What We Don't Get About Social Media's Dark Side

By Evgeny Morozov

May 2012

The BackgroundThe Background

My perspective: shaped by NGO/philanthropy experience

2005-2006 excitement about “blogs” = today's excitement about “social media”

Got frustrated with uncritical and naïve embrace of “technological fixes” by policy-

makers

What is it to be “critical” of the Net?

* It's NOT to reject it as unimportant, unnecessary or uninteresting (≠SKEPTICISM)

* It's NOT to deny that the Net can enhance democracy, undermine authoritarianism, etc (≠DISMISSAL)

* It's NOT to suggest that bad guys (dictators, NSA, Microsoft) will always win (≠ PESSIMISM)

Instead we need to...

- Reject claims of the Net's “inherent logic”

- Avoid “is-ism” mentality

- Recognize that preserving the liberating potential of the Net will be hard work

I. Authoritarian regimes

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- Utility of soc media depends on the political - Utility of soc media depends on the political cyclecycle - Emergencies/revolutions aren't representative - Emergencies/revolutions aren't representative eventsevents

- If current business and political trends - If current business and political trends continue, the Net will be less useful to dissidents, continue, the Net will be less useful to dissidents, more useful to dictatorsmore useful to dictators

Why is the “dark side” so hard Why is the “dark side” so hard to notice? to notice?

Technology & Social Change

Instrumentalist vs Ecological Instrumentalist vs Ecological PerspectivesPerspectives

Instrumentalist PerspectiveInstrumentalist Perspective

- The Internet is just a neutral tool, an instrument, an amplifier

- It can be used for both good and bad- It's all about how people use it

- If the Internet weren't available, protesters would have used some other tool

- The Net's role is most interesting during/right before protest

Exhibit A: Zuckerberg

Row 1 Row 2 Row 3 Row 40

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Column 1Column 2Column 3

“Social media’s role [in the Arab Spring] is maybe a bit overblown. If people want change, then they will find a way to get that change. Whatever technology they may or may not have used was neither a necessary nor sufficient case for getting to the outcome that they got to, but having people who wanted change was. I don’t pretend that [if] Facebook didn’t exist, that this wouldn’t even be possible. Of course it would have”

Mark Zuckerberg on Charlie Rose, Nov 7, 2011

Questions to Zuckerberg:

1. Doesn't the Internet alter – in one way or another - how and why people “want change”?

2. More broadly: doesn't the notion of “change” mean

something different for a person with Internet access than to a person without it?

Exhibit B: Malcolm Gladwell

““People protested and brought down governments People protested and brought down governments before Facebook was invented... before Facebook was invented... People with a People with a grievance will always find ways to communicate with grievance will always find ways to communicate with each other. How they choose to do it is less each other. How they choose to do it is less interesting, in the end, than why they were driven to interesting, in the end, than why they were driven to do it in the first place.” do it in the first place.”

Malcolm Gladwell, “Does Egypt Need Malcolm Gladwell, “Does Egypt Need

Twitter?”, New Yorker's News Desk blogTwitter?”, New Yorker's News Desk blog

Questions to Gladwell

1. Is someone who has a grievance and is online 1. Is someone who has a grievance and is online fundamentally different from someone who has fundamentally different from someone who has a grievance and is offline? a grievance and is offline?

2. To what extent does the Internet alter what it 2. To what extent does the Internet alter what it means “to have a grievance”? Does it give rise means “to have a grievance”? Does it give rise to new grievances that wouldn't be possible to new grievances that wouldn't be possible before?before?

3. Didn't technology/media play at least SOME 3. Didn't technology/media play at least SOME role in the run-up to East German protests or the role in the run-up to East German protests or the French revolution?French revolution?

Exhibit C: Clay Shirky 1.0

"Because the cost of sharing and coordinating has collapsed, new methods of organization are available to ordinary citizens, methods that allow events to be arranged without much advance planning."

Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody, 2008

Key Question to Shirky 1.0

1. What if the Net makes it more likely that people WON'T organize protests (e.g. fears of surveillance or slacktivism or cyber-hedonism...)

2. More broadly: Instrumentalist position knows how to deal with assessing effectiveness of protest, but what about its likelihood?

Ecological Perspective

-- The Net is more than a tool; it transforms both The Net is more than a tool; it transforms both the environment where politics is made, and the environment where politics is made, and

those who participate in politicsthose who participate in politics

- In authoritarian regimes, the Internet may be - In authoritarian regimes, the Internet may be creating a new, digital, networked public creating a new, digital, networked public

spheresphere

- The Internet's most interesting impact is not - The Internet's most interesting impact is not during protest but before & after itduring protest but before & after it

Exhibit A: Shirky 2.0

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““...What I didn't do a good enough job of assessing [in ...What I didn't do a good enough job of assessing [in Here Comes Here Comes EverybodyEverybody] is that ...] is that ...the ability to turn people out on the street is the ability to turn people out on the street is the end of a long process rather than a shortcutthe end of a long process rather than a shortcut...Countries where ...Countries where this kind of turnout worked best was where this kind of turnout worked best was where there had been years of there had been years of conversation in advance among people who were politically like-conversation in advance among people who were politically like-minded enough to agree on a strategyminded enough to agree on a strategy.“.“

Clay Shirky, interview with Anneberg Digital News, Nov 2011Clay Shirky, interview with Anneberg Digital News, Nov 2011

Exhibit B: Marc Lynch

”“... the strongest case for the fundamentally transformative effects of the

new media may lie in the general emergence of a public sphere capable of eroding the ability of states to monopolize information

and argument, of pushing for transparency and accountability, and of facilitating new networks across society...The question of whether that authoritarian state can adapt to this challenge, as it has to others in

the past, should shape our research agenda in the coming years.” Marc Lynch, “The Limits and Promise of Online Challenges

to the Authoritarian Arab State

Ecological Tradition: Key Questions

1. Can we ** predict ** the influence that the Internet will have on a given *ecology*? How do we know we have told the whole story? → importance of context and local knowledge

2. If we can predict that influence, how do we translate its influence on ** ecology ** to its impact on political life? (e.g. “networked public sphere”: what is its impact?)

