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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?"
no longer can recognize censorship as damage and route around it. Blame the router manufacturers.
From the article (on an Internet Cafe in Laos):
Yet, despite its trendiness and high-tech appearance, the Internet joint conspicuously lacked one element usually associated with cafe life: any discussion of current events. Virtually no one in the cafe spoke with anyone else.
Geez - geeks not socializing! What is this world coming to ?!
I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
The main reason that the internet has not been a threat to dictators is that the dictators don't need to control the internet. They only need to control the computers that access the internet.
This is no different than controlling any other type of media. (Control of presses/television stations/etc.)
Guess what - neither did the printing press, the telephone, radio or television.
One person cannot forcefully overthrow a government alone. The first step in an insurrection is organizing people who are like-minded that the government needs to be replaced.
But world leaders, journalists, and political scientists who tout the Internet as a powerful force for political change are just as wrong as the dot-com enthusiasts who not so long ago believed the Web would completely transform business.
This is a classic example of a writer who had an agenda first, and then sought to write a story to back it up. The whole article is bogus.
The Internet HAS completely transformed business. It has become a major source of a variety of political discussion and activism. Anyone who has been paying attention can see that.
The mainstream political/business publications are resistant to anything which upsets the existing delicate balance, so they often hold new technology (i.e. things they don't understand, or can't control, or can't profit from based on the way they've been leveraging their power and control) to ridiculous, unrealistic standards.
So if we put Internet kiosks in a communist country and the regime doesn't topple in six months, that's a failure of the Internet? Get real!
I know this is nothing new, but am I the only one who doesn't see this new mingling of promotion and editorial which seems to now be totally dominant? An entity "proclaims" something IS the way it IS. Never mind coming up with a realistic explanation. Most people have such short attention spans they don't check the facts or read between the lines.
Actually, very little of our revolution was fought in any way as a guerilla war. We fought mainly as a standing army in uniform, albeit one on the run for much of the time. We had spies. The Brits had spies, but in all, it was a quite traditional war for the period in which it was fought.
As for the internet spreading ideas at a rapid pace, I'd point out that B.S. spreads as rapidly as the "truth" and the poster's point is FAR MORE VALID than it's rating as a TROLL! Like any media, the Internet is infinitely abuseable. When totalitarian regimes know how to use the media to their favor--Hitler's use of radio and poster art comes to mind--the media becomes a method of control rather than a method of freedom. I see the PRC getting very good at making the Internet work for them, and while it may not be nearly so easy to control as print, it can be controlled.
If you want the old men in Beijing gone, I suggest you start stockpiling guns and put down the mouse.
--Len
While I understand this point of view, it still bothers me. Yes the politicians are liars. Yes they screw up and often don't care about common people. But you live in a democracy. If you don't like it, change it. A real grassroots effort by the dissaffected in society could change things for the better. Instead people whine and forget that a democracy entails responsibilities, not just rights.
This is a sad comment. For thousands of years people have struggled to gain their freedom from tyrants. Only within the last few hundred years have people been able to take part in running a country. And what do you choose to do with that power? Stand aside and let professional politicians hand the power right back to the ruling class. I guess when you choose to let others make your decisions for you, you get the government you deserve. Unfortunately I also get the government you deserve.
Let the political class and those who like politics play their game. All I ask is that you don't screw up the economy for the rest of us so we can enjoy our family and community
Is your own voice worth so little to you? You have sold yourself short.
Soylent Green is peoplicious!
In the early days of radio some people actually believed that putting radios in police cars would end crime and that radio was a force for world peace. When television was new it was assumed that it would be educational and raise the level of literacy.
I don't see much difference between these earlier beliefs and current superstitious ramblings on by baby boomer journalists about the power of the internet.
The internet eventually will make a difference in politics because it's how people communicate. It just won't be as magical or quick as some of these writers assume
...who explained to me that in a dictatorship, it doesn't matter what people think, because you have a gun to their head. If you can control what they do, then what they think doesn't matter.
Only in a democratic system, where direct extortion is prohibited, does thought control become necessary. When people are relatively free to do as they please does it become necessary to control what they think - and that's what the media cartels have learned how to do.
The Internet allows for the relatively free flow of subversive thought and criticism, which certianly sparks change in societies where force is not king. But in a dictatorship, That's not enough. Until the Internet traffics in guns, dictatorship won't care about it.
First of all, "the Web" and "the Internet" are not interchangeable terms. I'm tired of hearing from writers who undertake to write about the social implications of technology which they don't seem to understand in depth, who seem to think the network is entirely contained within their web browser.
To find things on the web, you have to look for them. Revolutionary ideas don't jump out of the web and slap you in the face. You have to go looking for them. Which means 1) you are somewhat inquisitive 2) you know at least enough about what you're looking for to have enough search terms to plug into Google or some other index.
