The Net Delusion - Evgeny Morozov [0]
Title Page
Dedication
Introduction
chapter one - The Google Doctrine
Hail the Google Doctrine
The Unimaginable Consequences of an Imagined Revolution
A Revolution in Search of Revolutionaries
Where Are the Weapons of Mass Construction?
How NASDAQ Will Save the World
From Milk Shakes to Molotov Cocktails
Why Hipsters Make Better Revolutions
In Search of a Missing Handle
chapter two - Texting Like It’s 1989
WWW&W
Cyber Cold War
Nostalgia’s Lethal Metaphors
Why Photocopiers Don’t Blog
Which Tweet Killed the Soviet Union?
Hold On to Your Data Grenade, Comrade!
When the Radio Waves Seemed Mightier Than the Tanks
chapter three - Orwell’s Favorite Lolcat
How Cable Undermines Democracy
The Denver Clan Conquers East Berlin
The Opium of the Masses: Made in GDR
Watching Avatar in Havana
Online Discontents and Their Content Intellectuals
The Orwell-Huxley Sandwich Has Expired
Mash ’Em Up!
The Trinity of Authoritarianism
chapter four - Censors and Sensibilities
Dress Your Own Windows
The Kremlin Likes Blogs and So Should You
Dictators and Their Dilemmas
When Censors Understand You Better Than Your Mom Does
Time to Unfriend
We Don’t Censor; We Outsource!
Wise Crowds, Unwise Causes
Denial-of-Philosophy
Tearing Down the Wrong Walls
chapter five - Hugo Chavez Would Like to Welcome You to the Spinternet
But I Saw It on the Spinternet!
Elude the Cat, Empower the Masses
What Barbara Streisand Could Teach Nicolae Ceauşescu
Russia’s First Pornographer Meets Russia’s Sarah Palin
Fifty Cents Gets You a Long Way on the Spinternet
Small Doses of Propaganda Are Still Bad for You
Darning Mao’s Socks, One SMS at a Time
chapter six - Why the KGB Wants You to Join Facebook
Never Trust Anyone with a Website
Why Databases Are Better Than Stasi Officers
Say Hi. You’re on Camera!
How to Lose Face on Facebook
Think, Search, Cough
The Myth of an Overprotected Activist
Rainy Days of Cloud Computing
On Mobile Phones That Limit Your Mobility
chapter seven - Why Kierkegaard Hates Slacktivism
Digital Natives of the World, Unite!
Poking Kierkegaard
Kandinsky and Vonnegut Are Now Friends!
Killing the Slacktivist in You
On the Increased Productivity of Lonely Warriors, or Why Some Crowds Are Wise ...
Everybody Can’t Be Che Guevara
Dissidents Without Dissent
No Such Thing as Virtual Politics
chapter eight - Open Networks, Narrow Minds: Cultural Contradictions of ...
A Dollar in a Haystack
Mugabe Blogs Here
A Doll with Censored Nipples
Dangerous Intermediaries
The Beam in Thine Own Cyberspace
Cyberwar Can Be Good for You
You Can’t Be a “Little Bit Free” on the Internet
The End of the American Internet
On the Dubious Virtues of Exporting Damaged Goods
The Hidden Charms of Digital Orientalism
chapter nine - Internet Freedoms and Their Consequences
Smallpox Strikes Back
Putting the Nyet in Networks
Safe to Disconnect
Do Weak States Need Powerful Gadgets?
Why Rational Politics Doesn’t Fit a Hundred Forty Characters
Why Some Data Need to Remain Foggy
chapter ten - Making History (More Than a Browser Menu)
Technology’s Double Life
No Logic for Old Men
Is There History After Twitter?
Why Technologies Are Never Neutral
chapter eleven - The Wicked Fix
Why the Ultimate Technological Fix Is Online
What We Talk About When We Talk About Code
Taming the Wicked Authoritarianism
Prophecies Versus Profits
After Utopia: The Cyber-Realist Manifesto
Acknowledgements
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Copyright Page
To Aernout van Lynden
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