Internet at Liberty

September 20 through 22 Budapest hosted Google's first internet freedom conference: Internet at Liberty 2010. The rationale was strong indeed: internet filtering has spread throughout the globe ; internet security is becoming a threat for NGOs, activists, governments you name it; online privacy is dissolving; Western companies are selling authoritarian governments technologies used track down dissidents, and the list goes on and on. The conference brought together a motley crew, drawing upon academia, government, business, journalists, activists, dissidents, bloggers, hackers, and IT technology specialists.
Given the growing security threats and the job-related risks of the many people in the crowd, the pea-soup fog of paranoia that one had to waddle through was only to be expected: Chatham rules, no photos without consent, areas where one could anonymously ask questions to the speakers (the conference was live streamed). Unfortunately the only feeling that was even more prevalent was that of despondency.
Even before the arrival of the notorious Evgeny Morozov, the party-pooper of kumbaya-singing daydreamers about a logically-minded and data-driven society without borders or conflict, the mood was downbeat. During a major discussion on the effect of the internet on democratization with the participation of the latter, this became even clearer.
Dissidents emphatically pointed out that the internet had provided them with tools for communication and advocacy that were previously inaccessible. One of the Iranian bloggers pointed that his tweeting had forced the Iranian government to acknowledge his father's arrest and brutalization. Others stood to tell their tales of how the internet had given them access to information and contacts to like-minded people. However, Morozov quickly pointed out that while on the micro-level the internet may well be a useful tool, on the macro-level it had so far failed to make a real difference. Moreover, while the internet does serve to widen the audience for the "good guys," it does the same for the baddies. From Kremlin funded bloggers to China's 50-cent party, governments are becoming increasingly apt at using the net. The astroturfing of the internet has grown immensely over the past years. What is even more dangerous is the fact that internet tools help identify the people who are using circumvention technologies or access banned websites and points authoritarian governments out in the direction of their political foes. This indeed was the case of the Iranian blogger's father's arrest -- he had been apprehended using technology sold to the Iranian government by Nokia Siemens. The company is currently being sued by the bloggers family.
Generally speaking, the pessimists had a much stronger case. But it may be too soon to see pass judgement on the effect on the internet. I doubt that many would contest the importance of such sources of unfettered information as Radio Free Europe or samizdat publications in the former communist camp. However, if one were to look at a given moment in time, say in the 1960s or 70s, and ask oneself the question "is this spread of information having any real effect?", I doubt that the responses would be too optimistic. And yet in much of that region, freedom finally prevailed. Here there are two things to consider.
1. Democratization is not a linear process but rather goes through periodic bursts and slow but steady declines. As a result, it may be years before the underlaying transformations reach a critical mass when they actually have a visible impact on the situation in many countries.
2. Revolutions usually take place not in utterly repressed places, but rather in places that see some form of relaxation of political curtailment or where economic stability (be it on an extremely low level) is threatened. Moreover, people that are living in poverty (or threatened by it) don't dream of freedom but of food. The spread of internet penetration is usually followed by the creation of new jobs, outsourcing, and a modification of the people's perceptions. Often it is accompanied by economic growth. Now I may be excessively optimist here, but it is not impossible to see growing wealth and a change in ways of operating "rock the boat" sufficiently to further produce political transformation.
However, there is yet another danger here. While in some societies and cultures such socio-economic transformations will eventually spill over into the political realm, in many others modernization may very well be enough. This is the case in China, it is the plan in Russia, and in many other countries around the world (Belarus [in Russian] is also heading in this direction of late). Thus, those countries may be oblivious to internet-based democratization movements.
This is actually one of the greatest problems of internet-based initiatives. Its easy to get a huge facebook group in favor of something (such as a football team or pro-democracy protest). Its also easy to get thousands or even millions of online signatures. However, getting people to follow through in real life is another question. This leads us to a second (and possibly the biggest of all those mentioned in this post) problem: "Do people really care?" As James Fallows correctly point this out, introducing fairly simple measures to make looking for specific kinds of information annoying is a very successful tactic. Especially when circumventing censorship requires a relatively high amount of technical ability. This leads us to the depressing conclusion: no matter how daring and dedicated activists around the world are, if the general population does not follow suit, Fukuyama's end of history thesis may turn out half true -- great historical transformations may indeed be over, but only because we'll be stuck in the dark ages.