The Web Won't Topple Tyranny

An anonymous reader writes "Joshua Kurlantzick of the New Republic online writes that the internet--once heralded as a revolutionary force in politics--has turned out to be surprisingly nonthreatening to dictators and tyrannies. Reminds me of Howard Dean, and the trend to see technological change as a politically progressive force. Maybe this is not such a good idea?"

Comments

Re:That's because the internet

[coaxial]

> Blame the router manufacturers.

If I take 4 drums of fuel oil and 2,000 lbs of ammonium nitrate I can plant 100 acres of corn with a tractor or build a car bomb. If I choose the latter it's the fault of the oil and fertilizer companies? I don't think so.

These are disanalogous situations. A more analgous situation would be, you buy the fuel oil an fertilizer, and the feedstore says, "Here's your free bomb making instruction manual. Wait, you're building it wrong. Here, let me show you... See how easy that was? Oh you want it placed under the building across town? Sure, we can deliver it for you. Here you go. Just press that button, and you're all set. Just remember, though, we're not responsible."

The companies are in violation of the U.N. Human Rights Norm for Business (August 2003), which states, "enterprises shall refrain from any activity which supports, solicits, or encourages States or any other entities to abuse human rights. They shall further seek to ensure that the goods and services they provide will not be used to abuse human rights". They know when they sold the router/filter/firewall system whether or not it was going to be used to route intracompany emails or be part of the Great Firewall of China (or whatever country). The technical specs requested by the Ministry of Internal Security tell them that.

While Cicso and the rest may not be actively imprisioning dissidents, they are knowingly enabling the totalitarian regimes to do so. That makes them an accessory to their crimes. Additionally one could make the argument that Cicso and the rest are in conflict with policies of the United States (and no doubt other democratic nations) when they provide goods and services that are actively used to counter the pro-democracy programs the United States (and other democratic nations).

Re:Makes Sense...

[rynthetyn]

It's not the first time a columnist missed the reasons for change. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote a book about globalization, where he attributed the peaceful revolution in Serbia to a desire to participate in the global marketplace and the feeling that Slobodan Milosevic was holding them back (he gives a ridiculous example about people wanting to be able to afford frequent visits to McDonalds, and apparently doesn't realize that the reason that they can't afford to eat there is because it's ridiculously overpriced). I have e-mail contacts in Belgrade, and those people participated in the demonstrations that led to the peaceful overthrow of the government. They didn't take to the streets because they wanted McDonalds, they took to the streets because they wanted freedom to walk down the street without being harassed by police cracking down on dissidents, because they wanted to speak freely, to be able to write e-mail without worrying about it being monitored, and the straw that broke the camel's back was when everyone knew Milosevic lost the election but he claimed he won and he wouldn't leave (before anyone makes a crack about Bush in 2000, the student in Belgrade that my sister writes to associated Gore with Slobo refusing to admit defeat and said "when that happened here, we had a revolution"). I don't know what kind of direct role the internet had in the revolution, but indirectly, it did play a role, if only because it opened up avenues to interact with the rest of the world and thus served as a way to counteract the extreme form of nationalism, us-against-everyone mentality that the government used as a means of control.

Any channel of communication that takes place away from the oversight of a police state can help topple tyranny. Several years ago, the government of the Phillipines was toppled largely through the use of cell phone text messaging informing people of when a demonstration would be held--the revolutionary equivalent of a flash mob.

It's not the internet itself, or any particular website that will help topple tyranny, but any tool that increases the flow and volume of information is going to hurt tyrants.