By Ethan Zuckerman via My heart’s in Accra (13 April 2011)
Evgeny Morozov has emerged as one of the leading critics of the idea that the internet is a useful tool for social change, suggesting in his provocative book “The Net Delusion” that the internet can be more useful for dictators than for activists. He’s found himself answering some sharp questions in the wake of the Arab Spring protests, which appear to have used social media quite productively in changing governments in Tunisia and Egypt. One of the leading commentators who’s tried to unpack what effect the internet has and hasn’t had in the Arab Spring is Zeynep Tufekci, a sociologist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She’s been doing some of the most important work in unpacking theory around social networks and examining those theories about network effects in connection to events in Egypt and Tunisia.
Their conversation is moderated by technology journalist Brendan Greeley. Brendan now writes for Bloomberg Businessweek, and formerly wrote on technology for the Economist, the New York Times and pretty much an all-star list of US journalism outlets. Brendan suggests that theorists about political change are no longer looking to Clausewitz, but to Star Trek for their inspiration. We’re in an age of algorithmic culture – we want to know specifically how something, like the Arab Spring protests, transpired and we care about the details of which tools, which actors and which legal jurisdictions, because these details have consequences for those who’d try to use the same methods in different circumstances. He suggests that it’s not insignificant that Zeynep and Evgeny are from outside the US (he’s from Belarus, she from Turkey), because we’re seeing a shift in media from questions about what the world thinks of America to questions about what the world thinks about itself.
Evgeny opens his remarks noting that the question, “How does the Internet affect democracy?” leads to answers that are very abstract. It’s difficult to quantify democracy. The internet is bound to have different impacts on democracy in the US, versus Thailand or Kyrgyzstan.
