It is not difficult to imagine that technologies that are created for one purpose end up being used for another. Technology is used and adapted by the needs of each person that use it. If we talk about the use of twitter, some might use it to sell their persona, as a politician, as a guru in one are or they might use it to explain the situation that is happening in the place they are. Each user of twitter has a reason for using the technology and they use it according to their own purpose.In the book “The Net Delusion: the Dark Side of the Internet Freedom” Morozov argues how technology pretends to bring internet freedom to everyone in the world, but how it backfires and allows some authoritarian government to have more control over their own people. Technology might be initially developed to allow people to keep in touch with friends and share information with them. Imagine if a government is targeting a group that is against them, if they find one of the members of that group with the same technology mention they can easily identify members of that group, just because they are friends with one of the person that they targeted.Morozov shows how technology and politics interweave, and how internal politics might contradict that of the foreign politics that a country has, he specially focus on that inconsistency of governments on the west. There has been a strong discussion about net neutrality in the US and it has it opponents as well as its supporters, but if the net stop being neutral in the US and companies are able to discriminate traffic because of its origin or type, then how can the US (or any country that denies net neutrality) can ask a government not to censor the web? This feeling of inconsistency can be seen throughout his book but it’s more pronounce we he says “… inconsistency between the strong anti-regulation impetus of Western foreign policy and the equally strong pro-regulation impetus of Western domestic policy” (p 218).Technological determinism is another aspect he refutes because with it then the social aspect is lost and movements that are of social problems get attributed to the technology. Instead of understanding why a revolutions started or what was the revolutions fighting for or against, the medias named it the twitter revolution.Morozov shows how technology can be used for “good” or “evil”, and how we are not really understanding all the aspect of the technology we use, he also shows how hypocrite foreign policy can be. I finished more than a third before throwing in the towel. Morozov's analysis is strong, and his writing is often quite funny, a must given the sometimes dry material. While reading, however, I found myself flirting with other books on my shelves, casting sidelong glances that lasted longer and longer. Ultimately, it came down to, what am I going to do with this information, having acquired it? How much of it will I even remember? Isn't this really for policy wonks in a position to do something, anything about the utopian delusions of social media? For you, me, and most of the reading public, an op-ed or long essay on this subject would deliver most of the general-audience content in this otherwise compelling book. In sum: for policy nerds and techno-utopians only.
What do You think about El Desengaño De Internet (2012)?
Interesting, but I'm not in the right headspace to deal with dark meanderings. Didn't finish it.
—dudlord
Launched Morozov into stardom, beyond his criticisms online into a single, unified theory
—allapichai
Very thought-provoking. A bit tedious in the middle.
—Denimeni
The chapter titles are pure primal brilliance.
—Nic
