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mburnamfink 's review for:
The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom
by Evgeny Morozov
Morozov is on a crusade against 'Internetic-centric foreign policy' and 'cyber-utopianism', which he describes as a constellation of power interests linking Silicon Valley tech companies (Google, Twitter, Facebook) with Cold Warriors (Cheney, Clinton, Rumsfeld) in a profoundly misguided and dangerous effort to promote democracy overseas through technology. He argues that rather than being an unalloyed force for freedom, the internet can be used in many ways that strengthen authoritarian regimes.
The evidence for that last claim is overwhelming: I doubt a single case of 'internet abuse' between 2005 and 2010 has been left out of the book. For that first claim, that the tech companies and Cold Warriors are in alliance, Morozov's evidence is much more hand-wavey. A few speeches, a few NSA sponsored trips, some conference reports.
What this book does not have, and what it really needs, is a theory to organize these disparate elements into a coherent whole. Political power and the governance of internet technologies are complex issues, but the role of the public intellectual to render these complex issues, if not simple, at least comprehensible. Morozov gestures at the fact that the tools used to crack down on pedophiles, terrorists, media piracy, and spam in the West are the same tools used to crack down on activists and dissidents in authoritarians regimes, but he doesn't explain what this conflict means for those of us who would enjoy both a free world and an orderly internet. Likewise, he doesn't address why some states are 'democracies' and some states are 'authoritarian'. Sure, the US just throws Code Pink activists out of Senate hearings while Russia murders journalists, but why is some power legitimate and some illegal?
Most tellingly, for someone who is all about promoting 'cyber-realism', he is blurry on the specifics of what should be done (aside from localizing policy-which leads to embarrassing situations like the tweets from the US Embassy in Egypt). These days, both democracies and authoritarian regimes use the internet for the same reason they use trucks to transport soldiers, or have their citizens breath air; it'd be impossible not to. But a covert organization has different information strategies from a mass protest, and a mass protest is different from a revolutionary army or transitional government.
This lack of theory exacerbates the other problem with a lack of theoretical perspective; the inability to incorporate new information. This book was published in 2011, which means it was probably written in 2010, but Morozov hasn't substantially updated his thinking to include the Arab Spring and divergent outcomes in Tunisia, Libya, Bahrain, Egypt, Syria etc. (the fact that they're different might mean that he's right, but still, they all occurred simultaneously...) Wikileaks barely gets a mention, despite the diplomatic cable leaks beginning in February 2010. If there was a theory to The Net Delusion, you could ask how new information fits into or changes the framework. Even in a popular book that is less rigorous than an academic treatise, you need to do more to contextualize your ideas than wave at Foucault, Langdon Winner, George F. Kennan and so on.
The evidence for that last claim is overwhelming: I doubt a single case of 'internet abuse' between 2005 and 2010 has been left out of the book. For that first claim, that the tech companies and Cold Warriors are in alliance, Morozov's evidence is much more hand-wavey. A few speeches, a few NSA sponsored trips, some conference reports.
What this book does not have, and what it really needs, is a theory to organize these disparate elements into a coherent whole. Political power and the governance of internet technologies are complex issues, but the role of the public intellectual to render these complex issues, if not simple, at least comprehensible. Morozov gestures at the fact that the tools used to crack down on pedophiles, terrorists, media piracy, and spam in the West are the same tools used to crack down on activists and dissidents in authoritarians regimes, but he doesn't explain what this conflict means for those of us who would enjoy both a free world and an orderly internet. Likewise, he doesn't address why some states are 'democracies' and some states are 'authoritarian'. Sure, the US just throws Code Pink activists out of Senate hearings while Russia murders journalists, but why is some power legitimate and some illegal?
Most tellingly, for someone who is all about promoting 'cyber-realism', he is blurry on the specifics of what should be done (aside from localizing policy-which leads to embarrassing situations like the tweets from the US Embassy in Egypt). These days, both democracies and authoritarian regimes use the internet for the same reason they use trucks to transport soldiers, or have their citizens breath air; it'd be impossible not to. But a covert organization has different information strategies from a mass protest, and a mass protest is different from a revolutionary army or transitional government.
This lack of theory exacerbates the other problem with a lack of theoretical perspective; the inability to incorporate new information. This book was published in 2011, which means it was probably written in 2010, but Morozov hasn't substantially updated his thinking to include the Arab Spring and divergent outcomes in Tunisia, Libya, Bahrain, Egypt, Syria etc. (the fact that they're different might mean that he's right, but still, they all occurred simultaneously...) Wikileaks barely gets a mention, despite the diplomatic cable leaks beginning in February 2010. If there was a theory to The Net Delusion, you could ask how new information fits into or changes the framework. Even in a popular book that is less rigorous than an academic treatise, you need to do more to contextualize your ideas than wave at Foucault, Langdon Winner, George F. Kennan and so on.