The Net Delusion - Evgeny Morozov [49]
That Internet freedom has taken on such a democracy-squashing quality does not mean that dictators were planning this all along; in most cases, it’s simply the result of earlier authoritarian incompetence. Would dictators ever have allowed YouTube in their countries if anyone had asked them? Probably not. They don’t always grasp the strategic value of distraction, overestimating the risks of people-led protest. By their sheer haplessness or misjudgment, they did let the Internet in, but instead of blogs ridiculing government propaganda, it’s the goofy websites like lolcats that their youth are most interested in. (Rest assured: Soon enough, some think-tank report will announce that the age of “feline authoritarianism” is upon us.) Those of us concerned about the future of democracy around the globe must stop dreaming and face reality: The Internet has provided so many cheap and easily available entertainment fixes to those living under authoritarianism that it has become considerably harder to get people to care about politics at all. The Huxleyan dimension of authoritarian control has mostly been lost on policymakers and commentators, who, thanks to the influence of such critics of modern capitalism as Herbert Marcuse and Theodor Adorno, are mostly accustomed to noticing it only in their own democratic societies. Such bland glorification of those living under authoritarianism will inevitably lead to bad policies. If the ultimate Western objective is inciting a revolution or at least raising the level of political debate, the truth is that providing people with tools to circumvent censorship will be nearly as effective as giving someone with no appreciation of modern art a one-year pass to a museum. In 99 percent of cases, it’s not going to work. This is not an argument against museums or anticensorship tools; it’s simply a call to use strategies that are free of utopian visions.
The Trinity of Authoritarianism
Granted, this “control by entertainment” approach is not going to work for everyone in authoritarian societies; some people already have so many grudges against their governments that flooding them with entertainment would not change their minds. In addition, Western governments and foundations will always find ways to politicize the locals from the outside, even if it involves fueling ethnic or religious tensions, a foolproof way to spark hatred in the age of YouTube. Thus, if only to maintain power over those who have preserved the ability to think for themselves, some Orwellian elements of political control will need to be present. Despite the reductionist models that have made many in the West believe that information can destroy authoritarianism, information also plays an instrumental role in enabling propaganda, censorship, and surveillance, the three main pillars of Orwell-style authoritarian control.
The Internet hasn’t changed the composition of this “trinity of authoritarianism,” but it has brought significant changes to how each of these three activities is practiced. The decentralized nature of the Internet may have made comprehensive censorship much harder, but it may have also made propaganda more effective, as government messages can now be spread through undercover government-run blogs. The opportunity to cheaply encrypt their online communications may have made “professional” activists more secure, but the proliferation of Web 2.0 services—and especially social networking—has turned “amateur” activists into easier targets for surveillance.
While there is nothing we in the West can do about the growing appeal of YouTube and lolcats—online entertainment is poised to remain an important, if indirect, weapon in the authoritarian arsenal—it’s possible