One possible future for WikiLeaks is to morph into a gigantic media intermediary - perhaps, even something of a clearing house for investigative reporting - where even low-level leaks would be matched with the appropriate journalists to pursue and report on them and, perhaps, even with appropriate NGOs to advocate on their causes.

Evgeny Morozov

Categorized in : House Media Wikileaks

The bigger the network, the harder it is to leave. Many users find it too daunting to start afresh on a new site, so they quietly consent to Facebook's privacy bullying.

Evgeny Morozov

privacy bullying bigger

I worry that as the problem-solving power of our technologies increases, our ability to distinguish between important and trivial or even non-existent problems diminishes.

Evgeny Morozov

technology important worry

The goal of privacy is not to protect some stable self from erosion but to create boundaries where this self can emerge, mutate, and stabilize.

Evgeny Morozov

erosion goal self

I draw a distinction between freedom of the internet and freedom via the internet. In the first case, it's making sure cyberspace is not over regulated and people can say what they want without fear of repercussions. But that's different from this freedom via the internet notion, which is often touted by all sorts of conservatives and neoconservatives who want young people in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world to use Facebook and Twitter and then go oppose their governments.

Evgeny Morozov

different people world

Smart technologies are not just disruptive; they can also preserve the status quo. Revolutionary in theory, they are often reactionary in practice.

Evgeny Morozov

smart technology practice

We need to start seeing privacy as a commons - as some kind of a public good that can get depleted as too many people treat it carelessly or abandon it too eagerly. What is privacy for? This question needs an urgent answer.

Evgeny Morozov

answers people needs

In business, standards establish the rules of the game, creating path dependencies as investments are made and corresponding designs are set in stone and plastic. Inferior standards can prevail due to smart marketing or industry collusion.

Evgeny Morozov

creating smart games

It is true that authoritarian governments increasingly see the internet as a threat in part because they see the US government behind the internet. It would not be accurate to say they are reacting to the threat posed by the internet, they are reacting to the threat poised by United States via the internet. They are not reacting against blogs, or Facebook or Twitter per se, they are reacting against organizations like the National Endowment for Democracy funding bloggers and activists.

Evgeny Morozov

threat internet democracy

[People] somehow assume that the Internet is going to be the catalyst of change that will push young people into the streets, while in fact it may actually be the new opium for the masses which will keep the same people in their rooms downloading pornography.

Evgeny Morozov

motivation inspiration people

Information technology has been one of the leading drivers of globalization, and it may also become one of its major victims.

Evgeny Morozov

information technology may

I have no problem with technological solutions to social problems. The key question for me is, 'Who gets to implement them?' and, 'What kinds of politics of reform do technological solutions smuggle through the back door?'

Evgeny Morozov

reform keys doors

Many of us were a little to early to assume that the most logical uses of the internet in authoritarian states would be to empower people. And to force them towards participation in politics. If you look at most authoritarian states, they are very grim places to live in. The only good thing about it is fast internet. That's the only way you can find some meaning in an otherwise very dark and gloomy life.

Evgeny Morozov

empowering dark people

For many oppositional movements, the Internet, while providing the opportunity to distribute information more quickly and cheaper, may have actually made their struggle more difficult in the long run.

Evgeny Morozov

struggle opportunity running

In short, Google prefers a world where we consistently go to three restaurants to a world where our choices are impossible to predict.

Evgeny Morozov

google three choices

Technology changes all the time; human nature hardly ever.

Evgeny Morozov

human-nature technology humans

With the internet we are facing more or less a very similar story. It does offer virtually limitless access to entertainment and for many people living in extremely depressing conditions in authoritarian states, it does provide a vehicle for getting by. For many oppositional movements, the internet, while providing the opportunity to distribute information more quickly and cheaper, may have actually made their struggle more difficult in the long run.

Evgeny Morozov

depressing struggle running

Information wants to eat brie.

Evgeny Morozov

brie information want

Would you like all of your Facebook friends to sift through your trash? A group of designers from Britain and Germany think that you might. Meet BinCam: a 'smart' trash bin that aims to revolutionize the recycling process.

Evgeny Morozov

groups smart thinking

One would think that by the second decade of the twenty-first century, the intellectual poverty of technocracy and the primacy of politics over it would be a well-established truth in need of no further defense.

Evgeny Morozov

twenties intellectual thinking

As smart technologies become more intrusive, they risk undermining our autonomy by suppressing behaviors that someone somewhere has deemed undesirable.

Evgeny Morozov

smart risk technology