The Internet: liberator or controller

When Iranians demonstrated against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s regime in 2009, the U.S. government and media outlets identified the ultimate tool of the dissident masses to be Twitter. When insisting that nothing like the Rwandan genocide could ever happen again, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown explained: ?information would come out far more quickly? and ?public opinion would grow to the point where action would need to be taken.? All over the world, we see the power that the Internet has in mobilizing the masses. But at the same time, repressive governments are finding ways to launch “denial of service” attacks.

Evgeny Morozov argues that the Internet has served as a greater tool of control than liberation. He’s the author of the new book ?The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom.?