Book Review

Obesity

[Name of the Writer]

[Name of the Institution]

Book Review

The book titled as The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom, the author Evgeny Morozov tries to burst the bubble of hyper-optimism which is there regarding the discussion about the role of the internet in progressing human freedom or other civic causes. The book is started with a discussion of the author's own transition from wild-eyed cyber-utopian to what he referred to as cyber-realist. Once he witnessed the worsening of democracy in his own native country, then he was drawn to a western NGO that wanted to promote democratic powers and also reforms of media in the previous Soviet bloc by using the internet. Although at the beginning of his journey he was quite excited then he lost all his excitement because he noticed that the authoritarian regimens were using the internet for their own good, they were using the internet to spread propaganda and also to surveil the opposition. So in this book he tries to shed light on the reality of internet being used aginst democracy because it is a general perception nowadays that internet provides a platform which can be used by everyone whether in power or a common citizen to raise their voice and to spread awareness among the people but the reality is slightly different and which is portrayed very clear in this book. The book should be read in order to understand how it can be used to spread propaganda even by those who are in government, it should be read to understand wide aspects of internet use.

In 2009 after the protests erupted in Iran journalist Andrew Suvillan declared that “The revolution will be twittered”. Although there are numerous talks and discussions about the democratizing powers of the internet yet the governments in China and Iran are stale and also they are oppressive than ever. The administration in both these countries is using the internet in order to suppress the free speech or voice, improve their own surveillance methods, distribute cutting edge publicity with digital entertainment. In this book the author Morozov shows that by falling for the supposedly democratizing nature of the internet the do-gooders of the Western world have missed the fact that the internet is also used to empower the dictators and also some other negative powers, the protestors are threatened and this is done by using internet, by stealing their online information and then using that information against them so that the people become scared of the government and refrain to go against the authorities. In this book, he says that Slogans like 21st-century statecraft looks nice and sounds great only on powerpoint presentations but in reality, the digital diplomacy needs as much as monitoring and also oversight as any other type of diplomacy. By providing enough proofs and evidence he strongly provides a basis that why we should stop thinking that internet and other social media platforms are quite inherently redeeming and why the concept of internet freedom can have disastrous effects on the coming democratic powers.

On the basis of the summary provided above it is safe to say that the book should be read with great interest because this book is an eye-opener regarding internet and the misconceptions that are affiliated with internet freedom, if a person reads this book in order to understand the role of internet in the democracies of governments the this book can provide a clear image about the role of internet. This book is related to this course because it is not confined to only one country or government but it is relatable to every country and government, therefore, it helps everyone to understand better about the ongoing debate about the internet and its role.