Amr Gharbeia's Library tagged EvgenyMorozov →  View Popular

Here’s my question: does it matter if action is effective or ineffective if we can demonstrate that action leads to more interest in a topic and more knowledge acquisition? I’ve been making the case for years that Americans (and likely people in many developed nations) don’t get enough information about the developing world, and that this lack of attention has consequences for developed and developing nations. If Americans don’t hear about an economic boom in Ghana, they don’t invest… which slows the boom, costing Ghanaians growth and costing Americans business opportunities in a growing economy. Similar dynamics apply around aid, humanitarian and security intervention, export of physical and cultural products.

Regime change by text messaging may seem realistic in cyberspace, but no dictators have been toppled via Second Life, and no real elections have been won there either; otherwise, Ron Paul would be president.

Cyber–utopians’ biggest conceptual mistake is treating cyberspace as some kind of anarchist zone, which the authorities dare not enter except to shut things down. Media reports encourage this view of authoritarian governments as technophobic Internet censors.