Maxine & Ernie & Net Delusions (Evgeny Morozov)

[ish mailian]

THE INTERNET ADVANCES the cause of freedom more effectively than
ballistic missiles and Hellfire-equippeddrones; at least that’s the
conventional wisdom among US diplomats and policymakers. “Information
freedom supports the peace and security that provide a foundation for
global progress” is how Secretary of State Hillary Clinton put it in a
speech last January, her first on democracy and the Internet. George
W. Bush’s “freedom agenda” is out; the Twitter agenda is in.
Unfortunately, this kind of technological romanticism relies on false
historical analogies and sloppy thinking. Modern communications
technologies are already being deployed as new forms of repression.

http://www.wired.com/2010/12/st_essay_totalitarians/

Net Delusions

“The revolution will be Twittered!” declared journalist Andrew
Sullivan after protests erupted in Iran. But as journalist and social
commentator Evgeny Morozov argues in The Net Delusion, the Internet is
a tool that both revolutionaries and authoritarian governments can
use. For all of the talk in the West about the power of the Internet
to democratize societies, regimes in Iran and China are as stable and
repressive as ever. Social media sites have been used there to
entrench dictators and threaten dissidents, making it harder—not
easier—to promote democracy."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk8x3V-sUgU
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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l