Power and the Internet

In a week in which Murdoch took on Google and  Mandelson took on Murdoch,  I thought I'd have a look at one of the key sources of power in the world,  the Internet, with its ability to give everyone a public voice.  At first glance it looks as though the individual, however lowly, can now join up with similarly minded others and really begin to change the world.

But is that, in fact, just a comforting illusion to allow people to believe they are  gaining control?

The conventional view is that in this new world of the world wide web governments are bound to lose control, being eventually forced to cede it  to angry, freedom loving,  energetic young netizens, spreading their own agendas on their blogs and social networks. 

Big names go along with that view. Nicholas Negroponte, author of the seminal text, Being Digital,  sees modern technology leading to the the future decline of the nation state.  Many agree with him, believing that by using the power of the Internet, networks of activists can gradually take over and do for the power of the establishment.

But some  people see it differently. Evgeny Morozov, Fellow of Georgetown University, for instance, writing for Forbes, takes a more wary view point - and makes a very sound case for it.

It's true that on the surface, it looks as though we are at the beginning of people power.  In the recent past, we've seen,  for instance,  how a network of social netizens can whip up a storm against a journalist writing about the death of a boy band singer ie: Jan Moir and Stephen Gateley - or get together a concerted attack by the many on the one solitary voice who accused an actor of being boring on Twitter ie. Stephen Fry. In both case, the mob was whipped up very efficiently.  

But this has nothing to do with real power, it's an emotional storm in a very small teacup.

As Morozov points out, because a group can be  pulled together very quickly on line, to express virtuous outrage about pop stars and actors, climate change, poverty, the war in Irqa etc. so can more heavyweight groups be pulled together. ie: networks of religious fanatics: ultra nationalists: and internet adept groups from Latin America.  He points out how warring Mexican gangs are big on You Tube,  touting their latest guns and upload graphic videos of the beheading  of their enemies. The internet is not just in the hands of harmless well meaning do-gooders.   The net is there for saints and sinners alike.

History shows it is usually unwise to underestimate the power of the establishment to adapt to new challenges. Morozov points out that authoritarian states have shown a capacity to embrace new technology very efficiently. He cites the propaganda films of Leni Riefenstahl in Nazi Germany, or the brain washing radio broadcasts in the old Soviet Union.

And the establishment learns fast, and has access to some of the best advisers.  Clever young geeks can work for governments of many different persuasions.  Some of them hack for fun, but some talent will sell itself to the highest bidder, and that bidder may be an authoritarian government. Most powerful governments, like China,  have moved on from the crude model of controlling online discussions by censorship and filtering. The Chinese soon realised that didn't work when everyone had access to publishing on line with blogs, twitter, my Space etc.

So what did China do? They created a decentralized, 20,000-person-strong group of what is known as the 50-cent party, members of which get 50 cents for each comment they post -  they identify sensitive online discussions and try to hijack the conversation in directions supportive of the government. 

Examples like the above are what Morosov  calls the Spinternet. Every government does it differently.

The Russians outsource to new media start-ups, who then create social networks and blogs that promote a pro-Kremlin ideology.  The Russian parliament has been discussing a 'Blogger's Chamber' that would invite famous bloggers (obviously those taking the party line) to set their own standard of what can and cannot be discussed. A good example here of the apparent ceding of state power that, in reality, simply reinforces the establishment's control over the Russian internet.

The Nigerian government has been reported to be constructing an 'anti-blogging project' that would fund hundreds of pro-government voices, paying them in cybercafe vouchers,  to counter the influence of oppositional bloggers.

In Iran, the clerics have  Qom-based blogging workshops, to control much of the online discourse about religious issues.  And the Iranian authorities have already singled out Facebook and Twitter as sources of the 'color revolution' that got thousands of American twitterers coloring their profile picture green in sympathy for the freedom seeking activists in Iran.

The examples above, given by Morozov,  concern authoritarian states.  But it would be naive to assume that our democracy-loving states are not doing exactly the same thing. 

So maybe the future does not look that rosy for the little man at his laptop trying to organise a movement for some noble cause he believes in.  Perhaps Big Brother is even now peering over his shoulder and assessing whether he needs to be reined in. One can only hope that he is also peering over the shoulders of the bad boys who are planning more destructive things - and let us hope he believes with absolute surety that he can distinguish between the the good and the bad.

But hang on,  that's just what authoritarian states believe they can do, isn't it?

What a moral morass this whole field is!

 Evgeny Morozov is contributing editor to Foreign Policy, blogs, and is Yahoo Fellow at Georgetown University for the study of diplomacy.
He has a book coming out next year, published by Public Affairs, about the Internet and Democracy, and I'll certainly be at Amazon on publication day ordering a copy.