[this is one of a series of posts that I did while a student in Nicco Mele‘s class at Harvard in 2013]

What’d I read?

I’ve read quite a bit this week, but I think the following make the most sense together in the limited amount of time we have together:

Rebecca MacKinnon’s Consent of the Networked is a thorough and interesting examination of how the emerging technologies can empower oppressive governments too.

“The #freemona Perfect Storm: Dissent and the Networked Public Sphere” by Zeynep Tufekci draws from her experience helping her friend, journalist Mona El Tahawy, after she’d been arrested during the Egyptian protests at Tahir Square.

Evgeny Morozov’s afterward to his book, The Net Delusion, puts some of his arguments in more recent context and engages with the book’s detractors.

Was it any good?

I can say nothing ill about MacKinnon’s book.  She effectively marshals anecdotes, academic research, and a thorough grounding in political thought to show how the collusion between Internet business and all governments (not just the ones we think of as oppressive) is corrosive to liberty and democracy. Her emphasis on the problems of both business and governments is very useful and timely.

Tufekci’s fascinating article supplies us with invaluable food for thought: “When activists are arrested, in some cases, it is best to keep it quiet. In some cases it is best to kick up a big storm. Worst option, however, is to kick up a small storm which irritates the powerful, but without enough strength to nudge them to action.” Aside from that (which alone makes her article worth reading), the article describes and analyzes a great many themes (the problem of attention diffusion, the power of networks, the dangers of oppression and activism, even practical advice on how to mount a global campaign) cogently and effectively. The article isn’t naïve about the role technology played in helping Mona (after all, no one could spare her almost a day of what could only have been terror) while still asserting that it can play a valuable role.

Morozov’s lengthy-yet-highly-readable afterward hammers home the important and depressing point that we are not doing enough to notice and counter authoritarian suppression of dissent online. His statement that “while the temptation to do good with the help of the Internet has never been stronger, our understanding of how not to muck things up is still rudimentary” is immensely valuable.  His description of the disconnect between Silicon Valley’s lack of genuine awareness of social responsibility and the plaudits high tech companies receive is also well taken.

However, his attack on “Internet-centrism” seems like a straw man and almost fatally detracts from his valuable main point. Are there any serious writers out there who actually believe that the value of the Internet in politics can be discerned solely by looking at the Internet itself? Morozov himself knocks it down, saying “even the wildest cyber-utopians would agree that it was not the use of particular digital tools that ensured the timely departure of Egypt’s and Tunisia’s rulers” – so it isn’t entirely clear why he thinks he’s arguing against someone and his explanation is not particularly satisfying.

So?

Tufekci’s article was, as an anecdote, a great mirror to hold up to the odious (more so the more I think about it) story that Shirky’s otherwise good book opens with. Where Shirky’s hero managed to get a cell phone back from some lower-class girl, Tufekci uses similar means to actually (maybe) help someone who needs it. She even hammers home the important point that social media and technology may exacerbate existing disparities in prominence and social access (this is her point #5).

I agree with both MacKinnon and Morozov that the current situation with regard to Internet speech is less than optimal.  I might fall into Morozov’s camp with his pessimism, but his argumentation makes it hard to go along. I think its unfortunate that he falls into what Ivan Sigal today referred to in class as “the false dichotomy of cyber activism versus cyber skepticism.”

My only problem with MacKinnon’s vision is that her “Netizen-Centric” Internet requires that we leave notions of sovereignty behind in favor of empowered individuals operating in an ICANN-like multi-stakeholder body that will help make the web safe for free exchange of ideas. ICANN, however, is a mostly-technical body involved with relatively unobjectionable standards. I think that is why it is able to exist in the way it does (and even then, not without meddling by sovereign powers). If I’ve learned anything from my studies in global governance this year, its that sovereignty is a powerful notion and, by definition, most useful to the most powerful global actors that it is hard to see a world where subjective issues (like human rights) are given over to anything other than institutions created by and comprised of sovereign powers.

So I guess I am skeptical about the chances for things to get better without the backing of governmental authorities, but at the same time, I want to believe that we’ll find a way, just like MacKinnon says, to create a civilization in the Hobbessian “digital rainforest” we’ve found ourselves in.