Dictatorships, the internet and iPod liberalism

Evgeny Morozov used to think that technology and new media would help his native Belarus become more democratic. But when he ran into reality he quit the NGO he worked for and started researching an unpopular thesis: the internet is not the great tool for fighting tyrannical governments, and on the contrary, it helps dictatorships be more effective.

That is a heresy, and I have a weakness for heresies.

Remember the famous Twitter revolution in Iran? For a dictatorship, allowing social networks is a great opportunity to gather intelligence. The KGB used to torture people to find out who belonged to an organization, or how they coordinated. Now there’s no need, it’s all on Facebook! Who needs security agents and torturers?

I suppose that if social networks hand the security services what they need, with the new geolocation services (like Foursquare) those agents in dark glasses must be drooling.

Morozov lays out his arguments in this TED video.

Morozov questions the idea that introducing technology into oppressed societies will end up toppling dictatorships. He calls this iPod liberalism, “people who love their iPods end up being liberal and democratic”, which is utter nonsense, but there are people who believe it, so it’s good to spell out the errors in this kind of thinking.

The problem is confusing the intended use of technology with its actual use.

For every “digital native” who takes to the streets there are two trapped in World of Warcraft. The internet is used mainly for cyber-hedonism, and that is something we have to accept and add to the analysis.

The truth is that several governments have managed to tame the threat of the internet, through a mechanism Morozov calls the Spinternet, the combination of spin + internet: that is, turning the situation around and converting the threat into an opportunity.

Instead of blocking blogs or wikis, dictatorships pay people to comment or post on those very blogs. When someone accuses the regime, a blogger takes care of accusing him of being a CIA agent!

Look at the case of Chávez. At some point it looked like he was going to censor Twitter, and what did he do? He created an account and now has over 500,000 followers, but there will always be some idealist dreaming that this hurts his dictatorship.

The internet and technology are not a threat to oppressive governments. A clever dictatorship turns the possible threats of the internet around and uses them to its advantage. How? Watch Morozov’s video:

(as always, there are Spanish subtitles).

Morozov’s ideas are not popular. I know plenty of cyber-utopians who believe that from their keyboards, or by clicking a mouse, they are making a revolution, building citizenship, doing activism (they even give it pretty names, like digital activism or cyber-activism). The truth is that this is a delusion, it is virtual activism (virtual means it doesn’t actually exist). I suggest you contrast Morozov’s ideas with the new Luddite’s challenge.

Everything dictatorships do here can also be used effectively in our “participatory democracies”.

Politicians are catching on to these things, and they use social networks to exploit and maintain the inertia of citizens, make them believe they are participating, let them post on their blogs or forums, or invite their followers to participate with their clicks and visits. This gives the politician a degree of legitimacy, and leaves the cyber-citizens sitting quietly behind their screens. Everyone believes they are participating, when what they are actually building is a virtual democracy (you know, a democracy that doesn’t actually exist).

Will the internet become the new opium of the people?

(image TwitterIsForGreen taken from Flickr)