As Gaddafi’s scope of influence shrinks to the capital, news out of Libya is that the regime is still not giving in.  A video of the dictator’s son has emerged, beating the drums of war and saying to supporters “I am bringing you reinforcements, resources, food, weapons, everything you need. We are doing well.” The [...]

NOTE: This is the fourth in a series of posts reviewing the book “The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom” by Evgeny Morozov. Here are the links to the first post ,  second post and third post. This post was updated on March 26th, 2011. Warning: this will be one of my more [...]

Facebook has a real name policy that allows it to delete the accounts of users who use pseudonyms. Advocates like Jillian York have pointed out that this endangers activists: Activists who use pseudonyms often find their accounts deleted. Even folks with well-known and established pen names have been told by Facebook that they must revert [...]

NOTE: This is the third in a series of posts reviewing the book “The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom.” Here are the links to the first post and second post. About a third of the way through his book The Net Delusion, Evgeny Morozov references the Orwellian “trilogy of authoritarianism”:  censorship, propaganda, [...]

One of the primary benefits of Twitter during times of massive coordination and rapidly changing contexts is the speed in which information can be shared. In 140 characters or less, Twitter users can pass on information to large networks of geographically disparate followers through hashtagging. The more quickly events unfold, the more quickly information is [...]

About ten days before the events of January 25, the media was abuzz with writers and influential thinkers wondering if the Tunisian revolution was a Twitter revolution or not. The camps, as usual, were divided, with incessant criticism from cyber-skeptics and their tirades against cyber-utopians. Sifting through the widespread commentary about digital activism in the [...]

Yesterday Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered a speech (above) on “Internet Rights And Wrongs: Choices & Challenges In A Networked World,” which can be seen as a follow-up on the Internet freedom agenda.  Though garnering little attention (the official State Department version had 21 views on YouTube when I watched it) the speech is [...]

NOTE: This is the second is a series of posts reviewing the book “The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom.” Here is a link to the first post. In this second post on The Net Delusion I’m going to look at two chapters together.  This is not only because there are eleven chapters [...]

For a peaceful demonstration organized within a police state to gain sufficient momentum, a critical mass of demonstrators must be mobilized. This critical mass of demonstrators can most easily be mobilized through existing social structures even if it is instigated within novel networks and communication technologies. In different socio-political contexts appropriate social structures will vary, [...]

Reading “The Net Delusion” has got me thinking about how we define successful digital activism and digital repression in authoritarian regimes and how traditional definitions of success favor authoritarians. The easiest way to define a campaign, tactic, or movement as successful is by asking “did it achieve its stated goal?”. Campaigns aim to alter the [...]