Which means you are already to some degree indoctrinated into the movement you want to read about. This is why political activism on the web today is something of a global circle jerk. The point of any real change is to bring new people into the fold and spread the idea that they don't need to put up with the tyranny they are living under. Once that idea reaches critical mass, people will get bolder about challenging the establishment, and take appropriate action.
As a few people have pointed out, people aren't going to embrace that idea unless they are really being oppressed in a way that has affected them personally and perhaps traumatically. Tyranny is an acceptable way of life for a lot of people if they have their basic human needs met. They don't really know how much better their life could be because they've never experienced anything better and they don't miss what they never had. Or they are beat down by their oppressors to such a degree that they no longer believe they have the power to change things.
So of course the web is not going to be a great vehicle for spreading new ideas. It's just the simplest and most accessible layer of the internet for armchair revolutionaries to utilize and bitch about. It CAN be a great medium for people who are already motivated and are actively seeking what's out there.
So, the author is half right about the web, especially when he notes that it's an especially easy medium for the despotic governments to monitor and crack down on.
What really will spread the cause of liberty and bring down the most oppressive and iron fisted dictators and oppressive governments in this world is japanese teenage girls with cellphones.
You heard me right. Look there if you want to see the prototype for your revolution. That's right... Rural chinese people and disgruntled Saudi youth are not "gettin' a Dell", dude.
Net connected consumer communications devices will become ubiquitous, and they will support new protocols which are designed from the ground up for social networking. They will support encryption and VPN, and will be all but impossible to suppress. Wireless and satellite have the potential to bypass a lot of the censorship going on at the network routing layer.
I could give this writer a break for not having the vision to see where things are going, but there is simply no excuse for not seeing how they are today. The people who are living under bad government are lucky to be able to read, have water to drink, and electricity... let alone a computer, internet access, doughnut friday, and a copy of the New Republic.
reply to sysarcathushcom
After all, the people don't control it. Revolution isn't profitable to those who do control it.
Sure, access to and control of information are important, but they distract from the Internet's most revolutionary aspect: making it relatively easy to implement new systems of commerce and governance. In other words, the value may lie more with the new processes the Internet allows than with the content it carries.
Unfortunately, Kurlantzick's article focuses mostly on content and access to content, so it misses this. It also misses the main element of Internet architecture: the revolution occurs at the periphery. As is often the case with disruptive technology, those who directly challenge the old order straightaway get swatted. They're not strong enough yet. The ones who will ultimately prevail over entrenched power will do so by finding and serving unnoticed markets and constituencies.
Throughout history (especially in Asia) groups that were fussiest about counting beans tended to thrive and rule. Now the Internet arrives, and with automation so abundantly available at its periphery, places organizational powers once reserved for nations and large corporations in the hands of small groups and individuals.
Because the technology is new, people use it like they did phone, radio and TV. That will change, as it has started to here in the USA. E-bay and Amazon.com have massively shifted commerce, and social networking sites are creating volunteer organizations and political caucuses out of thin air. These changes constitute a revolution that is gradually working its way inward from the periphery. Even in Asia, I expect, if you know where to look.
While studying CS in school, our graphics teacher said the holy grail of computer graphics was to produce an image that was indistinguishable from a real photo. I asked him if he considered the social implications of such technology...he said "no"...that chilled me then, and still does.
you think it's easy, but you're wrong...
If political subversion becomes so mainstream that kids in Internet cafes are reading political articles, then this tyrannical government is probably already dead.
Come on, be realistic! How many kids in the US go to political sites? Maybe 1 out of 1,000,000? How many kids in the US even know anything about politics? You might as well do like Howard Stern and go ask a stripper.
The Web is not a panacea. People still need to care. In China right now, most people don't care, they will just live however they can and try to stay out of the way of the government. Some people where I work even want to go back to China because the living is so good now in their eyes. They don't give a shit about human rights, about the right to criticize the government, etc.
The fact is that the Web is another facility for those who care to communicate. For example, e-mail was one of the things that kept the world informed about the attempted coup in Russia in 1996. During the Tiananmen Square in 1990, if activists had e-mail, I'm sure they could have been much more organized, and the people of China could have heard about it and the truth of how the army fired on their own people. The fact is that all other means of communication were completely shut down. I have friends from China who at the time knew nothing of the truth of Tiannamen square until they came to the US to study.
In South Korea, there was a massacre at Kwang-Ju where the army killed dozens if not hundreds of protesters. Again, my friends of Korea at the time said they knew nothing of it.
If more people had been connected to the web, and e-mails were forwarded like crazy between activists and then finally to the regular masses, maybe something could have been done?
This is the power of the web, and it is available to many people... it's the activists job to sell to these people that change needs to occur.