Evgeny Morozov: The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom (2011)

The internet will set us free—or will it? In this spirited critique of “internet freedom,” blogger and commentator Evgeny Morozov shows how social media and web 2.0 do not always foster civic engagement and democratic reform. In fact, the net can make authoritarian governments even more powerful and repressive.

“The revolution will be Twittered!” declared journalist Andrew Sullivan after protests erupted in Iran in June 2009. Yet for all the talk about the democratizing power of the Internet, regimes in Iran and China are as stable and repressive as ever. In fact, authoritarian governments are effectively using the Internet to suppress free speech, hone their surveillance techniques, disseminate cutting-edge propaganda, and pacify their populations with digital entertainment. Could the recent Western obsession with promoting democracy by digital means backfire?

In this spirited book, journalist and social commentator Evgeny Morozov shows that by falling for the supposedly democratizing nature of the Internet, Western do-gooders may have missed how it also entrenches dictators, threatens dissidents, and makes it harder—not easier—to promote democracy. Buzzwords like “21st-century statecraft” sound good in PowerPoint presentations, but the reality is that “digital diplomacy” requires just as much oversight and consideration as any other kind of diplomacy.

Marshaling compelling evidence, Morozov shows why we must stop thinking of the Internet and social media as inherently liberating and why ambitious and seemingly noble initiatives like the promotion of “Internet freedom” might have disastrous implications for the future of democracy as a whole.

Publisher PublicAffairs, 2011
ISBN 1586488740, 9781586488741
432 pages

commentary (Cory Doctorow, The Guardian)

author
publisher
google books

PDF (PDF; updated 2012-7-15)
PDF (EPUB; updated 2012-7-15)

After The Fall: Communiqués from Occupied California (2010)

On March 4, 2010, while representatives of the K-12 schools, community colleges, CSU and UC systems gathered in Sacramento to act out Dr. Seuss and sing “This Little Light of Mine,” students at their respective campuses walked out of classes, occupied buildings and even shut down the Interstate 880/Interstate 980 freeways in Oakland. The students moving from their campuses into buildings and onto the city streets see education as one interconnected piece of the perpetual crises called capitalism. After the Fall: Communiqués From Occupied California collects the major statements of the campus occupations in California in 2009/2010, grounding them in post-World War II U.S. government policy and the growing history of international worker and student occupations.

Publisher: IndyBay.org, February 2010
44 pages

authors
Painting the Glass House Black (Evan Calder Williams, Mute)

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Daniel Domscheit-Berg: Inside WikiLeaks. Meine Zeit bei der gefährlichsten Website der Welt (2011) [German]

Die Enthüllungen von WikiLeaks halten die Welt in Atem. Doch wer steckt hinter der Organisation, die die Mächtigen fürchten macht und das Pentagon eine 120 Mann starke Task Force einberufen ließ? Wie sieht es aus in der Schaltzentrale von WikiLeaks und welche brisanten Papiere schlummern dort noch?

Daniel Domscheit-Berg nimmt uns mit ins Herz von WikiLeaks. Er hat die Enthüllungsplattform seit 2007 Seite an Seite mit Julian Assange aufgebaut. Der junge Deutsche ist weltweit der Mann, der neben dem schillernden und zunehmend umstrittenen Gründer den besten Einblick in das Whistleblower-Projekt hat. Seit Domscheit-Berg und andere Mitstreiter sich im Herbst 2010 aus dem Projekt zurückzogen, ist Julian Assange alleiniger Herrscher über dieses machtvolle Instrument.

Inside WikiLeaks ist ein packend geschriebener Enthüllungsreport voller unbekannter Fakten. Er erzählt die Geschichte von WikiLeaks, wie sie noch keiner gehört hat.

Written by Tina Klopp
Publisher: Econ Verlag, Ullstein Buchverlage, Berlin, 2011
ISBN 978-3-8437-0062-7
304 pages

publisher

PDF (EPUB; updated on 2012-8-5)