Propositions

1. Smart dictators will use the Net to suppress 1. Smart dictators will use the Net to suppress some of the Net's some of the Net's emancipatoryemancipatory capabilities capabilities

WHILE developing new, WHILE developing new, repressiverepressive capabilities capabilities

2. Whether they succeed depends on many 2. Whether they succeed depends on many factors, many of them independent of factors, many of them independent of

technology technology

3. The task is to understand their game plan3. The task is to understand their game plan

Dictators' Adaptation Strategies

- From Censorship to New Forms of Harassment - Propaganda- Surveillance

- Control of online resources- Use of tech to outsmart the protesters

- Post-protest clean-up with emerging tech

New forms of censorship

- Delegating Censorship to Private Companies●

- Bypassing the Dictator's Dilemma: From Filtering to Customized Censorship

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- Cyber-attacks: Tomaar

New Forms of Propaganda

- China's 50-cent army●

- Russia's “Spinternet” initiatives ●

- Active use of Twitter by pro-government forces in Syria and Bahrain

New forms of surveillance

- Spying on activists with Western technology

- Mobile tracking

- Data-mining + social graph analysis

Control of Online Resources

- Russia/China vs Egypt/Tunisia: platform - Russia/China vs Egypt/Tunisia: platform controlcontrol

- Iran's “halal” internet- Iran's “halal” internet●

- Pressure on BlackBerry (and now others) to - Pressure on BlackBerry (and now others) to keep servers in the countrykeep servers in the country

Outsmarting protesters

- Flashmobs in Belarus- Flashmobs in Belarus

- Fake protests in Sudan - Fake protests in Sudan

- Facebook pressure in Zimbabwe- Facebook pressure in Zimbabwe

Post-protest “clean up”

- Facial recognition technology - Facial recognition technology

- Voice analysis- Voice analysis - Identification of who was in the protest zone - Identification of who was in the protest zone through mobile phonesthrough mobile phones

The real Internet Freedom Agenda

To thwart these adaptation strategies, we'll need to ask a lot of tough questions about

- how Silicon Valley should run its affairs- how tightly we want to regulate exports of technology to repressive regimes- how far Western law enforcement agencies want to go in terms of online surveillance

Dystopian future?

- The Net is NOT inherently liberating; its liberating potential may shrink or grow depending on the circumstances

- Dictatorships may collapse for all sorts of reasons but let's not make their jobs easier

- Key Q: will the Net be MORE or LESS conducive to dissent in 5 years?

II. Democracies

- Instrumental vs Ecological logic works here as - Instrumental vs Ecological logic works here as well well

- Optimists point to growth in an individual's - Optimists point to growth in an individual's ability to a) get published b) find supporters & ability to a) get published b) find supporters & organize together organize together

- Heavily influenced by US preoccupation with - Heavily influenced by US preoccupation with civil society & freedom of expressioncivil society & freedom of expression

Democratization of Everything?

- Analogies to printing press are misleading

- Corporate environment + state apparatus more complex

- Getting published ≠ Getting heard

- Inequality reinforced online?

Trivially true but...

- This is not the only effect – once again, we need an ecological rather than instrumental perspective

- Transition to “social media” from “Web 1.0” publishing adds many more layers of complexity

New Players = More Complexity

Old Model: Your hosting company Old Model: Your hosting company New Model: Apple, AMZN, Google, FB, TwitterNew Model: Apple, AMZN, Google, FB, Twitter========================================================================

Old Model: You paid $ and they left you alone Old Model: You paid $ and they left you alone New Model: It seems free but it isn'tNew Model: It seems free but it isn't

The new intermediaries

- Powerful but their civic commitments are often - Powerful but their civic commitments are often neither obvious nor transparent neither obvious nor transparent

- Run by geeks who have some odd ideas about - Run by geeks who have some odd ideas about democracy democracy

-Their incentive structure is profit-oriented rather -Their incentive structure is profit-oriented rather than democracy-orientedthan democracy-oriented

Being “critical” of new intermediaries

* Whatever their role in improving access to * Whatever their role in improving access to information or assisting collective action, we information or assisting collective action, we shouldn't accept these new intermediaries and shouldn't accept these new intermediaries and their mediating role uncriticallytheir mediating role uncritically

* These new intermediaries may end up * These new intermediaries may end up empowering those already in power, producing empowering those already in power, producing less effective politics, lowering the quality of the less effective politics, lowering the quality of the public debate, etcpublic debate, etc

Google as lifestyle intermediary

Google: the car

Amazon as literary intermediary

Personalization of Text?

Facebook as political intermediary

What's to be done

- The point is not to reject these - The point is not to reject these intermediaries intermediaries

- Rather: push for alternative - Rather: push for alternative values/designsvalues/designs

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- Otherwise: easy to see these tools having - Otherwise: easy to see these tools having a negative effect on democratic politicsa negative effect on democratic politics

Thank you!

Evgeny.morozov@gmail.comTwitter: @evgenymorozov