Table Of Content

Praise for The Net Delusion “As Evgeny Morozov demonstrates in The Net Delusion, his brilliant and courageous book, the Internet’s contradictions and confusions are just becoming visible through the fading mist of Internet eupho- ria. . . . Contrary to the ‘cyber-utopians,’ as he calls them, who con- sider the Internet a powerful tool of political emancipation, Morozov convincingly argues that, in freedom’s name, the Internet more often than not constricts or even abolishes freedom.” —New York Times Book Review “The resulting book is not just unfailingly readable: it is also a provocative, enlightening, and welcome riposte to the cyber-utopian worldview.” —The Economist “Evgeny Morozov offers a rare note of wisdom and common sense on an issue overwhelmed by digital utopians.” —Malcolm Gladwell “Morozov has produced an invaluable book. Copies should be smug- gled to every would-be Twitter revolutionary, and to their clueless groupies in the Western democracies.” —Boston Globe “The Net Delusion argues that Westerners get carried away by the potential of the Internet to democratize societies, failing to appreciate that dictators can also use the Web to buttress their regimes. A fair point.” —New York Times “If only we had spent the past two decades reading books like The Net Delusion. . . we could have a far more coherent view of our new media revolution—and probably a much saner set of policy options in the bargain.” —The Nation “Among cyber-intellectuals in America, a fascinating debate has bro- ken out about whether social media can do as much harm as good in totalitarian states like Egypt. In his fiercely argued new book, The Net Delusion, Evgeny Morozov . . . challenges the conventional wisdom of what he calls ‘cyber-utopianism.’ Among other mischie- vous facts, he reports that there were only 19,235 registered Twitter accounts in Iran (0.027 percent of the population) on the eve of what many American pundits rebranded its ‘Twitter Revolution.’ More damning, Morozov also demonstrates how the digital tools so useful to citizens in a free society can be co-opted by tech-savvy dictators, police states, and garden-variety autocrats to spread propaganda and to track (and arrest) conveniently networked dissidents. . . . This provocative debate isn’t even being acknowledged in most American coverage of the Internet’s role in the current uprisings.” —New York Times “Morozov’s The Net Delusionshould be read by cockeyed optimists and pessimists alike. It’s as important today as McLuhan’s books (The Gutenberg Galaxy, Understanding Media, The Medium is the Massage, etc.) were in the 1950s through the 1970s.” —Huntington News “[T]his book more than rewards a respectful reading, not only for the author’s impressive knowledge of the internet toolbox (with sixty-nine pages of bibliography to back it up) but because of his ability to relate such technological gadgetry to the increasing challenges that are being posed to entrenched authoritarianism.” —The Times Literary Supplement “This book is a passionate and heavily researched account of the case against the cyber-utopians.” —New Statesman “‘Internet freedom,’ in short, is a valiant sword with a number of blades, existing in several dimensions simultaneously. As we go down the rabbit-hole of WikiLeaks, Morozov’s humane and rational lantern will help us land without breaking our legs.” —The Independent “Morozov (contributing editor, Foreign Policy) takes on the ‘Google Doctrine,’ the enthusiastic belief in the liberating power of technology to promote democracy and improve human life. He rightly points out that technology is almost always a double-edged sword guided by the hopes and fears of users and regulators more than by the inherent characteristics of the technology itself. He provides nu- merous examples of how authoritarian regimes have used technology to track people, thwarting privacy and basic freedoms. By pointing out that social problems are seldom, if ever, ‘solved’ by technology and that building public policy around technological fixes diverts at- tention from the root causes, the book is a good antidote to the opti- mistic technological determinists.” —Choice “In his debut, Foreign Policycontributing editor Morozov pulls the Internet into sharp focus, exposing the limits of its inner logic, its reckless misuse, and the dangerous myopia of its champions. . . . A serious consideration of the online world that sparkles with charm and wit.” —Kirkus “The Net Delusion is necessary because it challenges comfortable Western thinking about the modern nature of authoritarianism.” —Sydney Morning Herald “Evgeny Morozov is wonderfully knowledgeable about the Inter- net—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-mined 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.” —Michael Walzer, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton “Evgeny Morozov has produced a rich survey of recent history that reminds us that everybody wants connectivity but also varying de- grees 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-in- tuitive analysis, and he instantly recasts a number of foreign policy debates with this timely book.” —Thomas P.M. Barnett, author, The Pentagon’s New Map, and senior managing director, Enterra Solutions LLC “The 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 naїve 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.” —Stephen M. Walt, Belfer Professor of International Affairs, Harvard University The N E T D E LU S I O N The Dark Side of Internet Freedom EVGENY MOROZOV PUBLICAFFAIRS New York To Aernout van Lynden Copyright © 2011 by Evgeny Morozov Published in the United States by PublicAffairs™, a member of the Perseus Books Group. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address PublicAffairs, 250 West 57th Street, Suite 1321, New York, NY 10107. PublicAffairs books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the U.S. by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more information, please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group, 2300 Chestnut Street, Suite 200, Philadelphia, PA 19103, call (800) 810-4145, ext. 5000, or e-mail [email protected]. Designed by Timm Bryson Text set in Arno Pro Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Morozov, Evgeny. The net delusion : the dark side of internet freedom / Evgeny Morozov. — 1st ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-58648-874-1 (alk. paper) 1. Internet—Political aspects. 2. Internet—Censorship. 3. Computers—Access control. 4. Freedom of information. I. Title. HM851.M665 2011 303.48'33—dc22 2010039066 First Edition 978-1-61039-106-1 (PB) 978-1-61039-163-4 (EB) 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents Introduction, ix 1 The Google Doctrine 1 2 Texting Like It’s 1989 33 3 Orwell’s Favorite Lolcat 57 4 Censors and Sensibilities 85 5 Hugo Chavez Would Like to Welcome You to the Spinternet 113 6 Why the KGB Wants You to Join Facebook 143 7 Why Kierkegaard Hates Slacktivism 179 8 Open Networks, Narrow Minds: Cultural Contradictions of Internet Freedom 205 9 Internet Freedoms and Their Consequences 245 viii Contents 10 Making History (More Than a Browser Menu) 275 11 The Wicked Fix 301 Afterword to the Paperback Edition, 321 Acknowledgments, 341 Bibliography, 345 Index, 415 About the Author, 429 Introduction For anyone who wants to see democracy prevail in the most hostile and unlikely environments, the first decade of the new millennium was marked by a sense of bitter disappointment, if not utter disillusionment. The seemingly inexorable march of freedom that began in the late 1980s has not only come to a halt but may have reversed its course. Expressions like “freedom recession” have begun to break out of the think-tank circuit and enter the public conversation. In a state of quiet desperation, a growing number of Western policymakers began to con- cede that the Washington Consensus—that set of dubious policies that once promised a neoliberal paradise at deep discounts—has been su- perseded by the Beijing Consensus, which boasts of delivering quick- and-dirty prosperity without having to bother with those pesky institutions of democracy. The West has been slow to discover that the fight for democracy wasn’t won back in 1989. For two decades it has been resting on its lau- rels, expecting that Starbucks, MTV, and Google will do the rest just fine. Such a laissez-faire approach to democratization has proved rather toothless against resurgent authoritarianism, which has masterfully adapted to this new, highly globalized world. Today’s authoritarianism is of the hedonism- and consumerism-friendly variety, with Steve Jobs and Ashton Kutcher commanding far more respect than Mao or Che Guevara. No wonder the West appears at a loss. While the Soviets could be liberated by waving the magic wand of blue jeans, exquisite coffee ix