ VOICE
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)
I am a web developer. Last year, I was tasked with looking at using Facebook in advertising. I worked out a way that allows any online advert to access the user's Facebook profile as if the user had logged into their account themselves. I used the Facebook API (a set of routines that lets any external web code access Facebook) to surreptitiously login. The only mistake the user has to make to allow me in is to have the `remember me' button on their login screen checked (and which regular Facebook user doesn't?). Once my ad is in your account (about 3-5 seconds on a good broadband connection), I can then access and retransmit all your data, including (depending on what you have on your profile) your name, address, phone numbers, friends, and your uploaded pictures. It isn't even difficult to work out; anyone with a good knowledge of JavaScript (or AS3) and a bit of HTML iframe magic can work it out in a couple of hours.

Why is this allowed to happen? Because Facebook trusts everyone; it assumes I am not evil by default. So does Wikipedia and Twitter. In fact, any social/collaborative web application has to trust me because that is what `social' means in web programming terms.

And that chimes totally with the view of this book; the web is apolitical and trusting, and although that makes it a useful tool to help democracy to take root in authoritarian states, it also makes it very easy for that authoritarian state to reduce personal freedom and spread its own propaganda in return.

If the internet ceased to exist, it would be Al-Qaida that would be worse off. The US Army loses an unsecure communications channel they don't use for frontline operations (and WikiLeaks becomes a thing of the past). Al-Quaida lose the ability to distribute sermons by radical clerics, newsgroups that ferment extremism in countries like the UK, and lose the ability to spread information via the `guerrilla news channel' that the web can become. Operationally, they lose anonymous communication and an easy money transfer system.

The problem is that Western policy makers think the internet can only be a good thing for democracy (because it spreads information freely, and free = freedom = democracy, right?). This is the Net Delusion.

Although I note other reviewers find this dark view of the web hard to swallow, as a web developer I find again and again practical experience that tells me that the social web is built on a democratic world view that assumes peer trust as the default; all those aging hippies are alive and well in Silicon Valley. Normally cool, but as soon as a totalitarian government with time on their hands wants to find you the web user, the web gives them all the tools to identify you and your friends and come knocking to spread their own version of free love.

And no, before you ask, I didn't use the Facebook hack in the end; I decided I am not that evil. But then again, I'm not North Korea.

And if that doesn't pique your interest in this book, nothing will!

***Update Feb 2012***
Facebook have fixed my security exploit some time ago, so you can stop searching for it!
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