The Net Delusion - Evgeny Morozov [65]
The main thing to keep in mind, though, is that different contexts give rise to different problems and are thus in need of custom-made solutions and strategies. Clinging to Internet-centrism—that pernicious tendency to place Internet technologies before the environment in which they operate—gives policymakers a false sense of comfort, a false hope that by designing a one-size-fits-all technology that destroys whatever firewall it sees, they will also solve the problem of Internet control. The last decade, characterized, if anything, by a massive increase both in the amount and in the sophistication of control, suggests that authoritarian regimes have proved highly creative at suppressing dissent through means that are not necessarily technological. As such, most of the firewalls to be destroyed are social and political rather than technological in nature.
The problem is that technologists who have been designing tools to break technological rather than political firewalls—and often have been doing it with the financial support of Western governments and foundations—are the ones who control the public conversation. It’s in their direct interest to overstate the effectiveness of their own tools and downplay the presence of other nontechnological threats to the freedom of expression. In doing this, they mislead policymakers, who then make poor decisions about the allocation of resources to fight Internet control. Shiyu Zhou, the founder of a Falung Gong technology group that designs and distributes software to access sites banned by the Chinese government, says that “the entire battle over the Internet has boiled down to a battle over resources” and that “for every dollar we [America] spend, China has to spend a hundred, maybe hundreds of dollars” in an interview to the New York Times as part of an argument that more funding should be allocated to promote such tools in Iran. This is at best misleading and at worst disingenuous, a throwback to the Cold War debates about closing the missile gap, but this time by overspending the enemy on digital weapons.
This kind of argument only perpetuates myths like “dictator’s dilemma” and suggests that authoritarian governments are more vulnerable to the threat of technology than they really are. But even if such sly manipulation of public opinion can be overcome, one still has to remember that no solutions to the censorship problem can be designed in isolation from the other two problems—surveillance and propaganda. The decentralized nature of the Internet makes it relatively easy to set up an infinite number of copies for every byte of information shared over the Web. This ability does not come free, however, even if the financial costs are marginal, for it also allows the creation of new, faster, and often more legitimate publishing outlets that can make government propaganda more believable. Moreover, it opens up opportunities for tracking how information spreads online, enabling the authorities to learn more about those who spread it. Information wants to be free, but so do those exchanging it.
chapter five
Hugo Chavez Would Like to Welcome You to the Spinternet
For years Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez was the world’s least likely person to join Twitter. Brevity is not exactly one of his virtues: In the last ten years, Chavez spent more than 1,500 hours denouncing capitalism on Alo Presidente, his