“ - 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.
Marshalling a compelling set of case studies,
The Net Delusion shows why the cyber-utopian stance that the Internet is
inherently liberating is wrong, and how ambitious and seemingly noble
initiatives like the promotion of “Internet freedom” are misguided and, on
occasion, harmful.”
