Technology and Social Change
Re-examining 3 Key Assumptions
By Evgeny Morozov
@ World Skoll Forum 2009

Assumptions
Assumptions
1. Data Will Organize Itself
2. Technology Will Democratize Our Public Sphere
3. Civil Society Will Flourish on the Web

Assumption #1:
Data Will Organize Itself

Semantic Health Search: CureHunter

CureHunter.com - II

Hakia: Curated/Verified Health Search

Aggregation is cheap; curation isn't

Growing availability of user-contributed data

Predicting Epidemics with Flu Trends

Tracking Crime with WikiCrimes

Tracking Crises with WikiMapAid

Tracking Conflict with Ushahidi

Can We Trust User-Submitted Data?

Determining “trusted” content

Assumption # 2
Technology will democratize our public sphere

I. Does Internet Breed Polarization?

Shared National Experiences

“Shared National Experience”? No, thanks

Blogs add more value
Ashley Esarey, based on 2006 data/500 blogs

II. Does Deliberation Come at the Cost of
Participation?

Pajamahadeen vs Movement Builders

There's less politics online than we think

Deliberation vs Participation in the US
Blog-readers: as polarized as US senators

(more polarized than TV news audiences/non-
blog readers)
Cross-cutting exposure to blogs with

different ideological positions doesn't lower
participation (especially on the left)
Farrell et al. (2008)

III. Is New Media More Participatory
and Democratic?

Anyone can contribute but not everyone
does...
Wikipedia: 1% of users responsible for half of the

site's edits
Digg: top 100 users responsible for half of the

site's top stories
98% chance your submission won't make the

Digg frontpage today

Gameabiliy and astroturfing; notable
clients

Masses vs Elites

Top political bloggers vs top columnists
elite education: 66% of columnists vs 73 % of

bloggers
doctoral degrees: 20% of columnists vs more

than 50% of bloggers
columnists score better on gender/ethnic balance

Top bloggers far better educated than CEOs of

American companies
Matthew Hindman, Myth of Digital Democracy (2009)

Assumption # 3
Civil Society Will Flourish on the Web

Does technology erode state power?
“The role of the nation state will change
dramatically and there will be no more room for
nationalism than there is for smallpox...many of
the values of a nation-state will give way to
those of both larger and smaller electronic
communities...”
Being Digital (1996), Nicolas Negroponte

1. Nationalists

2. Anti-vaccination
2007 study by U of Toronto: 153 YouTube
videos about vaccination and immunization.
More than half of the videos portrayed
vaccinations negatively or ambiguously.
Of those videos, almost half contained
messages that contradict the 2006 Canadian
Immunization Guide

3. Corporations
Aggressive SEO/Removing Complaints

Online Doesn't Always Mean Louder

Politics of Censorship are Global
Censorship campaigns in UK, Australia, Canada
give extra legitimacy to campaigns in China,
Thailand, Vietnam...

Thailand: Crowdsourcing Censorship

Democratization of “cyber-attacks”


“Digital Refugees”

Exiled media from Burma

Russian LGBT online community+US

Dictators Don't Necessarily Hate the Web

“Spinternet” of China, Russia, Iran

China's 50 Cent Party (wumaodang)
~280,000 members
Regular National/Local Trainings
“Priority” Sites Required to Cooperate

Russia: “New Media Stars” start-up

Iran: Spinning Religious Discourse
“Bureau for the Development of Religious Web
Logs” established at the Religious School of
Qom in 2006
350 teachers and clergy in Qom were trained,
with at least 800 students
Particular concern: blogging women

Thank you!
Email: evgeny.morozov@gmail.com